Roughly three years ago, Research in Motion was the biggest name in the mobile industry, holding a sweet 50% share in the smartphone market. Apple and Android’s fantastic progresses, but also RIM’s creative slump and inability to keep with the times made BlackBerries a thing of the past, and now all they can dream is to get to the bronze medal before Microsoft.

But is even the top three out of RIM’s reach? Beyond speculations, personal opinions and projections, this remains to be seen after January 30, 2013. That’s when the new BlackBerry 10 OS, along with two brand new spanking phones, will be unveiled.

All that will happen in a special event set to take place “simultaneously in multiple countries around the world”. Details are still scarce about the countries, the OS and especially the smartphones’ features, prices and availability, but a few things are known already.

The BlackBerry Flow, Hub and Keyboard have been unveiled early to raise the hype around BlackBerry 10, and until now they seem to have done their job. The first two will provide a new user experience that will allow “seamless navigation across open applications”, while the third is a very nifty keyboard app that “learns how you write and adapts to how you type so you can write faster and more accurately”.

As for the two upcoming phones, all that we (think we) know right now is that one will come with full touch and a 1280 x 768 pix res display, while the second will be a QWERTY/touch device with a 720 x 720 pix res screen.

Anyone bursting with excitement over what will RIM be unveiling next January? Is this really the company's last chance to get back in the spotlight? Or is it not even that and BlackBerries are already dead and buried? Above all, would it be a good or bad thing for Android if RIM was to never recover?