New touch-screen BlackBerrys being launched

The new phones had been expected earlier this year, but were delayed. Though the company is profitable and seeing growing sales, it is increasingly seen as a has-been that missed the chance to parlay the BlackBerry’s popularity as a corporate email device into mass-market dominance.

RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, is updating its high-end Bold models to include touch screens. It‘s also launching two Torch models with big screens but no physical keyboards, mimicking the basic design of the iPhone.

RIM launched a keyboard-less touch-screen phone called the Storm in 2008, more than a year after the first iPhone, but the Storm’s quirky design and poor software made it a flop.

"The `all-touchscreen‘ Torch has been a while coming as a natural successor to the disappointing Storm, particularly when the smartphone market has gone touchscreen mad over the past 18 months,” said Malik Saadi, an analyst at Informa.

The phones run a new version of the BlackBerry operating system, which RIM says is much faster, particularly for Web browsing.

AT&T Inc. said it would launch a Torch model with a physical keyboard this month, and the all-touch Torch and a Bold model later this year. It didn’t announce prices.

RIM‘s stock rose 82 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $24.97 in morning trading Wednesday, bouncing off a five-year low of $24.10 hit Tuesday.

The Bold models will be the first BlackBerrys to include so-called Near-Field Communications chips, so they can be used in place of credit cards by swiping them across properly equipped payment terminals. Many companies, including cellphone carriers like AT&T and Web companies like Google Inc. are promoting the idea of using phones as digital “wallets.”