Thou shalt rest in peace.
Despite recent seemingly earnest efforts from RIM in the form of the Playbook, it is more and more evident that the big wigs at RIM have missed the reality train by a couple years.
I mean, the tablet looks nice and all but if I drop $600 on a tablet, I expect it to at least be able to let me read my emails ! Yep, that’s right, the Playbook doesn’t have a native email client. If you ever want to check your emails, you’ll need a Blackberry. Of course! They should bundle the phone with the tablet just to make sure nobody buys it.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against RIM and their products, but their offerings just never really appealed to me. BB’s were all the rage a few years ago when the consumer market turned a device made for business people into a hip gizmo to have in your Coach bag. Back in the days, it was awesome to have a full keyboard crammed onto a snaggy-looking cellphone because chatting all day long was cool, it made you look important and businessy. Now we have solid voip and facetime, thank you very much.
RIM started to dig their own grave the moment they tried to appeal to market segments that ‘thought’ they needed their products, but actually didn’t. RIM took this momentary fad for a real change and to rolled out a wide range of phones (torch, curve, bold…) that really didn’t target either b2c or b2b consumers.
They were stuck in the middle, with products that weren’t clearly positioned. As a result, the b2c market began to look elsewhere to get their hip fix (think of apple, samsung and htc) and the b2b market felt neglected so it also went shopping for fitter products.
It looks as if RIM were struck by lightning and just couldn’t snap out the kind of dazed state they’re currently in. If I buy a tablet, it probably means that after going the laptop route for a while I’ve got tired of it and I need a change in design, useability and ergonomy. Yet, RIM think otherwise. They sell you the Playbook AND they also want you to attach a keyboard to it, just to remind you that what you’re holding in your two hands is not a tablet but simply an oversized BlackBerry.
With plummeting sales and a ‘core incompetence’ (see ? I can do this too) at turning around their business, how can they weather the storm ? No idea, but I’d follow the bloodstains and the wolves footprints if I were you. It’ll surely lead to the death scene.
Playing the catch-up game is never easy and following the leader sucks big time according to RIM.
