Next week, RIM will release four beta toolsets for BB10 development, allowing software writers that already have experience in Adobe Air, , and HTML to use those same skills to create applications for the PlayBook tablet and the new BB10-based phones that are due out later this year. That's a big pool of potential developers: but they have to be convinced that BlackBerry 10 apps can be competitive with those for iOS and Google Android, and that there will be compelling mobile devices to run them.

"Some developers see it as a good opportunity; others are taking a wait and see approach," Lessard says.

The fourth beta toolset is a native software development kit for BB10, intended for high performance apps and mobile games. RIM will also hand out some number of a "limited edition prototype device" dubbed BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha so that developers can begin designing BB10 apps on something resembling a BB10 smartphone. (In January, the CrackBerry Website that purports to show one of the new phones.) 

The industry only recently began paying attention to RIM's HTML5 investment, and much of the online commentary sees it as a stop gap, a desperate bid to attract some interest until the full BB10 firmware is released along with the software-development kit for native apps.

On the contrary, insists Adam Stanley, senior application development consultant with RIM's BlackBerry Developer Relations group. "Our attempt is to provide an industry-leading mobile Web platform," he says.