The maker of the BlackBerry has been like a washed-out opera singer, standing in front of more empty seats each day. On the other hand, Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. have arranged sold-out concerts.

But maybe Research In Motion is due for a big comeback.

Canadian company RIM on Tuesday unveiled BBM Music, a new cloud-based, music sharing service, which could be a much needed revenue generator. The new cloud-based service from RIM has been rolled out as a closed beta trial in Canada, U.S., and UK. It will be available commercially later this year for a US$4.99 monthly fee in Australia and other countries.

Free Sharing

Building on the social networking capabilities of the BBM, the music service lets users build their own library of tunes that can be shared with friends free of charge. BBM Music users can purchase tunes from a catalog of songs from top labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI.

Each user can build a personal music profile of 50 favorite songs, with the full-tracks - not just previews - of these songs automatically shared to each friend. With each friend that is added to BBM Music, each user grows his/her music collection since the songs from the profile of each friend are available to a user at any time. Each user can refresh his/her profile by swapping out up to 25 songs each month.

"A major component of online music continues to be about community, and the ability to discover new artists and music through word of mouth," stated Rob Wells, President of Global Digital Business for Universal Music Group.

Sad Music

RIM and its co-CEOs are under pressure to deliver as the Canadian company has lost almost half the value of its stock this year.
After years of growth with its quick-messaging devices with the physical QWERTY keyboard, Research in Motion's devices have lost market share to Samsung's Galaxy S and Apple's iPhone.

Shareholder Jaguar Financial Corp. is even lobbying support from stockholders to force RIM to consider selling itself or spinning off its wireless patents.

Motorola Mobility signed a deal to sell itself to Google Inc. for $12.5 billion, a 60 percent premium to the stock price. RIM, which currently has market value of $16 billion, could also sell at a premium given that it has a huge patent portfolio and more market share than Motorola. Google is buying Motorola and its patents in order to arm itself in litigation targeting Google's Android, now the most popular operating system for smartphones.

New Hits

The new cloud service, along with the five new smartphones launched last month, could help RIM woo new customers and appease shareholders.

After a year-long hiatus from releasing new models, RIM last month unveiled 5 new BlackBerry smartphones based on the BlackBerry 7 operating system. RIM has more than 225 carriers and distribution partners worldwide releasing the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 (RIM's thinnest smartphones to date, and a large keyboard and brilliant touch display), the BlackBerry Torch 9810 (combines a large touch display with a convenient slide-out keyboard), and the BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 (all-new, all-touch design for the largest display on a BlackBerry to date).

Looking farther, RIM hopes to regain its popularity by releasing superphones next year. The superphones will be based on the QNX operating system, which is running RIM's PlayBook tablet computer.

Will RIM revive its fortunes with the BBT Music Service, the new smartphones, and the QNX line-up next year? Tell us what you think.