RIM chief hints at wider BB OS 6 rollout

RIM's UK MD, Stephen Bates, has told TechRadar that the company plans to roll out the next generation platform to more smartphones than previously thought.

The new BlackBerry OS 6 platform, which currently only resides on the BlackBerry Torch and BlackBerry Bold 9780 in the UK, was supposed to be heading only to certain legacy models, namely the

BlackBerry Bold 9700

.

But Bates, speaking to TechRadar to discuss RIM's recent smartphone success, told us that the company was looking at a larger-scale rollout:

"The BlackBerry Torch has been a great success for us, a lot of people are choosing it, partly thanks to the new BlackBerry OS 6 platform."

Expansion

"We'll be expanding BB OS 6 across more devices, namely we will be enabling our 3G devices [with the new platform]."

Bates' comments seem a little surprising, as under this promise even the BlackBerry Bold 9000, which is nearly two years old and only sports 128MB of RAM, will be getting the update.

UPDATE: It looks our suspicions were confirmed: Bold 9000 users - which we can't imagine number that many any more - will miss out on the update, as RIM has just contacted us to say only the Curve 3G, the Pearl 3G and the aforementioned Bold 9700 are getting the OS 6 juicing.