... PlayBook's price point may sink, if it too becomes a collector's item
What is it worth, a pad that requires tethering to a RIM?
.unfortunately RIM looks like another Nortel.
Research in Motion is fighting back against rumors that it's abandoning its PlayBook tablet effort, just as word arrives that two more execs have jumped ship from the Canadian Titanic-emulator. "Rumors suggesting that the BlackBerry PlayBook is being discontinued are pure fiction," a RIM spokeswoman emailed Reuters. "RIM …
The problem with RIM and the Playbook is that they never explained why they were making it, idiots. They laughed at the iPad and then said "we will make one as well", idiot's. That just told every one "while we are laughing, we think it's so good we will do a copy so go buy the original", idiots. They should have just made an App for it and if Apple said anything then say "fuck you Apple, we will sell it to our customers and they can install it themselves", idiots. So now, over half a billion in the hole, they just look like idiots. The fact that Amazon can get an almost same device built by the same ODM with a working e-mail just makes them seem like, well total idiots.
Because really, thinks of fun and games when they hear "BlackBerry"?
All I can think of is "boring as fuck, corporate issued device".
Then again, the PlayBook couldn't even manage that, with no BES integration. It filled no niche, and was priced too highly. No real shock, here.
"RIM remains highly committed to the tablet market and the future of QNX in its platform"
QNX on phones - maybe (I've no idea). Playbook at the prices they want - no chance. Why should anyone pay a premium for a "business grade" device - what, specifically, is the advantage ?
All these execs leaving - when will they go down to just one CEO ? Someone at the top should fall on their sword - one of the CEOs needs to take responsibility.
Of course RIM are committed to the playbook... Most of the other tablet manufacturers have a day job which actually earns them money: HP can dump their tablet platform because it's pretty irrelevant to them. Samsung and Motorola could similarly walk away without regret.
RIM need a tablet because it's too close to their core business NOT to have a tablet. It should have been easy for them to make a "serious" tablet that hooked into their well established eco-system (don't forget RIM is still massively profitable despite the the bad press). So far they've failed because they tried to make an iPad, not a Blackberry.
If they don't get a tablet which works great with their phones, then people will buy iPads, and then switch to iPhones because they don't like being split across platforms, and there'll be no more RIM. Apple are just waking up to the idea (with iCloud) that your phone and tablet should work TOGETHER. RIM should know this already.
If they get it right, there's a huge market for a Blackberry Tablet (though perhaps not a playbook). If they get it wrong then they have to keep at it until they run out of money.
No wonder some are leaving, the way RIM are going. Its abundantly clear after reading that Insiders article, (which I've just seen) where the problems are in RIM and that, after also reading about RIM loosing more than 2,000 jobs just a few months ago, it sadly sounds like RIM are another corporate headless chicken like HP and Nokia. The people who are running the company are not listening to their lowly employees.
i.e. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/30/rim_staffer_letter/
Its the same pattern time and time again. Companies like this have talented staff, but their arrogant closed minded management block the staff doing what the staff know needs to be done to create a great product.
But in these difficult economic times, that failure to listen to staff (when their competitors are listening to their staff) places their company at a clear competitive disadvantage. So its no wonder their share price is now about just 1/3 of what it was 6 months ago.
I was just saying a month ago, 2011 has already been the year HP and Nokia both shot themselves in the foot. So sadly even with just HP and Nokia, it was already shaping up to be a landmark year for incompetent corporate mismanagement in the tech industry. (So the year we lost WebOS & Symbian). But now, after reading all this about RIM as well, I hope they don't make it a hat-trick, but the way their incompetent management are going, if they don't listen to their staff and soon, and up their game, then sadly it looks like they will be next. :(
The problem with all tablets is they are being pushed as a Note book replacement but the all have problems. The Ipad for example is pointless using it on the web as it dose not support alot of webs sites and its locked down to Itunes.
Its the same for the Playbook apart from it has flash but to access the internet on the go you need a blackburry which to me is a massive mistake.
As for Android although imo they are the best tablets on the market at the moment again you cant brows all web sites even though it has flash support but editing documents ect is still limited and switching between pc and tablet is not good.
For me I think tablets will take off when MS release Windows 8 as it has been designed to work on PC, Laptop, Netbook and tablets plus it is not limited to what you can do as the OS on the tablet will be the same as your pc or laptop. It has also been designed around cloud so you can store all your documents on the cloud and access them all on all windows 8 devices the same as printers and network drives.
I have a Xoom at the moment and imo its the best tablet on the market but I still have to turn my laptop on to do things I want to do because its not doable on my xoom and this is the same for all tablets on the market now. But im hoping with windows 8 it will change this for me and I wont need a laptop at home as my tablet will do everything I need my to do.
I do think tablets have their place. When I bought my xoom, I only had a couple of "use cases" in mind, one of which was so that I could have instructions displayed separately from the pc I was working on without having to print them, constantly switch between the browser and whatever I was working on or use a second display. The other was so that I could use public wifi and not need to worry about battery life. Now I use it daily for many other things.
The play book isn't alone in needing to be tethered to a phone to get on the go net access; this also applies to the xoom, if you didn't buy the 3G version.
I don't see your problem with switching between the tablet and pc, especially if you need to do anything requiring a bit more processing power than the tablet will deliver.
I've taken a look at the developer preview of Windows 8 and while the metro interface might work on a tablet, I dislike it with a passion on a desktop.
I agree that the xoom is probably the best tablet on the market, but I don,t think any of the current crop are ideal. You've already mentioned the problems with the ipad, I wish the android os had close gadgets. The playbook is actually a decent tablet (I prefer the playbook browser to the xoom one) but is hampered by a lack of apps, and those that there are are generally more expensive than their android counterparts.
I can't see Windows 8 making me dump my laptop; this would need to be accompanied by a jump in tablet processing power and even if this were to be the case there would probably be a similar jump in power in the laptop/desktop. I'm sure that the tablet will always be a compliment to the traditional pc. I wouldn't want to transcode video on my tablet, for example