HOT! BlackBerry Virtual OS Running On Windows Mobile HTC Touch Pro ScreenCandy - AKA BlackBerry Application Suite
We just had some great pictures sent in to us showing a Windows Mobile HTC Touch Pro running a virtual BlackBerry OS. This is what RIM is officially calling …
Context & Ripple Effects
This leak lands in the middle of RIM's 2008 identity crisis: the company is chasing touchscreen hardware — as earlier live shots of the BlackBerry Thunder showed — while its software story still leans on enterprise email rather than a modern app platform. The BlackBerry Application Suite screenshots suggest RIM was hedging by letting its OS run virtually on top of Windows Mobile devices like the HTC Touch Pro, a striking admission that rival hardware might carry BlackBerry software. It also foreshadows the platform-bridging strategy RIM would later pursue more openly, from plans to run Android apps on the PlayBook and smartphones to the pre-release BlackBerry 10 builds that eventually replaced this era of incremental fixes.
First-order effects
- RIM's own leaked imagery confirms an official virtualization layer (BlackBerry Application Suite) that puts BlackBerry OS and its apps on Windows Mobile hardware like the HTC Touch Pro — blurring the line between RIM's platform and Microsoft's.
- Windows Mobile OEMs and carriers gain a low-cost way to offer BlackBerry email/messaging without RIM hardware, directly cannibalizing demand for BlackBerry-branded devices at the margin.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft faces pressure to respond: if partners can layer competing OS experiences onto Windows Mobile handsets, Redmond loses control of the device experience it licenses out.
- RIM's carrier partners must decide whether to push virtual BlackBerry on cheap Windows Mobile handsets or protect premium BlackBerry device sales — a channel-conflict problem that shapes how aggressively the suite ships.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward platforms becoming portable layers rather than tied to specific hardware — a direction RIM kept following (Android app compatibility, then BB10) as single-OS device lock-in eroded across the industry.
- If virtualization becomes standard, handset differentiation shifts from 'which OS' to 'which services and apps run on top,' weakening the moat that made BlackBerry dominant in enterprise messaging.
The trend: Mobile platforms are steadily decoupling from their native hardware through virtualization and compatibility layers, forcing OS vendors to compete on services rather than device exclusivity.