The BlackBerry Storm may prove to be yet another iPhone killer that did not kill anything else but the company’s shares price.

Although it had a multimillion dollar advertising campaign, Research in Motion’s first touch screen smartphone failed to impress. It was launched just in time for the holyday season and it did sell in quite impressive numbers - about 500,000 in the first month. Not impressive if you ask Apple, which said it vended fifth times more iPhone 3Gs during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2008. The precise numbers and figures will be made public Wednesday.

However, many customers reportedly complained about the Storm’s buggy software and hardware glitches. The majority of users who complained about the BlackBerry Storm said the phone’s software used to type on the touch screen was really sluggish.

Users also complained about the smartphone’s accelerometer which actually is quite slow in changing the view on the screen when it’s turned on. The "sure press" screen was also found quite tricky to use by customers because it often registers the wrong character, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, RIM and Verizon have put timing above quality because they were so eager to launch the BlackBerry Storm before the Black Friday (November 28) – the most important shopping day of the year.

The rush caused the product to hit the shelves although it had several hiccups. But fixes have already been launched and more patches are on the way. RIM's co-CEO Jim Ballsillie said the next patch will change the phone’s vertical keyboard from the SureType format to a conventional QWERTY format.

The bad news about the highly-expected BlackBerry Storm caused the RIM shares to drop $2.75, or 5.2 percent, at $49.89 in afternoon trading.