English: RIM BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Research in Motion LTD. is forming a relationship with 150 carriers in hopes of avoiding the fate that befell Palm Inc. This after RIM's BlackBerry 10 was compared to Palm's doomed WebOS. While Palm originally received great reviews it fizzled soon afterwards. However, unlike Palm's single carrier debut, Research in Motion has wider carrier distribution.

RIM has rebuilt its latest operating system in hopes of competing with Apple's iPhone. They've received positive reviews for this. In fact, it caused their stock to go up 80% since late September. Since then analysts have gone on to suggest that there's too much optimism surrounding the pre-release of the BlackBerry 10.

One analyst, Philip Huang from UBS AG, suggests that all of this is reminiscent of Palm. Another analyst, Tim Long from Bank of Montreal, took his suggestion seriously, cutting his rating of the RIM stock. This has caused the stock to under perform but Long says that this isn't the reason why Research in Motion has undergone market share losses recently.

Currently there are 2 main technological similarities between the BlackBerry 10 and the WebOS. Not only will consumers be able to use their fingertips to flip between apps but the platform is unfamiliar. Nevertheless BlackBerry aims to persuade its fans to adopt these changes instead of using the keyboard that was put out by RIM. One analyst suggest that loyal customers will be looking at the market's other devices, which will give the BlackBerry its initial boost.

Research in Motion plans to unveil the BlackBerry 10 on January 30 and begin selling it in February. Some carriers have actually began taking orders for it already. This is considered to be an important part of having a successful launch. Nevertheless with a mature smartphone market only time will tell how well RIM will do.