(Image source: Slash Gear)

BY JIM FLINK

Is the Blackberry 10 a failure -- followed by a cover-up? That’s the serious charge -- coming from tech-blog Boy Genius Report.

BGR’s Jonathan Geller breaks down -- what he thinks -- is happening at RIM.

“...our source told us that (RIM Co-CEO) Mike Lazaridis was lying when he said the company’s new lineup was delayed for that reason. ‘RIM is simply pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don’t have a working product yet,’ we were told.”

RIM quickly responded to the report -- calling it inaccurate.

VentureBeat has the company’s response, which says it wants to make sure the products run smoothly before launch.

“...we will not launch BlackBerry 10 devices until we know they are ready and we believe this new chip set architecture is required to deliver the world class user experience that our customers will expect. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false.”

Which a VentureBeat blogger says, makes sense, at least on the surface of it.

“... at this point, I’m willing to give RIM the benefit of the doubt. Yes, at this point, the BB10 OS is probably terrible and undercooked. But RIM has already set expectations low and has another year to deliver its savior OS on time within company projections.”

But if true, the allegation could be a virtual death-knell for RIM -- which has been beset with a serious of problems, from outages to delays.

CNET provides the context for the problems.

“When the PlayBook launched, many were puzzled that RIM opted to not include its core services in the device. Instead, consumers would have to tether their BlackBerry to the tablet to enable access to the email, calendar and messenger features. Apparently, RIM still hasn't figured out how to put those services on BlackBerry 10 devices, BGR reported. Likewise, developers using PlayBook 2.0 don't have access to those features.”

Perhaps because of those other problems, BGR is getting some attention for its strong word choice. PC Mag writes...

“It's worth noting ... that mainstream tech publications (even those as ‘bloggish’ as BGR) don't tend to throw out allegations of ‘lying’ every day. As with political news outlets, the word is used sparingly and often written around, even when the evidence is strong that a particular subject is doing so.”

Others like ZDNet say -- true or not -- RIM may want to head back to the drawing board.

“RIM certainly has its work cut out for it, and it cannot afford to cut anymore corners after poor sales in the United States.”