Capital Markets Managing Director Mike Abramsky announced at a recent investors conference that the Blackberry Playbook WIFI will be discontinued. This is the only tablet that the company produces and does not bode well for their foray into tablet computing.
The Blackberry Playbook has been very underwhelming and the corporate market has not accepted the device because it was rushed and just not a viable investment. Part of this is because there is no native support for email or BlackBerry Messenger, and the app market is a barren wasteland. RIM also promised support for Android applications before the launch and months later we still see nothing.
RIM has not ruled out a 4G model of the Playbook even though the Playbook WIFI has weak sales. Even with the discontinuation of the wireless model, there still should be reliable inventory to market the device for some time.
I had high hopes for the Playbook! I exclusively use Blackberry phones because of the speed of and security of pushed emails. It feels like RIM alienated the very corporate sector that sustains their business. What IT manager will deliver Playbooks with no enterprise level email support?
Update: RIM issued a corporate statement on the announcement at the investors conference. “Rumors suggesting that the Wi-Fi version of the BlackBerry PlayBook is being discontinued are pure fiction. Over the past month, the PlayBook has launched in 16 additional markets around the world and further rollouts are planned for Southeast Asia, Western Europe and the Middle East in the coming weeks.”
Update 2: Most people to see be complaining about how RIM and the Playbook is in fact not doomed. Here is some news.
Ryan Bidan, the Research In Motion Ltd. executive in charge of the first BlackBerry tablet, is no longer an employee of Canada’s smartphone maker.
Senior product manager of the PlayBook project since October 2008, Mr. Bidan updated his LinkedIn profile on Tuesday to reflect his new position. He is now the director of product marketing for the North American division of Samsung Electronics Corp. and will be moving from Waterloo, Ontario to Dallas, Texas in the near future.
via BGR and MSNBC
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
