As you may recall, the device codenamed the BlackBerry Colt is going to the first smartphone from the Canadian company to be powered by a QNX-based operating system. They’re still working out all sorts of kinks, but sales are slumping on current smartphones. More specifically, the BlackBerry 7 launch has been anything but stellar. The numbers are lower than expected and this could be mostly because all the RIM fans would rather wait it out to get the QNX-based Colt instead.

However, they could be very disappointed when the Colt eventually appears. It turns out that “the integration of BES/BIS email/calendar is proving difficult,” wrote Peter Misek, an analyst from Jefferies & Company. “We think a QNX phone without these would be a disaster,” but this is sounding more and more likely with each passing day. No support of BlackBerry Enterprise Server would be huge, rendering the phone virtually unusuable by many corporate customers. And corporate/enterprise is RIM’s bread and butter.

I’m Canadian, so I’m trying to remain optimistic about Canada’s only real player in the smartphone world, but my optimism is waning and fast.

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An obvious trend that has emerged in the last few years is that people like smartphones with giant touchscreens and they’re getting less interested in having physical keyboards. While e-mail remains at the heart of the BlackBerry business, RIM recognizes that touchscreens are the present and the future. And that’s why the upcoming QNX-powered Colt superphone will be all touchscreen.

At least, that’s what the rumors are leading us to believe. Apparently, the BlackBerry Colt will be RIM’s equivalent to the emerging Android superphones with touchscreens of four inches or bigger. Maybe. At least we’re hearing that the Colt will rock a display that’s “possibly” bigger than 3.7-inches. Unlike the current Storm and Torch, the BlackBerry Colt sounds like it’ll do away with the trackpad too.

Naturally, the QNX operating system — which currently runs the PlayBook tablet — will be the real star here and that’s possibly why many RIM fans are holding off on BB7 devices. Oddly though, the Colt is rumored to have just a single core 1GHz processor. Considering that the BlackBerry superphone won’t launch until Q1 2012, that puts it in a similar release window as NVIDIA Tegra 3 “Kal-El”… which is a quad core mobile processor. Much like the PlayBook, will the Colt be a matter of too little, too late, missed the boat and doesn’t even have a paddle?

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