RIM delays PlayBook OS 2.0 until February 2012

Research in Motion (RIM) has announced that it will delay the next version of its PlayBook operating system until February next year.

The BlackBerry maker said it will not launch the PlayBook OS 2.0 until it is confident it has fully met the expectations of its developers, enterprise customers and end-users.

The firm also said it has decided to delay its PlayBook BBM application until the next PlayBook OS release and said it is still working on developing a seamless BBM solution that fully delivers push based messaging capabilities.

The company added that it will be providing developers with the gold release of the native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The developer beta allows developers to begin porting their native apps to the PlayBook platform. RIM expects that the beta will generate thousands of new applications for BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0.

RIM will also be starting a series of closed betas of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 with select enterprise customers from its early adopter programme.

“These betas will be rolled out over the course of this year and are an important next step to bringing our unmatched enterprise app deployment, device manageability, security and email integration capabilities to the tablet category,” said David J. Smith, SVP, BlackBerry PlayBook, RIM.

“The betas will be conducted within global enterprise environments and will test the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet solution from end-to-end within corporate IT infrastructures. Feedback and improvements from these betas will benefit the overall BlackBerry PlayBook customer experience.”