BlackBerry will continue to support OS 10, but future is uncertain

BlackBerry recently announced it has decided to quit smartphone development, so the Canadian company will remain only a software provider for its customers. Even though that doesn't necessarily means that we won't be seeing any new BlackBerry smartphones coming from other companies, the announcement puts an end to an agony that's been lasting for a couple of years now.

The good news for BlackBerry fans is the Canadian company will continue to support those who purchased its smartphones for quite a while. During a recent interview, BlackBerry's senior VP for sales, Alex Thurber said something interesting about the future of BlackBerry 10 OS.



BlackBerry plans to outsource the development of smartphones powered by OS 10, but its engineers will continue to work on the software part. John Chen, the company's CEO, confirmed a while ago that BlackBerry is very careful about choosing its partners.



The BlackBerry DTEK50 uses a TCL reference design, but Alcatel sells its own version of the smartphone powered by Android, which is called Idol 4. It's very possible that other companies might want to license the BlackBerry 10 OS to test the market, but we doubt that a high-profile player in the smartphone market will do that.