RIM on Friday said its chief marketing officer has decided to leave the company.

[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]According to RIM, Keith Pardy decided to leave the company for “personal reasons,” according to the WSJ. No further details were provided about Pardy’s departure.

Losing your marketing chief just week’s before a major product launch would be a hit for any company, but for RIM, it could be even worse.

On Wednesday Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad 2, putting significantly more pressure on RIM and the other iPad competitors.

RIM has been announcing new PlayBooks since last September when it first said it was entering the tablet market. That annoyed me to the point of writing an opinion piece entitled “RIM needs to shut up and ship.”

Just to recap, In September 2010 RIM announced the PlayBook; in January 2011 RIM announced the PlayBook 4G; in February 2011, RIM outdid itself and announced the PlayBook 4G LTE, HSPA+ and Mobile WiMAX models.

After announcing three generations of PlayBook models, RIM has yet to ship a single PlayBook.