as a blackberry user, and a big fan of research in motion, i would not like to see this happen at all.. without repeating existing comments it would be bad for Rim, Vodafone and the mobile smartphone market as a whole.. products need their diversity and as much as apple make iphones that push the boundy and set new standards in touch screen ios phones, Rim set the standard for a professional standard smartphone. many companies have tried to copy the blackberry and failed, (infact in the uk vodafone have self branded a blackberry knock off lookalike phone for its prepay costomer base)
personally i don't like pure touchscreen phones (im not an iphone fan) and if i had to design the ultimate phone that did everything i wanted it to do and more, then the blackberry would be it.. everything just works (email, apps, sms..battery life) who wants a touch screen phone that is dead in a few hours use, and so delicate that it is smashed too easily?
my only small gripe with Rim and the blackberry is the OS, yes i love all the new feature's and updates but with every iteration of OS it get Dumber and Dumber? for e.g. in OS 6 the menu's settings icons layouts are too simplified and too eye candy.. i loved OS 4 with the endless customisation and the profesional feel to the devise, but hey thats me, lol im the sort of guy that uses windows 7 in classic theme with all the fancy effects turned off and everything set to classic (windows 2000 look and feel).. it would be nice to see that in blackberry OS