Posting Q4 financials before the bell on Thursday, BlackBerry reported earnings of 22 cents per share on revenue of $2.7 billion. The first number surpassed Wall Street estimates, the second did not. Analysts had expected BlackBerry to post a loss of 29 cents per share on revenue of $2.8 billion, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters.

This is the second quarter in a row that BlackBerry has posted a profit after a string of dismal losses.

BlackBerry said it shipped six million smartphones during the quarter, including about one million BlackBerry 10 devices. So overall shipments were a bit lower than the 6.5 million analysts had been expecting, but the one million BB10 handsets were right on target. Less encouraging was the news that BlackBerry lost three million subscribers over the quarter. It began the quarter with 79 million and ended it with 76 million.

The company sold just 370,000 PlayBook tablets during the quarter. Clearly, amateur hour is not yet over.

BlackBerry ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of $2.9 billion. That was unchanged from the previous quarter. Good news, as the company plans to spend several hundreds of millions of dollars marketing its new BlackBerry 10 devices.

BlackBerry shares are up about 8 percent in pre-market trading.

As part of its earnings announcement, BlackBerry said that company co-founder Mike Lazaridis is retiring as director and vice chair of the board on May 1. “With the launch of BlackBerry 10, I believe I have fulfilled my commitment to the Board,” Lazaridis said. “Thorsten and his team did an excellent job in completing BlackBerry 10. We have a great deal of which to be proud. I believe I am leaving the company in good hands. I remain a huge fan of BlackBerry and, of course, wish the company and its people well.”

Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

1.) ESPN’s Cunning Plan to Stream March Madness: Head to Bill Simmons’s House

2.) Foursquare’s Yelp Problem

3.) BlackBerry CEO Says iPhone Is Passé

4.) Seven Questions for the Man Shaking Up HP’s Operations, John Hinshaw

5.) Samsung Galaxy S4: Bigger Display and Bolder Software — But Is It Better Enough?

6.) Hey, Remember How Awesome the iPhone Is?

7.) Looking East to Predict the Next Billion-Dollar Mobile Company

8.) Jerry Yang Is Back (And Investing More Than Ever)

9.) Global Platform Head Carroll Departs Yahoo for Go Daddy, While Yahoo News Head Leaves for NBC

10.) Mossberg on Apple’s Rivalry With Samsung and Why the iPhone Is Like Switzerland

For more of the week in review, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

“The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old.”

— BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins says Apple’s iPhone is tired and consumers are ready for something new, like the next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system and the Z10, the first smartphone to run it. But if that truly is the case, consumer research firms aren’t seeing it. Not yet, anyway.

According to a February IDC report, consumers are still pretty enthralled with Android and iOS. Currently, they are the two top-ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide. Together, they accounted for 91.1 percent of all smartphone shipments during the fourth quarter of 2012. So if iOS is as dated as Heins claims, the market hasn’t realized it.

And it may not for some time.

A new report from Gartner suggests that BlackBerry’s chances of riding a wave of born-again BlackBerry acolytes to smartphone market supremacy are slim indeed. The research outfit expects the company to claim less than a 5 percent global market share through 2016.

Said Gartner analyst Van Baker, “Market conditions will make it extremely difficult for BlackBerry to rise above iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 platforms.”

That the iPhone UI is five years old clearly isn’t a problem for Apple. But it is a problem for BlackBerry. Because if iOS is half a decade old, then BlackBerry 10 is half a decade late. And one need only look at the downward spiral of BlackBerry’s stock price and smartphone market share to see the havoc that delay has visited on the company.

With the iPhone, Apple upended the mobile computing market in 2007. Only now, in 2013, has BlackBerry finally managed to ship an operating system and handset that can reasonably compete with it. And in the five years it has taken BlackBerry to do that, Apple has lapped it not once, not twice, but six times. And it has sold hundreds of millions of iPhones in the process.

So it’s not enough for Heins to simply say the iPhone is outdated and its UI stale. He needs to deliver a smartphone and mobile OS that prove, definitively, that they are outdated and stale. Has BlackBerry done that with BB 10 and the Z10?

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said that Apple’s iPhone is not the state-of-the-art smartphone it once was. In fact, it’s starting to look a little dusty.

“The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly,” Heins said. “The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old.”

The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly.

Well, as the CEO of BlackBerry, Heins should know, right? (Argh! The irony, it burns!) To be fair, Heins did acknowledge Apple’s mobile device innovations before dismissing the iPhone as outdated. “Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market,” he said. “They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon. There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that.”

