The reality is that RIM is bleeding a lot of customers and making up a smaller and smaller part of the total cellphone picture. While in and of itself not a good sign, it is even more significant for developers, which will be a key part of the puzzle if BB10 is to succeed. For developers who earn a living by selling apps (when did applications become “apps”?) they need to maximize revenue for the effort made. Right now, RIM doesn’t fit that, and even if BB10 is a success in terms of delivered hardware, there will be a non-zero time lapse between the release of BB10 and having a significantly large customer base that apps could be sold to (and by extension, make a living at).That process of increasing the customer base has been set back by the delay, and has also allowed the other platforms (iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) to introduce not only new hardware, but new OS releases as well. When BB10 hardware arrives, all of the above platforms will have new hardware and software (iOS=iPhone5+iOS6, Android=Jelly Bean +hordes of new devices, WP=WP8+hordes of new devices), and will have also have had at least initial bug fixes out. BB10 will be an initial hardware and software release, with potential bugs still in place or at least, yet to be discovered. I honestly believe that this delay is fatal to RIM going forward, no matter how good the BB10 OS and hardware are.

Kostas