There is no question the the big news out of DevCon 2010 last week was the announcement of the BlackBerry PlayBook, RIM’s first attempt at a table device. The BlackBerry PlayBook had been rumored for months to be coming out by the holiday season this year, however, Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar says that RIM aborted 2010 BlackBerry PlayBook launch plans due to “technical issues”.
In a research note, Kumar contends the company’s new QNX Neutrino software platform “was not ready for prime time.” He also says that the Marvell (MRVL) Armada 610 application processor the company had planned to use was “bug ridden.” Kumar says the company has “jettisoned” Marvell from the PlayBook in favor of a processor from Texas Instruments.
Research in Motion has stated that the BlackBerry PlayBook will launch “early” next year. The problem for RIM, however, is that early next year in marketing speak means any time before the midpoint of the year, or, by the end of June. If the PlayBook doesn’t come out before the summer of 2011, RIM may have missed its window of opportunity to have released a new device that sounds cooler than its competition. By next summer we should have a bunch of Android tablets, a new iPad or two, and even a few Palm Tablets that sport similar hardware configurations to what was announced to be coming in the BlackBerry PlayBook.
I really would like to see RIM do well with their tablet device. Let’s just hope that when they said the the PlayBook would launch early next year, they really meant winter or early Spring next year…
[Via Barron’s]
Someone told them…who told me…and now I’m telling you with great conviction that this is definetely bad….and besides, I’m shorting RIM anyway so that is why I’m so convincing….
The rumor floating around DevCon last week was that RIM basically scrapped what they had intended to release right after Thanksgiving and what was debuted was actually the second edition which wasn’t slated until next summer.
I guess RIM is doing everything they can to try to move the date up but the fact that they weren’t even really showing a working prototype at their conference doesn’t bode well for an early 2011 release.
RIM = FAIL
The ship is sinking. What a shame. Time to re-evaluate and sweep out some upper management. These issues and mistakes are costing the company, investors, and eventually market share (and I mean all market share, not what they’ve already lost) and reputation.
Still getting my Pearl though. 🙂
Well what were we supposed to think? That RIM had a fully-functioning, ready-to-be-released tablet right now, but didn’t want to interfere with their Christmas travel plans, and so pushed the release until the next year? I don’t know RIM’s history in detail. I know some products have taken longer to release than we’d like, but that lag time usually refers to the rumor-stage until release duration. They usually release announced devices around when they’re announced. I know the story of RIM’s acquisiont of QNX broke not too long before Devcon. Could it be that the acquisition enabled RIM to accelerate its timeline for a “second generation” tablet? Was the “original”, rumored-for-Thanksgiving RIM tablet going to have something other than QNX as the basis of its OS? Does the announcement by Kobo and others that they will bundle software with Playbook indicate that the thing is well along and likely to release 1Q?
so the facts are that RIM anncouned a release in early 2011….why are you making up all sorts of rumors based on speculation….they announced this two weeks ago…
Just a couple of points. RIM announced its Acquisition of QNX back in April and rumors of a BlackBerry tablet running a QNX OS started spreading not long after that.
As far as what I expected, rumors pointed to a 2010 release. RIM told us that this is clearly not the case, so, I no longer expect that. The point I was trying to make, (maybe not clearly enough) is that if early next year means more like May or June, that RIM’s window of opportunity to put out a device that seems superior to it’s competitors may have passed…
Add better battery life (if not already) and this may be the killer… http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/05/motorola-droid-pro-first-hands-on/
They need to get QNX on the phones soon… seriously. I now have the pleasure of an iPhone (as my work phone) and I gotta tell ya, there is room for improvement, but once improved its look out RIM. Same for Android if they get get their battery life/drain closer to the iPhones at the least.
RIM will miss the opportunity if they don’t release the Playbook before the end of the year that’s for sure.