RIM

Not yet, anyway.

“You will not see us getting into the $50 or $60 phone segment,” BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said at the Communitech Tech Leadership Conference in Waterloo, Ontario, Thursday. “This is not BlackBerry. That segment will not serve our purpose.”

Which is not to say that BlackBerry doesn’t plan to build a BB10 device for more price-sensitive consumers — just that the Z10 is doing well enough in emerging markets, like India, that the company doesn’t yet feel compelled to roll out a cheaper, entry-level device. Better to sell the marquee device first, foremost and in volume than to spread yourself thin fleshing out the lower end of your portfolio too early.

Remember, BlackBerry 10 isn’t yet a well-established platform. It’s not the culmination of the company’s turnaround strategy, it’s the first move. And it’s perhaps the most important one of all: If successful, it will recast BlackBerry as a true rival to Apple and Google, not the also-ran that it’s in danger of becoming.

So, everything in its right time. BlackBerry’s road map includes less-expensive handsets, and the company will release them when it’s good and ready. Said Heins, “You will see new products being launched this year based on BlackBerry 10 that are more geared towards those lower price bands.”

Heins, who has been in the press a lot lately, talking up BlackBerry’s new make-or-break line of smartphones, told Spanish newspaper Expansion this week that the Z10 has been well-received by more than just the BlackBerry faithful.

“We are receiving a very positive response to BlackBerry 10 from our customers, but it’s also been attractive for customers coming from other platforms,” Heins told Expansion. “We are a little surprised by that.”

Happily surprised, I imagine. BlackBerry’s comeback hinges not just on convincing existing customers to remain on its platform, but also on convincing users of rival operating systems like iOS and Android to switch. The big question, of course, is, can the company convince those users to switch in meaningful numbers, and across a number of markets?

According to BlackBerry there are some indications that it can. Sunil Dutt, managing director for BlackBerry India, says that the number of BlackBerry switchers in the country has been significant. Said Dutt, “In a couple of markets where we launched first, about 45 percent of people who bought BB10 devices were unique customers who were using phones of some other brand.”

Forty-five percent.

That seems high for a new platform from a struggling handset maker, but it does jibe with what BlackBerry told AllThingsD last week. “We are seeing strong interest from consumers currently on other platforms, but can’t comment further on specifics,” BlackBerry spokeswoman Amy McDowell said. “While of course our loyal customer base is upgrading to BlackBerry 10, initial reports from Canada and the U.K. are encouraging, and data suggests a significant percentage of users are coming to us from iOS and Android, too.”

That’s the latest from BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, who tells the Associated Press that the Q10 isn’t likely to ship in the States until eight to 10 weeks after its touchscreen-only sibling, the Z10, arrives at market.

Currently, the Z10 is expected to make its U.S. debut sometime in mid-March. Eight to 10 weeks after that puts us in May or even June, which means the Q10 might not ship in the States until late-spring/early summer. I asked BlackBerry to confirm that release window, but a company spokesperson declined to do so.

“We expect the first global carriers to launch the BlackBerry Q10 in April,” BlackBerry spokeswoman Amy McDowell told AllThingsD. “We will announce new pricing and availability information as carriers roll out around the world. We are working closely with our carrier partners to accelerate their testing process, but cannot offer any specifics on U.S. availability.”

It’s clear, then, that the Q10’s stateside release date is something of a moving target.

Not that there’s much to be done about it. Wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon have extensive testing protocols for new devices that often take months to complete. When a new operating system must be vetted as well, that process becomes even more involved. BlackBerry might have been able to avoid the delay it’s suffering now if it had delivered the Z10 and Q10 to U.S. carriers earlier than it did. But it didn’t, and now there’s little to be done to expedite the testing process. An unfortunate situation for BlackBerry, given the string of delays that put BlackBerry 10’s delivery more than a year behind schedule.

“Am I a bit disappointed [by the delay],” said Heins. “Yeah, I would be lying saying no. But it is what it is, and we’re working with all our carrier partners to speed it up as much as we can.”

Certainly Wall Street wasn’t impressed. BlackBerry’s shares, which had more than doubled over the past three months after a precipitous decline, tanked following the event. Shares closed down 12 percent at $13.78. Profit-taking? Surely there was some of that. But investor anxiety over the daunting task ahead of the company was obviously at work here as well. As BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins himself said, “Today is not the finish line. It’s the starting line.”

