Final testing for BlackBerry 10 apps to begin in early December

Research In Motion is set to release the finalised software development kit for BlackBerry 10 in early December, ahead of the platform's release at the end of January.

The 'gold' version of the SDK will allow developers to carry out final testing on their BlackBerry 10 apps before the platform goes live. The SDK will appear on 11 December, RIM said in a blog post on Thursday.

However, even before that gold SDK comes out, another beta version will emerge on 29 November, RIM said. This beta "includes bug fixes, but also an important update for web developers as our BlackBerry WebWorks HTML5 tools will be updated to offer more functionality and to draw closer to parity with our native tools", the post stated.

The timing of the gold SDK means developers will have over a month to test their apps before the App World submission deadline — for those wanting their apps to be available at the launch of BlackBerry 10 — of 21 January. The platform itself goes live on 30 January, when RIM will reveal the first BlackBerry 10 handsets.

BlackBerry 10 is almost certainly RIM's last throw of the dice. The company, which has long been overtaken in the smartphone market by Apple and Android, has had to repeatedly delay the release of BlackBerry 10 amid management turmoil.

NOTE: This article previously stated that RIM was running out of cash. The company subsequently pointed out that its most recent results showed that "cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments increased by approximately $100 million to $2.3 billion at the end of the second quarter".