Research In Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry smartphones, has confirmed that its next generation of smartphones running the new recently announced BB10 operating system, won't be with us until the end of 2012. 

Blaming availability of the processors that it needs to power the new operating system the new phones that are based on the new QNX powered operating system already seen in the BlackBerry PlayBook, it spells the beginning of a tough 12 months ahead for the Canadian company. 

"We now expect our first BlackBerry 10 smartphone to come to market in the latter part of calendar 2012," confirmed Lazaridis. 

Research In Motion's latest results are a mixed a bag on the whole. On the one hand profits have dropped by 27 per cent and the company is forecasting that it will only sell 11 - 12 million smartphones over its usually strong Christmas period.

On the plus side though, revenue is up 24 per cent from the last quarter, subscribers are up 35 per cent year-on-year to 75 million, and the founding duo, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, have agreed to forgo their salaries, estimated to top $1 million each per year, instead taking just $1.

During the quarter, RIM shipped approximately 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones and approximately 150,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

Lazaridis admitted that the company was working out how RIM can recover from the most "trying" quarter in the company's history. That trying history involved a global outage, as well as, being linked to the London riots. 

That recovery will start with making sure the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 makes its revised February launch says the co-CEO.

Until the new BB10 smartphone become available the company's latest BB7 handsets are the only hope for the company in the next 12 months. 

Is RIM doomed? Let us know in the comments below.