RIM Already Working With QNX-Powered Prototype

Carlo Chiarello, Vice President of GSM/UMTS business unit over at RIM recently told TechRadar that the company is already working with QNX-powered prototype smartphones, as RIM has already made its intentions public to move BlackBerry smartphones to the QNX platform already operating on the PlayBook.

The QNX "experience is going to start to come in to our high tier products. I can't tell you when; I'm not allowed to", Chiarello said. "I can tell you that it's going to come in to the higher tier value propositions first. It'll probably come into an all-touch first, more than likely… but I can't tell you timings specifically. But it looks marvelous!" 

We can imagine that the direction here is towards an all-touch slate -- pretty much like all those rumors about the button-less, all-screen Ice Cream Sandwich slate for Google -- running QNX, which is optimized for multi-core processing. With no exact time-frame being made public, TechRadar also hints, from different sources, that we might be able to see such a device in approximately 18 months. One and a half year is just too much in the fast lane of technology these days.