Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) will hold its annual three-day Blackberry DevCon Conference for software developers starting today.^[1] It is here that the company hopes to make a convincing pitch for the next generation of Blackberrys and Playbooks that will run on its new QNX operating system by persuading developers to build apps that will run on them.

It has been a horrific last few quarters for RIM as it saw rivals like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung eat into its market share while it unsuccessfully tried to enter the tablet market with the Playbook.

Last week it suffered service difficulties that according resulted in, “Intermittent service outages and delays occurred for a period of approximately 3 days in Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA), 1.5 days in Latin America and Canada, and 1 day in the United States.” As a result, shareholders have been calling for a major shake-up in the management or a stake sale to unlock potential value for themselves.

See our complete analysis for RIM stock here

Decreasing Blackberry Market share

Blackberry sales have been declining for quite some time now in the face of intense competition from Apple’s iPhone and Samsung. We discussed this in an earlier note titled RIM Blows it with Investors Again, Lowering Estimates where we discussed how RIM had failed to meet our expectation of 12 million BlackBerry shipments in the last quarter due to a lower than expected demand for older models. With a more capable operating system (OS) in QNX and less complex tools for creating and testing apps, RIM hopes to make it more attractive for developers to develop apps for them.

However, more than just a new OS and better tools, what the company will need is for a strong message to be sent out to the developers that its QNX will become a major software platform with a long-term future, unlike webOS, which was recently abandoned by HP (NYSE:HPQ). Also, more clarity on the possible dates for the unveiling of the new QNX devices and specifics such as features and capabilities will go a long way in assuring the markets of the management’s focus and planning.

Our $26 price estimate for RIM’s stock is just above the current market price.

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