And the race ahead is one in which BlackBerry has already been lapped by Google and Apple, the two smartphone upstarts that unseated it. Which is not to say it’s a race in which the company is ill-equipped to compete. BlackBerry’s new Z10 handset appears to be garnering generally positive reviews. BlackBerry 10 seems to have finally closed the gap with more mobile operating systems. And while BlackBerry currently holds just 4.6 percent of the smartphone market — a tenth of what it once claimed — it has a user base of about 79 million people with a predisposition for its handsets. And there is almost certainly pent-up demand for its new hardware among diehard BlackBerry users.

But is there untapped demand beyond that?

Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it? With its new BlackBerry 10 OS and handsets, does BlackBerry have what it needs to convert iPhone and Android users who no longer consider its offerings an option? Because once the BlackBerry faithful upgrade their devices, there’s a real risk that sales could slow. BB10’s task is really threefold: It needs to satisfy hardcore BlackBerry users, stem defections to rival platforms and encourage defections to its own platform, and convince developers to build apps for it. That’s not going to be easy when it’s not at all clear that the world wants or needs another mobile operating system.

“BlackBerry 10 is competent,” Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair told AllThingsD. “But it’s three years too late to catch anyone’s attention.”

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu took a similar view, noting some recent carnage in the smartphone market. “So far, customers and developers have been lukewarm to adopt new platforms, including Windows 8 and webOS, despite strong reviews and carrier interest,” Wu said. “To us, it’s not just the number of apps, but the quality of apps and whether developers are making money and customers are using them.”

Precisely.

Debuting BB10 with 70,000 apps is impressive, and BlackBerry deserves a lot of credit for pulling that off. But a critical mass of apps is hardly a self-sustaining app ecosystem. A healthy app ecosystem is a transactional one. That’s why you often hear Apple boast about the billions of dollars it has paid out to developers. Sure, the iTunes App Store is approaching 800,000 apps. But that’s an empty number. The important thing is that people are buying so many of them that, as of last October, Apple had paid developers $6.5 billion.

BlackBerry is a long way from reaching either of those heady numbers. But 70,000 apps is a start. And BB10 and the Z10 handset would seem to have at least given the company table stakes in the smartphone high-rollers room. Now, can BlackBerry parlay those stakes into a true comeback? (And if not, can it parlay them into an acquisition? BB10 potentially makes it a more attractive target.)

Who knows? Perhaps the consumer smartphone market is ready for something new.

We’ll see.

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However, when it comes to future tablets, Heins said the company is trying to figure out a way to combine software and services, since selling tablet hardware alone is a tough way to make money at the moment.

“We are looking for specific value-added services on top of the tablet,” Heins said.

His comments came in a question-and-answer session following the announcement of the first two BlackBerry 10 phones in New York.

He also addressed a few other questions, including the expected April arrival of the second BlackBerry 10 phone, the physical-keyboard-packing Q10.

As for battery life, the Z10 should get users through the day, Heins said, adding that the battery is removable for power users who want to carry a second.

Asked how he would measure success, Heins said that the company had specific sales targets, but he didn’t share those. Instead, he handed it off to marketing chief Frank Boulben, who said the goal is for early users to be very happy, and that, beyond that, the company hopes to quickly become the No. 3 player in smartphones.

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• BlackBerry CEO: PlayBook Update Coming, Vague on Future Tablet Plans
• Most — But Maybe Not All — U.S. Carriers Will Have BlackBerry 10 Device by March
• BlackBerry 10 Boasts Some Key Apps, but Many Big Names Missing
• BlackBerry to Launch in U.S. in Mid-March
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• RIM Aims for Reinvention With BlackBerry 10 Launch
• Walt Mossberg: BlackBerry Reinvents Itself to Compete With All-Touch Smartphones

In an interview ahead of a BlackBerry 10 launch event in New York, RIM Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said the first of two phones — a touch-screen-only device called the Z10 — will be available in the U.K. and Canada later this week.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

“We have reinvented the company, and we want to show that in our brand,” CEO Thorsten Heins said. “One brand. One promise. Our customers use BlackBerry, our employees work for BlackBerry, and our shareholders are owners of BlackBerry. From today on, we are BlackBerry everywhere in the world.”

