Carriers Love BlackBerry 10, Says RIM

Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry 10 operating system and the handsets on which it will run are still months away from shipping, but the company’s leadership is already showing them off to their carrier partners. And it says responses so far have been quite positive.

“The response that we got back from the executive team at some of the Canadian carriers was tremendous,” Andrew McLeod, managing director of RIM’s Canadian operations, told reporters during a Thursday media briefing. “They were visibly positive and visibly enthusiastic.”

Conducted by RIM CEO Thorsten Heins and a handful of other top company executives, the demos were held in Canada and the U.S., both crucial markets for RIM as it mounts its long-in-the-offing smartphone comeback. The company plans to visit carriers in Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the weeks ahead. Once those are finished, RIM says product launch discussions will begin in earnest, as it hammers out infrastructure and marketing plans. But for now, the focus is on building enough buzz around BB10 to keep it top of mind for carriers amid the forthcoming launches of Apple’s next-generation iPhone and the new Windows Phone 8 and Android devices, all headed to market in September.

“We’re in the process of finalizing the software,” McLeod said. “It was at a point where we had a confidence level that we could really demonstrate the validity of the products and software. Obviously, you don’t want to show something that is not going to wow folks. People were excited with what they saw.”