Blackberry’s to Run Android Apps – Starting With The Playbook

OK the noise is now getting loud but there seems to be confirmation that the Playbook and future Blackberry’s will be able to run Android apps. Now they are not running the Android operating system. They’re going to run the new BB OS that RIM invested in (from QNX) and is premiering in the Playbook. What this means is that they will be able to run Android applications though so you can write the app for Android and load it on a Blackberry. This gives you the ability to have the security of a Blackberry and the apps of Android all at once.

Oh and they are not using the same Java engine as Android because of the ongoing Oracle litigation. This may actually keep RIM relevant.

We’ll have some commentary on this tonight but a lot of enterprise users should be happy. Way to preempt a Nokia/Microsoft alliance.

via Bloomberg news

JeremyB here to add my 2 cents on this news..

This is fantastic news for enterprise users of Blackberries.  Now we will have two ecosystems to play with when this does come out.  My company is waiting for this as they want to roll this out to the end users as they really do not want to be completely iPad.  I am sure this is the case in most larger corporations that have spent the big bucks getting the RIM servers and backend setup for maximum security.  This now really puts the playbook on my radar since my wife has an Android phone and now I can do both work and play on the playbook which will be a huge plus for us.  I for one now cannot wait for this.