BlackBerry’s Big Day — Fireworks or Fizzle?

Samsung Electronics announced its latest phone, the Galaxy S4, last week amid a blaze of lights and noise. The BlackBerry is already on sale in 25 countries, so the U.S. launch seems like more of an afterthought than anything else. The good news for BlackBerry is that the Galaxy S4 won’t be available until later next month.

BlackBerry’s Q10 phone (which includes the familiar keyboard) launches next month, but U.S. sales won’t begin until at least May or June.

But BlackBerry’s desire to grab the number three spot in the platform market share wars behind Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) will almost certainly mean that it has to take at least some share from the two leaders. Rolling out the Z10 with essentially no hype is not an auspicious start.

BlackBerry’s shares rose about 4% earlier today, but have dropped to a gain of around 1% in the early afternoon at $16.32 in a 52-week range of $6.22 to $18.32.