VBB has long since been the heir apparent to BBC, and supposedly it has started picking up some steam in the first half of this year. The Nokia announcement about non-support was not coincidental, as we should likely see VBB for Symbian OS out of the gates first (in Europe). The popularity and lifespan of either product would be decided outside of American soil, where there is little to no market for the product, and is why Europe is the big market for both BBC and the upcoming VBB.

In all honesty, RIM made a wise choice where they will be the ultimate decision maker on device support, etc. Hopefully it will be a free application (my understand is that is the direction) that will support a base OS platform (WM 6.x and Sym 9.x) and be distributed through and supported by RIM and not directly through the carriers or device manufacturers. However, with subscription rates for carriers reportedly dropping, RIM may not have the business model to warrant that sort of distribution and support model and not be a financial burden (however, I believe licensing and restrictive device support was the failure of BBC).