BlackBerry 10 devices in January, says RIM

Research In Motion Ltd plans to introduce its BlackBerry 10 smartphones on January 30, the company said on Monday, giving investors a measure of confidence that the long-awaited new devices are nearing completion.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company, a one-time pioneer in the smartphone industry, is betting its future on the success of the new line of products, which will be powered by its new BlackBerry 10 operating system.

RIM has struggled over the last two years as its existing lineup has lost ground to snazzier and faster smartphones like Apple Inc's iPhone and Samsung Electronics' Galaxy line.

RIM said the launch event would take place simultaneously in multiple countries and that the company would introduce the first two BlackBerry 10 smartphones as well as the BlackBerry 10 platform. The company did not say when the devices will actually be available in stores.

RIM promises that the new devices will be faster, smoother and have a large catalog of applications that are now crucial to the success of any new line of smartphones.

Last week, RIM announced that the new platform and devices had received a much-coveted U.S. government security clearance, potentially allowing U.S. and Canadian government agencies to deploy the new smartphones as soon as they are available. These were the first BlackBerry products to win Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 certifications ahead of their introduction, the company said.

Last month, RIM began carrier tests on the BB10 devices, which the company hopes will help it regain some of the market share it has lost to the iPhone and devices that run on Google Inc's Android operating system.