Sources in the Great White North talk of the possibility that the new QNX OS-based PlayBook and maybe even future QNX OS- based Blackberry models could be enabled in such a way that they would be able to run Android apps. RIM is apparently considering this as a possibility in the future. It seems that other sites are confirming this possibility, as well.

The reason that this is possible is that Android apps run using a Java Virtual Machine, and RIM has confirmed that a Java Virtual Machine is going to be part of the QNX OS based PlayBook. The Java Virtual Machine will be there to offer support for legacy BlackBerry applications. If RIM were to use the Dalvik Java Virtual Machine that the Android uses, it would be possible to offer such a feature.

It is hard to know what RIM thinks of being able to offer such support and if it is something that they feel their customers would embrace. Right now, no decision has been made, but the idea of getting Android App support on your QNX OS based PlayBook or BlackBerry would give RIM a very large pool of additional applications for customers to choose from.

We will have to just see how this pans out, but don’t expect a decision anytime soon.