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RIM Unveils BlackBerry 10, Its Big Turnaround Hope
Nerval's Lobster writes "Research In Motion has whipped the curtain back from BlackBerry 10. The revamped operating system is widely perceived as RIM's best chance at staying relevant in a smartphone market dominated by Google Android and Apple's iOS. Once a significant player in mobility, RIM watched its earnings and market-share crumble over the past few years. BlackBerry 10 abandons the longtime BlackBerry user interface, centered on grids of icons, in favor of one built on the same QNX technology that powers RIM's PlayBook tablet. The BlackBerry 10 home-screen offers 'live tiles' that dynamically refresh with updated information, and RIM is playing up how users can move between apps and alerts by swiping and flicking the screen. Other features include BlackBerry Balance, which divides the 'personal' and 'corporate' sides of the phone, as well as an updated BlackBerry Messenger. More details in the article."
RIM also announced they are rebranding themselves as BlackBerry. If you like pictures, omfglearntoplay sent in an article that delivers. Gimmicks of the launch include hiring Alicia Keys as their "Global Creative Director."
market share is useless if you lose money on it
You forgot to add "... in the long run". Market share without profits can be very useful if the purpose is to drive other companies out of the market over a relatively short time period. Ask Amazon. However if a company is competing solely on price but cannot drive others out of the industry (think airline industry) then competition will drive most/all of the profits out of the industry. Apple doesn't compete primarily on price whereas Windows PC makers primarily do. If Apple were to dump OS X and sell Windows on their computers instead, their profit margins would evaporate faster than you could say "shareholder lawsuit". Same if they dumped iOS for Android.
RIM knows this and that is why they aren't going to Android. If they do there is nothing to make them stand out from Samsung, HTC and the rest and their profit margins are very likely to disappear.
The world doesn't wait for or revolve around the USA. If the UK carriers can launch tomorrow and Canadian carriers can launch in just a few days then there is no one to blame but the US carriers themselves.