Research In Motion continues to struggle as it works to finish the BlackBerry 10 operating system, but the audience at the London edition of the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour developer event still thinks the company can play an important role in the enterprise.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is available for pre-order, and will be on the street in a matter of weeks. I am not sure the RIM tablet will see much consumer success, but then consumers have never been RIM's primary market. Consumer tablets aside, the PlayBook has some unique features that make it an ideal tablet from a business or IT admin perspective.
Steve Jobs tried to dismiss iPad's tablet rivals as "copycats" at Wednesday's iPad 2 launch. But whether Steve likes it or not, the tablet wars are officially on. And this battle will be decided not only by consumers and gadget lovers seeking the latest and greatest slates, but also by businesses and corporate workers looking for the next game-changing productivity tool.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is nearing its final build with fully working tablets on public show at Mobile World Congress and one stand representative going so far as to refer to a PlayBook as "my own". All that's left, we're told, is battery optimisation - something that's actively being worked on.
It may seem like 2010 was the year of the tablet, but the reality is that 2010 was really just the year of the iPad with 15 million units sold and no real competitors for the Apple tablet. However, 2011 will be very different with a diverse variety of tablet options emerging--including some particularly relevant entries from major players.
With so much chatter about tablets this year, you might think that the handheld, rectangular devices being unveiled represent a significant innovation. The reality is that so much of what we're seeing is not a whole lot different than what we saw in previous years; these products offer only a few new twists. But those new twists could make the difference between tablets' remaining a niche item and their finally busting out to the mass market in a meaningful way.
Images and details of the BlackBerry Dakota--the impending flagship smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM)--have emerged. The Dakota is packed with features as RIM struggles desperately to regain lost ground and compete with the Apple iPhone and the rising Android invasion.
As recently as a year ago, many enterprises couldn't have imagined that the iPhone would now be second place in terms of security features that enterprises require, behind only the BlackBerry and ahead of Android and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.
The coming PlayBook tablet from Research in Motion straddles the line between consumer-centric and business-centric device, symbolic of the dilemma RIM faces serving both markets.
Research in Motion's tablet, rumored for months, is nearly official, according to the Wall Street Journal's unnamed sources. If the report is accurate, RIM could reveal the so-called BlackPad next week during a developer conference in San Francisco.
It's all been speculation and rumor for the last year, but now that the Wall Street Journal has joined the rumor mill, many are saying that Research in Motion will launch its top-secret "BlackPad", or Blackberry tablet, in San Francisco on Monday.
Research in Motion performed a neat smoke and mirrors trick when introducing the BlackBerry Torch 9800 yesterday.
Research in Motion may have something big up its sleeves.
The BlackBerry Curve 8520 hit U.S. shelves earlier this week, and though it certainly won't send hard-core CrackBerry addicts rushing to T-Mobile stores to scoop one up--it's an entry-level device, meant for new smartphone users--the handheld actually has more "new" BlackBerry features and hardware tweaks than any other device Research In Motion (RIM) has released in a year.
When Research In Motion's first touchscreen device, the BlackBerry Storm, came out a few weeks ago, many BlackBerry fans hoped to see a viable challenger to Apple's wildly popular iPhone. According to critics and fans alike, what they got instead was a gigantic flop.