BBX is the platform name that encompasses RIM's upcoming smartphone OS and the PlayBook tablet OS, both of which are built on a software foundation from QNX Systems--a foundation that's completely independent from the current BlackBerry OS foundation.

So what does this mean for the current BlackBerry OS that's running on millions of BlackBerry smartphones throughout the world?

"BlackBerry OS devices will be in market for some time," Saunders says, "but you'll see a natural evolution away from the BlackBerry OS platform" and toward BBX over time. The idea is that future BlackBerry smartphones will all run BBX at some point.

Unfortunately, because current BlackBerry OS devices do not have dual-core chips they won't be able to run the new BBX OS, which is designed to run on devices with dual-core CPUs, Saunders says.

But this definitely doesn't mean that the BlackBerry OS is "dead," according to Saunders. In fact, he predicts that the BlackBerry 7, BlackBerry 6 and BlackBerry 5 software will run on many BlackBerry smartphones in use during the coming years.