Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) were pitting it as their iPhone killer, but the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm has sold only 500,000 units in its first month on sale, according to people familiar with the matter, the WSJ.com reports. Though it’s a “promising start” for the device which has been backed by a $100 million marketing campaign, the sales are nowhere near the pace set by the iPhone, which sold 2.4 million devices in its first full quarter after going on sale in July. The figure also contrasts with what RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie reported at the company’s Q3 earnings last December. He said the device has “been more popular sooner and faster than we expected,” and that they were struggling to meet demand in North America.

SEE ALSO: Reviewers Get Earful After Calling The BlackBerry Storm Buggy; But User Complaints Keep Coming

But were those struggles caused by consumer demand, or poor planning and execution on RIM’s part? The phone has been plagued by reports that it is buggy and clunky, and prone to crashing. Tricia Duryee, my colleague, who got a review copy of the device when it first came out, wrote that the Storm was “drenched in bugs.” The WSJ notes that in their zeal to produce an “iPhone killer,” RIM and Verizon rushed out the Storm, bugs and all, to ensure it launched in time for Black Friday and the lucrative holiday season, doing so, “by the skin of their teeth” with the idea that bugs could be fixed with upgrades once the product was out. In what’s sure to delight smartphone buyers everywhere, Balsillie told the paper that this was the “new reality” as companies were trying to crank out large volumes of complex smartphones in tight time frames.

GigaOm, however, makes the excellent point that rather than churning out yet another iPhone wannabe with requisite touchscreen, RIM should have played to its own strengths—keyboards, multitasking and security—and produced something really revolutionary. Not everyone, after all, wants a touchscreen. Unfortunately, it fell victim to that corporate disease—optimistically called “embrace and extend”—of copying the market leader and throwing in a few tweaks disguised as supposedly stand-out features. Verizon puts out earnings tomorrow. We’ll see what the figures—if offered—really are.