Wireless nightmares: BBX fails to catch fire

(Editor's Note: The below is simply a possible outcome--one of many. It is intended as a lighthearted look at a possible executive nightmare. Meaning, this is not real.)

RIM co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis
BBX fails to catch fire

Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM), like Nokia (NYSE:NOK), is betting a lot on a new software platform to revive its smartphone business. Earlier this month RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis announced the company's next smartphone platform, BBX, which will run on the company's QNX software. However, Lazaridis provided few details on the platform, including when it would ship in smartphones and what the company's BBX smartphones would look like.

RIM has been hyping QNX smartphones for nearly a year, with little to show for it in the way of actual devices. There are rumors that RIM's first QNX smartphones will not support RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, a key BlackBerry feature. RIM's decision to delay the next version of its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet operating system, which runs on QNX, until February 2012, does not augur well. Balsillie and Lazaridis have taken their lumps this year for their management (and that outage didn't help), but the hope has been that QNX and BBX can save RIM. If it doesn't, Balsillie and Lazaridis will have a lot of explaining to do.