I have to congratulate you on the restraint you’ve shown over the past month. You haven’t announced a new version of the PlayBook that isn’t shipping yet, which is a huge step forward for you.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]However, all is not well in the RIM camp. You need to get your co-CEOs (seriously, co-CEOs?) to stop talking to the press. Or, if you let them talk to the press, at least make them sound like they know what the hell they are talking about.
For instance, Mike Lazaridis said about the Playbook not being released yet that “it’s about always choosing the right moment, the right time, the right technology.”
Really Mike? What you’re saying is that the right time to release a tablet to compete with Apple is over a year after they released the first iPad? You do understand that Apple is already on its second generation iPad right?
Just to be clear, that’s two generations of released products, not the fictional three generations of PlayBooks that haven’t been released yet.
I’m assuming you also understand that the PlayBook, like the other tablet competitors are rip-offs of the iPad. I mean, if RIM is such a visionary company, why didn’t they release the PlayBook years ago? The answer is simple, because you had to wait for Apple to show you the way.
In an effort to show his company and the industry that he has lost all grasp on reality, Lazaridis went on to say that “we decided the tablet market was still in its infancy, it hasn’t really taken off yet.”
Now you just sound silly. Apple sold about 15 million iPads in a year, they are dominating the market, people line up around the block to get their hands on one, and you don’t think it’s taken off yet?
You would have been much better served if you had said something like, “Apple’s tablet success took us by surprise, but we are confident that RIM’s PlayBook will be a strong competitor in a growing market.”
At the very least, you would have looked like you knew what you were talking about. As it stands now, you look like you’ve lost touch.
Co-CEO Jim Balsillie hasn’t done the company any favors speaking in public either. In December, Balsillie declared the PlayBook “clearly sets the bar WAY higher on performance.”
How can that be, Jim? It’s now March and you still haven’t shipped a single PlayBook. How in the hell can it set the bar higher on anything?
Recently I wrote an article “RIM needs to shut up and ship” because I thought your biggest problem was the fact that you are unable to get any products out the door. However, after looking at what you are saying in the press, I think you just need to shut up.
RIM lives in a little BlackBerry-flavored pocket universe in which it is still the dominant smartphone on the planet. If you see their changes since the iPhone came out in 2007, most of them are still cosmetic. They produced some different form factors and added multimedia features, but didn’t build an ecosystem of media (so you have stuff to listen to and play that you don’t have to separately manage) nor improved their developer system to allow vastly more programmers to want to get on board. Their PlayBook app strategy sounds in part like it will depend on an Android-emulation environment? I don’t even know how that could work and have the right native feel for a 7-inch device.
Really, RIM figures it only needs to make small moves to get big results, and that its business audience is ignoring the iPad mostly, and that the 15 million units sold (now probably over 20m?) reflect consumer demand and Mac fans or something. By doing so, they’re ignoring their own sales figures.
Bastille is a complete fool. The only thing that he really cares about is buying a NHL team and moving it to Hamilton, ON. Based on his two attempts he can’t even do that right.
“we decided the tablet market was still in its infancy, it hasn’t really taken off yet.”
This is what he should’ve admitted next:
… “We will probably ship a compelling product by the time the market has matured and doesn’t grow anymore, that way I’m going to have a good excuse for our shareholders, why we as a company failed and their stocks aren’t worth anything anymore”
Man, people get fired for much less than that… sometimes. They showed us the way in 2004 with their Blackberries… Now there are way too focused on pleasing the Telcos, every single one on earth.
I think ever since Apple introduced the first iPhone, Balsille and Lazaridis go OH SH— every time Apple announces anything iOS related, so they just resorted to pleasing themselves… with hookers… paid for by the stockholders.
I don’t think either of these two fools notice anything that Apple does, unless one of their sycophant VPs presents it to them, couched in disparaging language.
Playbook = VaporBook!
That is if they manage to speak clearly, while kissing C-level butts 😉
But I think you’re right, those two are too ignorant of what’s happening to notice anything.
“we decided the tablet market was still in its infancy, it hasn’t really taken off yet.”
So – when your company first developed the Blackberry, at the time a revolutionary business device, how did you know that market (which didn’t really exist before) had “taken off”? In other words, you took a risk then…why aren’t you taking risks now?
haha “business audience is ignoring the iPad mostly?”
60% of the Fortune 500 companies have adopted the iPad. What planet are you living on?
60% of the Fortune 500 companies have adopted the iPad.”
That “statistic” is marketing speak and completely meaningless. Look at it – what does it mean? Ask yourself, “How many iPads? Company wide? One VP? In what way have they “been adopted”? There’s no data behind the number.
You may have written this too soon Jim, RIM could be ready to announce the Playbook 8 any time now.
Maybe it’s time he surrender his co-CEO and get focused on hockey.
Well my statistic has more substance behind it than some comment this dude made up and pulled out of thin air.
And btw, the iPad is HUGE in the healthcare industry. I should know, I work in it. (also a big player in the education market as well)
Sources:
http://www.industryweek.com/articles/strong_u-s-_business_interest_in_ipad_22377.aspx
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/mac/apples-ipad-iphone-and-an-enterprise-halo-effect/654
http://www.elevatorview.com/2010/07/20/strong-ipad-iphone-adoption-in-fortune-100500-education/
SO like I said. The iPad is not “being ignored” by the business market. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.
I just want a freaking release date. Why are they being so tight lipped about it. I’ts already March 17th, and nada! I’ve been patiently waiting since September of last year…makes me so angry!
Why are you waiting for RIM? Whatever they come out with will most likely be behind the iPad2 anyway!
Their waiting for Adobe to finish up Flash. They don’t want to be embarrassed like MMI by coming out too Xoom… Zune… I mean soon.
Apple fanboys all over the place in here…
You do get that the name of this blog “The Loop” refers to the location of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, right?
One might — just might — gather from it, that this blog is rather Apple centric and many people with strong and often positive opinions of Apple comment here.
But not all of them are necessarily fanboys, certainly not the proprietors of this fine blog.
Anyway, thanks for the page view.
Would you mind clicking on a few of those ads on your way out?
Also: Eat poop.
Thanks for adding that, because I forgot to 😉