RIM's Ultra High-Risk Waiting Game

WATERLOO, Ontario (TheStreet) -- Troubled handset maker Research in Motion(RIMM) , which just suffered through another disappointing quarter, is trapped in an ultra high-risk waiting game.

Speaking during his first quarterly conference call since taking the RIM reins, new CEO Thorsten Heins touted the delayed QNX-based BlackBerry 10 product as key to the company's turnaround.

"The lack of an LTE product and a high-end consumer offering in this market is hurting our performance," he explained. "The BlackBerry 10 product and platform will address this later this year."

The problem, though, is that the BlackBerry 10 will not appear until the second half of 2012, likely sometime in the fall. In the meantime, RIM continues to take a pounding from Apple(AAPL) , Google's(GOOG) Android phones, and, increasingly, Microsoft(MSFT) Windows phones.

"Until then, things may get ugly," warned Charlie Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Company, in a note released on Friday. "To survive, the company plans to price BlackBerry 7s aggressively, which will translate into lower revenues and gross margins. In short, RIM can effectively write off the next two or three quarters until BlackBerry 10's arrival in the fall."

"Until the fall, I don't see too many drivers for RIM," added Ron Gruia, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, in an email to TheStreet. "RIM is seeing more pressure from the competition: Not just in the high end (Apple) but also in the lower end with compelling LTE devices that cost less (for example, AT&T's(T) $99.99 Lumia 900 or Verizon's(VZ) $79.99 LG Lucid are just two recent examples)."