Jim Goldman of CNBC has been able to confirm that RIM is preparing a new hybrid BlackBerry, which will feature both a full QWERTY keyboard and a touchscreen. According to Jim’s sources, the new BlackBerry phone will be a Verizon exclusive in US and should be released in next few months.

CrackBerry had reported few weeks back that RIM is working on a hybrid device that is codenamed “Pluto” and it will features both a keyboard and touchscreen. The device will lose the trackball but will use touch inputs in place of trackball functionality. The phone will be launched in Q3 2009 according to CrackBerry.

With the amount of interest generated by Palm Pre, it is highly possible that RIM would follow the lead like it did last time by introducing BlackBerry Storm that mimicked the iPhone.