Mike Lazaridis, one of the company's co-CEOs, said on a conference call with analysts Thursday that the BlackBerry 10 phones will need a dual processor. He says the chipset will not be available until mid-2012, so the company can now expect the new phones to ship late in the year.
Analysts say RIM's future depends on the new software platform. RIM needs to come up with a compelling BlackBerry as U.S. users have moved on to flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple's iPhone and various competing models that run Google's Android software.