More bad news for Blackberry

Brian Chen continues to earn his keep for the New York Times. Here he documents what we already knew about Blackberry's one account per one device quandry, which has been beneficial in providing secure information and services but so far falls flat when customers want another device. Say, a Playbook?

Do not expect Blackberry OS 10 devices this year.

Unless RIM execs make the disastrous decision, again, to rush them out before they are ready. The Times:

Given that RIM effectively created the wireless e-mail market with the BlackBerry, there was considerable surprise when the PlayBook appeared last April without e-mail software or software for synching entries from users’ electronic calendars and address books.

RIM has never publicly explained the reason for that omission. But many industry and financial analysts have said the features were absent because the company could not make the device work with its unique global data network. That network connects directly to cellphone companies’ networks. It is a major reason business and government BlackBerry phones have such high e-mail security that it has been a source of contention in nations where law enforcement and security services would like to monitor BlackBerry users’ messages.

For consumers, the RIM network bypasses carriers’ normal text-messaging systems, making BlackBerry Messenger messages less expensive and faster.

But RIM’s network was designed so that only one hand-held device can be used with any particular user’s account, creating problems for people with both a BlackBerry phone and a PlayBook.

From what RIM previewed in Las Vegas last week, it appears that most PlayBooks will rely entirely on Microsoft Exchange Active Sync, the same technology found on phones or tablets that people use on the other common mobile operating systems — Apple’s iOS, Android from Google and Microsoft’s Windows Phone.