RIM (RIMM) has long resisted allowing others to build devices based on its BlackBerry operating system, but RIM CEO Thorsten Heins on Thursday reiterated comments made during the company’s first-quarter earnings call, telling the Telegraph that giving other original equipment manufacturers a crack at making BlackBerry 10 devices may be the only way for the company to survive.
“We don’t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year,” Heins said. “We have to differentiate and have a focused platform. To deliver BB10 we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than I can do it. There’s different options we could do that we’re currently investigating.”
The trouble for RIM, of course, is that Heins says that the company would be licensing BlackBerry 10 out, meaning any interested OEMs would have to pay for it. In a market where many device manufacturers are already paying Microsoft (MSFT) licensing fees to make Windows Phone devices, and using Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system for free, getting OEMs to pay for BlackBerry 10 seems easier said than done.