It’s late October, 2010, and tech company Research in Motion is about to announce their very own tablet known as the Playbook. This new tablet has a seven-inch screen and is the lightest tablet for sale compared to its competitors. The tablet features 3-D graphics acceleration, a Texas Instruments dual-core processor, and a forward- and rear-facing camera.
The struggling smartphone maker has lost serious market share to Apple over the past several years and with today’s release will be entering another very competitive market. The Playbook will be in direct competition with the Apple iPad, Google’s Android Tablet, and the Kindle Fire, each with an established clientele. Coming in at $499, this tablet is by no means cheap and may have struggles selling.
RIMM stock has been down since the beginning of the year as the company continues to fall. The Blackberry is no longer the standard for smartphones and RIMM has failed to release an effective counter to the Apple iPhone or one of the many Android phones. This could be a great opportunity to buy RIMM if the stock were to rebound on a successful product launch (like the Playbook) or something else.
Research in Motion
Source: MSN Money
CEO Jim Balsillie says that Apple’s highly-touted app marketplace really just masks iOS’s sub-par web performance.
“You don’t need an app for the Web,” Balsillie said. Since many iOS apps are just front-end clients for web properties — stores, games, media companies, social networking sites — and RIM’s app strength is in documents and productivity, it’s a clear contrast.
“There’s still a role for apps, but can you use your existing content?” Balsillie asked web companies. “Can you use your existing web assets? Do you need a set of proprietary tools to bring existing assets on to a device, or can you use known tools that you use for creating websites?”
As for Apple trying to take on Blackberry in the smartphone market that it has dominated for years now, when asked what he would tell Jobs if he were there, Balsillie simply said, “You finally showed up.”
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