MONTREAL - The BlackBerry is taking on Apple's iPhone with a touchscreen smartphone designed for both consumers and business users that gives the experience of typing on a regular keyboard.
Research In Motion Ltd. (TSX:RIM) is launching the long-awaited BlackBerry Storm, its first touchscreen phone on Wednesday in a gloomy economic climate that co-CEO Jim Balsillie said shouldn't hurt sales.
What Balsillie believes sets the BlackBerry Storm apart from the iPhone and other touchscreen models is its technology, which lets users experience the keys moving and hear a "click" when they're typing on the touchscreen.
"You feel it," Balsillie told The Canadian Press in an interview. "There's a real click to it. It actually moves," he said of each key.
It's like typing on a regular BlackBerry keyboard, he said of the touchscreen phone which had been in development for a couple of years and rumoured to come out for months.
The Storm, a 3G smartphone that can run on a variety of networks worldwide, will be carried by Verizon Wireless in the United States and Vodaphone in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand later this fall.
Balsillie said the new touchscreen BlackBerry will also be available in Canada on Bell (TSX:BCE) and Telus (TSX:T) networks later this fall.
RIM dominates among business users with the BlackBerry and has been moving into the consumer market, which has seen a lot of buzz with the recent introduction of the new and faster iPhone.
To appeal to more consumers, RIM changed the shape of the BlackBerry when it introduced a flip phone in September aimed at the North American market.
Balsillie said RIM had no qualms about changing the BlackBerry's keyboard, which normally takes up about half of the space on the rectangular shaped mobile phone and often has users typing away with their thumbs.
"I don't think we've been religious on form factor. It's still a BlackBerry and that's very important."
He predicted that RIM's touchscreen device will be superior to the iPhone's touchscreen experience, which doesn't have a tactile feel.
"The big issue of touch is you complete your motion by lifting you thumb, which is unnatural, because when you type you complete your motion by clicking down" he said of touchscreen typing. "You get the benefits of tactility with the benefits of touch."
Balsillie said he expects the Storm and other BlackBerry models to do well despite a worldwide weakening economy.
"That's not to say there's zero effect on the global economy, but to date cellphones are right around essential. They're not a discretionary luxury, really."
Analyst Sascha Segan of PC Magazine said the quality of the Storm's touchscreen will determine how the device fares.
"A lot of RIM users want a touchscreen device just because it's sexy," said Segan, the lead analyst for mobile devices at the technology publication.
"But RIM's specialty is keyboards. If RIM can provide an advance in touchscreen keyboard technology, then people will flock to this device."
Balsillie said the touchscreen model should appeal to both consumers and business users because it has secure email delivered directly to the device and has other features such as a media player for movies and music, a camera, built-in GPS and Internet access.
Users can type on the Storm with a single touch or different combinations and gestures. If users turn the touchscreen phone horizontally or "landscape" they can type on the QWERTY keyboard and if it's turned upright or "portrait," users can use the intuitive Suretype keyboard.
