RIM Finally Sees The Light. Unfortunately, It?s An Onrushing Train ? Or Is It?

Strange things are afoot in my hometown of Waterloo, Canada, which doubles as Research In Motion's headquarters. ShopSavvy says that someone there has been running their Android app ? on BlackBerry devices. Separately, Bloomberg has reported that RIM's forthcoming PlayBook tablet will run Android apps. A video from the Mobile World Congress allegedly shows a BlackBerry employee confirming "We'll also support Android apps." Their UK managing director refuses to comment on the subject. And if rumours of the mountain en route to Mohammed aren't enough, there are also reports of Mohammed travelling to the mountain: BGR claims that RIM will soon release their prized BlackBerry Messenger as an Android/iOS app. Thus far it's all just smoke and rumors, no confirmed fire ... which is also how one could describe the PlayBook itself. RIM first announced the device back in September. My very first TechCrunch post in November was in part about how RIM should embrace Android, he said slightly smugly. Since then, Samsung has released the Galaxy Tab, Dell the Streak 7, and Motorola the Xoom; next week, the iPad 2 will emerge ? and yet the PlayBook still has no firm ship date. But at least RIM have been busy on the BlackBerry front, right? I mean, in the last four months, they have announced or released ... er ... exactly zero new handsets. (They have, however, announced three new VaporBooks. I'm sorry, PlayBooks.) Perhaps they were focused on shoring up their inferior app-development tools? Ask this developer, whose caustic and hilarious rant about RIM's extreme developer-unfriendliness went viral in the hacker community last week.

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