According to the survey ChangeWave conducted earlier this month to measure future purchasing plans, 39% of the consumers who said they would buy a smart phone in the next 90 days pegged a BlackBerry as their chosen handset. That number was up from 30% in September, which in turn was an increase over June's 23%.

Apple's iPhone, meanwhile, captured just 30% of the planned smart phone purchases in the most recent survey, down from 34% in September and off dramatically from the , more than a month before Apple actually launched the iPhone 3G but after it had disclosed many of its details.

The downturn in stated plans to buy an iPhone is understandable, said Carton, who characterized it as a "settling down" of consumer interest in Apple's device. "Yes, the industry is driven by new product releases, but the place that Apple is in now, that's a wonderful place to be," he said. "They'll have a great quarter [in iPhone sales], even in the midst of an unbelievably bad economy."

Even so, said Carton, "The ball has shifted back into BlackBerry's court. The demand [for BlackBerry] is there, that's part one," he added, referring again to the 39% share that RIM captured in the future buying plans survey. "The other side of the coin is that RIM has several different new models, not just the Storm. And their overall satisfaction rating is over 50%. RIM and Apple are the only ones at that level."

RIM not only recently , but has also and in the last three months.