TORONTO — Research In Motion Ltd. will release its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smart phones “not too long” after a launch event on Jan. 30, a senior executive said last week.

Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear said the company is still fine-tuning the new phones.

The new phones are seen as critical to RIM’s survival as the smart-phone pioneer struggles in North America to hold on to customers who are abandoning BlackBerrys for flashier iPhones and Android phones. The new BlackBerry 10 system is designed for the touch screen, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now expect. RIM’s current software is focused on e-mail and messaging and is less user-friendly, agile and robust than the iPhone or Android phones.

Last week, RIM said details on the BlackBerry 10, including specific availability, will be announced at the January event. A touch-screen-only device is expected to be released first, followed shortly after by a version with a physical keyboard. Many people still gravitate to BlackBerrys specifically for their physical keyboards, and RIM hasn’t succeeded in the past with touch-only offerings.

Tear said RIM wants to be the No. 1 mobile computing platform, despite the dominance of Apple and Google’s Android. He said the company, based in Waterloo, Ontario, thinks it can compete with Silicon Valley because it has access to a lot of talented people and two great universities in the area.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Tear said. “But everybody is super-focused and super-commited. We’re going to show the world that we are turning this around.”

Business, Pages 11 on 11/19/2012