Click to View

Unlike with Palm, which posted lackluster financials for its most recent quarter, the iPhone has had little impact on RIM's bottom line.

With help from attractive devices like the BlackBerry Curve and BlackBerry Pearl and over 300 carrier partners, the mob-e-mail leader last quarter added 1.45 million new subscribers to break the 10 million mark. It also more than doubled revenue, to $1.37 billion from $658.5 million, and net profits, to $287.7 million from $140.2 million.

With such stellar financial results, what could RIM possibly do for an encore?

Well, if the Boy Genius Report is correct, release a new, completely different type of BlackBerrry, the 9000, early next year.

The picture above is supposed to be of this new the BlackBerry. It'll look a lot like an iPhone, with a display (likely touch, which would be a first for RIM) that takes up nearly the entire front of the smartphone and no keyboard or keypad.

Sure, RIM would be joining a long list of other companies who've introduced or plan on introducing a touch-based smartphone in the wake of Apple's mega success. However, RIM would have one major advantage over its competitors: Its device would be a BlackBerry and it is the number one wireless e-mail vendor in the world.

Possible additional features include super high-speed HSDPA 3G, a powerful 600MHz processor, and built-in Backup/Restore to facilitate the securing of data in on-board memory.

The BlackBerry 9000 is being developed in what Boy Genius calls (with tongue hopefully planted firmly in cheek) a "hidden-in-a-dark-secret-underground lab." It is also very much an unconfirmed product. So while the thought of an all-powerful all-touch-screen BlackBerry may make your mouth water, as it does ours, you may want to take this rumor with a grain of salt.

At least for now, until some more information pops up, which it almost surely will before the close of the year. We’ll keep you posted.