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• BlackBerry CEO: PlayBook Update Coming, Vague on Future Tablet Plans
• Most — But Maybe Not All — U.S. Carriers Will Have BlackBerry 10 Device by March
• BlackBerry 10 Boasts Some Key Apps, but Many Big Names Missing
• BlackBerry to Launch in U.S. in Mid-March
• RIM Changes Name to BlackBerry
• RIM Aims for Reinvention With BlackBerry 10 Launch
• Walt Mossberg: BlackBerry Reinvents Itself to Compete With All-Touch Smartphones

After months of delays, the company really needs a strong reception for the new phones and operating system, due to be shown off later on Wednesday at an event in New York.

RIM is pulling out all the stops, starting with the event here, and continuing with a marketing blitz that includes the company’s first-ever Super Bowl ad.

There are a bunch of things to watch for beyond the device and software itself. First off will be which apps and services RIM has managed to get to support the products at launch. They’ve already announced some support, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, the NHL and Major League Baseball.

But these days the list of apps and services that consumers expect to use on their phone has grown long and wide. Also key will be how much love the company is getting from the cellular carriers. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have all said they will carry new BlackBerry devices, but just when and how much marketing they will get is another question.

AllThingsD will have live coverage and analysis as things get going around 7 am PT.

9:31 am: It’s still half hour to go, but we are in and seated.

For those wondering just where things are taking place, the event is at a pier on the lower eastern tip of Manhattan.

9:37 am: While we have a second, I’d like to introduce the band. We have Lauren Goode on camera and color commentary. I’m Ina, and I’ll be on the keyboard.

9:45 am: While we are waiting, it’s a good time to check out this classic video from RIM’s BlackBerry Jam developer event last year. Yes, those are actually RIM employees covering REO Speedwagon. And no, very little rhymes with SDK.

9:46 am: Lauren here. A quick survey of the press area shows a lot of … iPhones being used. But I did spot at least one BlackBerry PlayBook in the wild.

10:00 am: Things should kick off momentarily, eh.

10:03 am: Looks like they will have Angry Birds for BB10.

10:05 am: A RIM guy is “reporting live” from the middle of the press section, showing video and pictures from some of the simultaneous launch events around the globe, including Toronto, Paris, London and Dubai.

10:07 am: Roll video of people excited about BlackBerry 10. Some carriers, customers, etc.

10:10 am: Now the RIM emcee is interviewing RIM developer relations executive Alec Saunders.

10:12 am: Next canned video is of BlackBerry fans sticking “Honk if you like BlackBerry 10” stickers on cars.

10:14 am: Best part so far. The guy from BlackBerry fan site CrackBerry has been growing his hair, waiting for BlackBerry 10 (it’s quite long). They just cut off his ponytail to cheers.

“The wait is over,” says the emcee, as CEO Thorsten Heins takes the stage.

10:16 am: “We have definitely been on a journey of transformation,” Heins says. “Now, finally, here we are.”

10:18 am: “Today is actually not the finish line,” Heins says. “It is the starting line.”

10:19 am: He’s talking about the BlackBerry 10 customer, using the same kinds of terms he has used in the past, talking about fast-moving, hyperconnected people.

10:22 am: Heins says the company had a big decision to make two years ago, in choosing whether to license someone else’s operating system or continue building its own software.

“We made the tough call to go it alone,” Heins says.

10:24 am: Heins gives a shout out to former CEO Mike Lazaridis, who is in the audience.

“Thank you for guiding us into the future,” Heins says.

Heins says the company is dropping the RIM brand and going with the name BlackBerry for the company and its products.

“From today on, we are BlackBerry everywhere in the world,” Heins says.

10:27 am: And there they are, the first two devices. The touchscreen BlackBerry Z10 (or “Zed 10,” as Heins calls it), and the keyboard-equipped Q10.

The Z10 has a 4.2-inch display with roughly 350 pixels per inch.

“There’s a lot of physical-keyboard lovers out there,” Heins says. “We heard you loud and clear.”

Heins promises that both touchscreen and physical-keyboard BB10 devices will offer the best typing experience on a smartphone.

10:32 am: Head of software Vivek Bhardwaj comes out to demo the new devices, showing off the BlackBerry Hub — the central place that is a swipe away, and offers access to email and other messaging.

“It’s about moving between applications,” he says. “It’s not about home buttons.”

Another feature, also previously demoed, lets users peek into the Hub while doing other things, such as watching a video.

The Hub can handle BBM messages, Facebook friend requests, LinkedIn invitations and email, among other communications.

