Leaked 2009 Blackberry Roadmap Hints at Touchscreen Bold, Storm Slider
A supposed 2009 Blackberry Roadmap posted on TmoNews Forums suggests that we'll not only be seeing the Curve 8900 next year, but also a touchscreen Bold and a Storm with a slide-out keyboard.
Context & Ripple Effects
This leak lands mid-arc in RIM's touchscreen transition. Earlier that year, patents for an angled slider and RIM multi-touch technology showed the company laying legal groundwork for exactly this kind of hardware. The roadmap's promise of a keyboard-equipped Storm would eventually surface in the wild as live images of a BlackBerry Slider, suggesting the leak had real product behind it.
First-order effects
- If accurate, RIM's 2009 lineup extends the Curve line with the 8900 while pushing its two flagship franchises — Bold and Storm — into new form factors: a touchscreen Bold and a slider variant of the Storm.
- Carrier and retail partners get an early look at the slate they'll be stocking and merchandising, with TmoNews Forums becoming an unofficial channel for RIM's planning.
Second-order effects
- A touchscreen Bold would put RIM's enterprise-favorite brand head-to-head with Apple's touch-only iPhone, while the Storm slider hedges toward users who won't give up physical keyboards — forcing competitors to cover both input styles.
- Leaked roadmaps compress RIM's own marketing runway: unannounced products get consumer mindshare before launch pricing and positioning can be controlled.
Third-order effects
- The pattern here — roadmap leaks years ahead of shipping products, with designs like the slider taking until well after the original date to materialize — foreshadows the execution lag that defined RIM's decade: ambitious multi-form-factor plans announced early and delivered late as the market moved to all-touch slabs.
- Forums and enthusiast blogs institutionalize themselves as the primary leak channel for handset roadmaps, shifting pre-launch narrative power from carriers and manufacturers to the leak ecosystem itself.
The trend: This is an early data point in RIM/BlackBerry's long, reactive pivot from keyboard-first hardware to touch-centric smartphones — a transition whose delays and hedged hybrids kept showing up in leaked roadmaps for years afterward.