Rechristened 'BlackBerry' Unveils New Phones, Recruits Alicia Keys

In a bid to woo back ex-users and regain marketshare, newly-renamed BlackBerry has unveiled two phones that will run on its new BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system: the touchscreen Z10 and the physical-keyboard sporting Q10. The phones will be available on four carriers in the United States, with the touchscreen phone hitting shelves in March and the Q10 in April. At its launch event in New York, BlackBerry also announced that singer Alicia Keys would also fill its new role of “creative director.”

“I was in a long-term relationship with BlackBerry and I started to notice some new hotter devices at the gym,” she said, while standing on stage with BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Hein. “I was playing the field. Now we’re back together.”

Keys wouldn’t reveal which other devices she started using, but her analogy will ring true for many ex-users who had used a BlackBerry as their first smartphone, before moving on to the iPhone or Android phone. In being usurped in looks and functionality by prettier, lither competitors, this was the bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon: people who’d been given BlackBerrys as corporate phones were lured away by more consumer friendly features from Apple, Google and Samsung.  Now BlackBerry’s global marketshare has fallen from 20% to around 6% in the last three years, (see chart below) and many saw today as a last ditch effort by RIM to recapture old users.

Hence Keys, who was here to bring some “coolness” back to the BlackBerry brand. She closed out a launch where executives showed off a number of software features for the new BlackBerry 10 platform that had already been teased to the press over the last few months.

Among those features: a “Hub” for notifications from email, Facebook and Twitter and a smarter predictive keyboard. One of the new features that were just announced today was video calling capabilities with BlackBerry Messenger.

RIM has touted the popularity of its BlackBerry Messenger service, which allows group chats and lets users avoid text messaging fees, as an example of how its appeal has moved beyond professionals to mainstream consumers. But with new mobile messaging services like GroupMe, WhatsApp and Pinger providing that same functionality, RIM was under pressure to offer other consumer-friendly features too, and video calling certainly gives it an edge on rival services.

As for the hardware – the Z10 and Q10 both sport a dual core 1.5 GHz processor, 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and 1080p video recording capabilities. BlackBerry didn’t have details on the Q10′s battery life, but the touchscreen Z10 has up to 10 hours talk time. The Z10 has the look and feel of an iPhone 5 as far as industrial design, and is relatively lightweight at 135.4 grams.

Having gained as much as 50% in the last two months, shares of RIM have steadily fallen through the day, and as of 1.30pm EST were down almost 9% to $14.28.

Research in Motion has already spent the last few months very openly giving demonstrations of the new software platform, which is borne out of RIM’s purchase of QNX in 2010.

It will now keep a close eye on how consumers and businesses react to BB10 as part of its “strategic review,” since this could determine how successfully RIM might then try licensing the software to other hardware providers. Earlier this month Chief Executive Hein told German newspaper Die Welt that RIM was considering licensing the BB10 software, but it would wait  to see the market’s response before making a decision on the matter.

At Wednesday’s launch event, Heins hinted at this again when he talked about how BlackBerry wanted to be a “leader in connecting you to the Internet of Things.” To do that it would need a greater focus on software and building out Blackberry 10 as an ecosystem that integrates with other devices – and this is helped by the fact that QNX is already in cars.

CMO Frank Boulben refused to talk about licensing BlackBerry 10 on Wednesday, though. “This is part of the ongoing strategic review,” he told me on the sidelines of the launch event. “Right now we are absolutely focused on making the launch a success. Those strategic decisions will be examined in due course. But not now.”