“You’ll notice everything is easy to manage,” Bhardwaj says.

One can not only read messages from within the Hub, but act on them. Within the Hub, one can accept a friend request, post a Tweet or do other actions, without opening a separate app.

10:37 am: Also available is your next meeting, both the time and information, as well as details on the people who are attending. The contact details include the most recent text messages and call data, as well as contact information and their recent status updates.

Demo of the software keyboard, which does some really good autocorrect. (Are you listening, Apple?)

One can even move between different languages in one message. Que bueno!

10:42 am: In addition to changing its name from RIM to BlackBerry, the company is switching its Nasdaq ticker symbol to BBRY.

10:43 am: Next demo is BlackBerry Balance, the feature that lets one have separate areas for work and personal stuff. They are making the case that this won’t interrupt the flow, and will provide a unified interface — a tricky feat for such container-based systems.

Heins says he hoped that some of those people carrying two devices will merge and carry one BlackBerry 10 phone.

10:45 am: Most (all?) of the software features shown so far have been part of previous BlackBerry 10 discussions.

Ruh-roh! The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the first BB10 devices won’t hit the U.S. market until mid-March.

10:47 am: Meanwhile, RIM is showing BBM video, which allows both video chat and screen sharing from within the BlackBerry social messaging app.

10:49 am: Another new feature — BlackBerry Remember, which lets you flag emails, Web pages or other content, and assign a due date. Notes, photos or voice memos can be appended to a reminder.

10:51 am: Verizon Wireless says it will carry both new BlackBerry 10 devices, with the Z10 selling for $199. Of note: No availability date was listed.

10:53 am: Back onstage, RIM — I mean, BlackBerry — is demoing the camera app, which has some built-in editing features.

10:55 am: And, here’s Walt Mossberg’s review of the new products.

10:57 am: Demo of features seems to be wrapping up as Heins says, “This is the new BlackBerry.”

10:58 am: Critical piece, as BlackBerry starts to talk about partners.

Heins mentions that major studios will have content, as announced earlier this week. BlackBerry VP Martyn Mallick comes onstage to talk about how the company went after key applications.

Mallick says BlackBerry is launching BB10 with more apps (more than 70,000) than any first-generation smartphone.

But, of course, its key rivals aren’t in their first generation.

11:01 am: Mallick is talking about apps “committed” to BB10.

SAP, Skype, WhatsApp, Angry Birds, all on that list.

But, by using the word committed, it suggests not all will be there at launch.

11:01 am: Gaming titles include Where’s My Perry? and titles from EA and GameLoft. Entertainment options include Rdio and TuneIn (but no mention of Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, etc.)

Mallick says the company went after the global and local titles that were most popular on other platforms.

11:07 am: I know what you’re thinking: When can I get it?

In the U.S. market, big four carriers will announce preregistration today but expectation is that it won’t ship on “most” carriers till March. Sounds like one or two could be later than that.

In Canada, the Z10 will be available on Feb. 5, with pricing around $149 on a three-year contract.

11:10 am: Heins says RIM has hired singer Alicia Keys as global creative director.

And Keys appears onstage.

Heins: You were a long-term BlackBerry customer, but then you started using other phones. What happened?

Keys: I was in a long-term relationship with BlackBerry, and I started to notice some new, hotter devices at the gym. I started playing the field.

“I kind of broke up with you,” Keys says. But I missed the way you organized me. Then you called. You told me you were working out. “Now we are exclusively dating again, and I am very happy.”

Heins: “So are we.”

The end of the laptop in favor of mobile computing parallels the changes in music, Keys says. “We have a lot in common.”

Duet?

Keys says that in her role as creative director, she will work with carriers, customers, app designers, as well as folks in the entertainment and music business.

“It’s a big job,” Keys says.

Keys says she is taking her BlackBerry 10 with her on tour. “It will be with me on Sunday at the Super Bowl.”

11:21 am: The satellite feed is now cut, and Heins is speaking only to the U.S. audience.

Heins says he wants the crowd here to be among RIM’s first users. “So what that means is everyone here will take a Blackberry Zed 10 home with them today,” Heins says.

11:22 am: With that, Heins exits the stage, though he will have a Q&A with reporters shortly. (We’ll be there, of course.)

