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Thursday, April 14, 2011

RIM’s CO-CEO Defends Playbook Against Bad Reviews

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Research in Motion (RIM) co-Chief Executive Officer, Jim Balsillie defended the company’s soon to be released Playbook tablet against an onslaught of bad early reviews, which were so negative they caused RIM’s shares to fall 91 cents in the market today, just a day after their release.

Most of the negative comments seemed to be about the Playbooks lack of built-in email functionality, inability to connect to mobile phone networks, and its very limited number of apps, which we all know can make or break a newer phone or tablet before it even has a chance.

Balsillie said that he didn’t think the comments were fair, and stated that there are more than 60 million BlackBerry users out there who can pair their phone to their Playbook and access secure mail and connect to the internet. Apparently RIM is really banking on that BlackBerry tethering to push those Playbooks. Most reviewers seem to think that the company is really rushing things and should have probably waited to add their promised Android app compatibility as well as having a decent number of apps ready before they launched something meant to compete with the dominating iPad 2 in the tablet market.

My only question is do people really want a glorified dock for their BlackBerry’s?

2 comments:

  1. I'd think that most who are going to be in the initial purchase group of the Playbook, either already have a blackberry or they already have another mobile phone with a data plan, so why would one want to add another contract & bill if they are now given the option to tether and use the playbook? So too many this is actually a huge benefit. It's one of the reasons a lot of people don't presently have tablets. The technology is moving too fast to want to shove out cash to be locked into a contract for 2+ years then have a new wave of technology release in 6 months. Not the smartest thing in my opinion. So Blackberry's strategy makes sense. In addition if one does the research they will learn that a great deal of the ipads sold are sold Wifi only.

    As it relates to email, the bridge function is awesome. I personally have multiple laptops, and use multiple desktops, how awesome would it be to be able to have my blackberry display in real time on those devices as I need it to, and I didn't have to worry about "syncing", downloading etc. Fortunately this is one of the great features of the Blackberry Playbook.

    The only "disadvantage" in this device thus far is that there are not as many current apps available for it, however based on the strategic efforts they have put forth in efforts to curtail this, I don't think this will be a problem for long.

    So perhaps the at this specific moment the Blackberry Playbook is made for those who prefer the art of thinking, the allure of efficiency and value being effective over that of mere hype, but....what every the reason. Count me in.

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  2. Thanks for the comment, I never really thought of it like that. With your perspective I don't necessarily disagree with RIM in this, if they get BlackBerry users like yourself initially and then roll out the Android running capabilities the PlayBook could please both crowds.

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