New BlackBerry Tablet Unlikely; PlayBook to Get BB10

BlackBerry 10 update to launch on PlayBook.

BlackBerry, previously known as Research In Motion, has said that a new tablet powered by BlackBerry 10 is unlikely to come to fruition.

Speaking to the press during the BlackBerry 10 launch event, CEO Thorsten Heins conceded that the market is tough. "The tablet business is rather difficult," he stressed. He added the firm is only interested in investing areas it believes could be profitable.

That said, he isn't ruling out future possibilities for a tablet. "We want to provide a value proposition that is not just hardware, but software, too. What we’ll be doing in the tablet space is looking for specific services on top of the tablet — financial, healthcare verticals. We are still exploring various use cases for it."

"Personally, I think it's pretty futile at this point," said Ovum analyst Jan Dawson. "Like Apple, (BlackBerry) really has to make its margin on the device, but it can't charge a premium like Apple."

During April 2011, BlackBerry launched the PlayBook, but it ultimately failed to make an impact in the market. After heavily discounting the product, it shipped a paltry 255,000 units during 2012's third quarter.

While he didn't reveal a time frame, Heins confirmed that BlackBerry is preparing a BlackBerry 10 update for the PlayBook.

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Other Comments

1

anononon , February 1, 2013 10:13 PM

Agreed, and that is EXACTLY whats not helping their stock. Investors DO NOT like the idea of not having a known release date, myself included. Even if the release was a less than desirable date, we would still have insight- which we do not currently have.

I am all for the new BB10 system, but if they want a prayer to survive out here they will have to open up the realities that we may or may not want to hear.
0

anonymous@guest , February 15, 2013 3:09 AM

BlackBerry stock doesn't exactly depend on the PlayBook. Their honor does, though, because if they didn't provide the BB10 update for the PlayBook then the perception would be bad. However, last time I checked the company had sold almost 2 M tablets. Not much when compared to the iPad but still that's 2 M x $200 = $400 M. That's an offer that I wouldn't refuse.
0

halcyon , February 2, 2013 10:36 AM

Occasionally the Playbook is nice to use to view my BB's messages but it really has no real value for me outside of that. My Note II makes the Playbook seem like a paperweight.