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• BlackBerry CEO: PlayBook Update Coming, Vague on Future Tablet Plans
• Most — But Maybe Not All — U.S. Carriers Will Have BlackBerry 10 Device by March
• BlackBerry 10 Boasts Some Key Apps, but Many Big Names Missing
• BlackBerry to Launch in U.S. in Mid-March
• RIM Changes Name to BlackBerry
• RIM Aims for Reinvention With BlackBerry 10 Launch
• Walt Mossberg: BlackBerry Reinvents Itself to Compete With All-Touch Smartphones

According to CEO Thorsten Heins, RIM is not married to the idea of OS exclusivity, nor is a deal to license BlackBerry 10 beyond the realm of possibility. In other words, nothing is off the table, and the company is keeping its options open. “The main thing for now is to successfully introduce BlackBerry 10,” Heins told Die Welt. “Then we’ll see.”

This isn’t anything new. It’s a variation on what Heins has been saying for months now with varying degrees of specificity. Last June, he even volunteered a theoretical scenario. “You could think about us building a reference system, and then basically licensing that reference design, have others build the hardware around it — either it’s a BlackBerry or it’s something else being built on the BlackBerry platform,” Heins said.

Then, in an August interview with the Telegraph, Heins appeared to be sketching out just what a BB10 licensing model might look like. “We don’t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year,” he said. “To deliver BB10, we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than [we] can do it.”

A few weeks later, Heins made an even more definitive statement. “QNX is already licensed across the automotive sector,” he said, referring to platform on which BB10 was developed. “We could do that with BB10 if we chose to. The platform can be licensed.”

Now, none of these remarks are confirmation that RIM will license BB10. But they’re a pretty clear indication that it would do so if the right financial and strategic incentives were there — and if there were a willing licensee, of course.

But to find a willing licensee, BlackBerry 10 must first prove itself in the market. And ensuring it does so successfully is RIM’s priority at the moment.

“Thorsten Heins has made it very clear that we are focused on the delivery of BlackBerry 10, which we will launch with events around the world on January 30th,” RIM spokeswoman Amy Jones told AllThingsD. “As he said on our most recent results conference call on December 20th, we continue to examine all available options to ‘create new opportunities, focusing on areas where we will be more effective partnering rather than going it alone, and ultimately maximizing value for all stakeholders.’ We do not have anything new to report on our Strategic Review at this time.”

Apps aren’t numbers game — though Apple and Google often portray them that way. It’s clear there’s a lot of chaff in the mobile app ecosystem wheat, and RIM feels BB10 can go head-to-head with Android and iOS as long as it has quality apps that satisfy key consumer needs.

“The tactic we are deploying is by country and by region,” Heins told Reuters. “We are aiming to have the most important 200 to 400 apps available.”

Not a bad strategy, given the company’s current position. And realistically, what else can it do? There’s no way it can match the number of apps Apple and Google are able to offer their users. But if it can offer enough quality apps to fulfill key smartphone use cases, the size of the BlackBerry 10 app ecosystem may not matter.

“In my view it is really short-sighted to say, you have 600,000, you have 400,000 and you only have 100,000 apps, so you are not good,” he said. “Look at how many actually get downloaded. … We don’t have 1,500 Solitaire apps. That is not what BlackBerry is about.”

“I got a lot of advice to just go Android,” Heins said in an interview on Thursday. But, Heins said, there wasn’t much of an opportunity to stand out. Samsung, which makes a lot of its own components, had made a good business for itself, but everyone else was having a tough time standing out from one another.

Plus, he said, “It’s not going to be respectuful to our BlackBerry users.”

Instead, Heins has doubled down on the company’s bet to do its own operating system, BlackBerry 10. Heins said the move was not just about reviving its smartphone business, but creating a platform for the next decade of mobile computing.

“I’m really satisfied today we have made that decision,” he said.

That said, Heins acknowledged the company got a late start in making the shift. In part, he said that the company was too slow to realize that customers were favoring big screens and apps over its historical strengths in email, security, typing and battery life.

“In hindsight, what I would say is we probably didn’t detect that movement quickly enough,” he said. “I think we are in touch with reality now.”

RIM has an all-important launch coming up Jan. 30 for the first devices running the new operating system. But, Heins said there has been lots more work going on at the company.

Even as the company finalized BlackBerry 10, Heins said he has been working to reshape the Waterloo, Ontario-based company. He noted that the company managed to reshape its executive team, cut 5,000 jobs while still adding subscribers and working on the new operating system.

“We’re still in the middle of it,” Heins said. “I don’t want to pretend to you like we are done.”