RIM launches new name and BlackBerry 10

• Tweet

TORONTO, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Canadian smartphone pioneer Research In Motion said it was changing its name as it launched its new BlackBerry 10 smartphone Wednesday.

RIM, as it was sometimes called, produced the first wildly popular cell phone, called the BlackBerry, which has struggled to get out from under a wave of rivals that followed, most notably Apple with its iconic iPhone and a host of phones that use Google's Android operating system.

The Canadian company Wednesday said it would adopt the name of its most familiar product. The firm said it would operate under the name BlackBerry, "effective immediately."

"This change from Research In Motion to BlackBerry comes at a defining moment in our company's history," Thorsten Heins, the company's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "RIM created the first BlackBerry smartphone and changed the way millions of people around the world stay connected. We have used that same ingenuity and innovation to redefine mobile computing with BlackBerry 10. As we launch BlackBerry 10 around the world, now is the right time to adopt the iconic BlackBerry name."

The name change includes a switch of the company's stock market symbols It will trade as "BB" on the Toronto Stock Exchange and "BBRY" on the NASDAQ index.