“Research In Motion Ltd. co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie said criticism of the company’s PlayBook tablet computer, which goes on sale next week, are misguided because they ignore RIM’s base of BlackBerry faithful,” Hugo Miller reports for Bloomberg.
“Technology columnists criticized the 7-inch tablet for its limited number of applications, lack of built-in e-mail and inability to connect to mobile-phone networks — issues that won’t be remedied until new software and further editions of the device are introduced later this year. Some critics suggested RIM rushed an unfinished device to market, a charge Balsillie refutes,” Miller reports. “‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ Balsillie, 50, said in a television interview with Bloomberg News yesterday, pointing out that more than 60 million BlackBerry smartphone users can pair their phones and PlayBooks to read e-mail and connect to the Internet.”
Miller reports, “While RIM hasn’t forecast how many of the devices it will sell, Balsillie said the opportunity is significant. ‘I like our chances for a lot of share,’ he said. ‘We’re very excited about where we are.'”
MacDailyNews Take: “I like our strategy. I like it a lot,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on CNBC, after seeing Apple’s iPhone, January 17, 2007
Miller reports, “Co-Chief Executive Officer Mike Lazaridis said RIM expects to distinguish itself in the tablet market the same way it did in mobile phones — through better technology. The PlayBook has security features that appeal to corporate customers and unique extras, such as the ability to let consumers browse the Web and run videos simultaneously, he said in an interview last week. The device, which is smaller than the 9.7-inch iPad, is also designed to be ‘ultraportable’ so it can be more frequently used during the day, he said. ‘This is superior,’ he said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Well, there’s a tremendous load. The real reason why the PlayBook’s too-tiny screen is just 45% the size of iPad’s is because RIM can’t come anywhere close to matching Apple on price, even if they could somehow manage to find screens the same size as iPads. Apple has cornered the touchscreen display market and left the tablet roadkill with tiny screens that are ill-suited for touchscreen tablet use.
Miller reports, “RIM didn’t make the decision on size lightly. Todd Wood, vice president of industrial design, and his team studied the optimal proportions for a tablet while Lazaridis weighed what format would offer a screen big enough for watching video and could pack a powerful processor, and remain portable. The inspiration for the final size was decidedly low-tech: the Moleskine leather notebooks used by Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.”
MacDailyNews Take: More crap. Who are you going with, Apple and Steve Jobs or a blindsided company that’s been in scramble mode since Steve Jobs pulled the first iPhone from his pocket? Remember, RIM swore up and down that The Storm was an inspired design, too.
(Inspired by Edsel.)
We’ll stick with Steve Jobs over half a RIM CEO and some random “industrial design” employee who probably has at least three Jony Ive posters on every wall of his bedroom.
One naturally thinks that a 7-inch screen would offer 70% of the benefits of a 10-inch screen. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. The screen measurements are diagonal, so that a 7-inch screen is only 45% as large as iPad’s 10-inch screen. You heard me right: Just 45% as large.
If you take an iPad an hold it upright in portrait view and draw an imaginary horizontal line halfway down the screen, the screens on these 7-inch tablets are a bit smaller than the bottom half of the ipad’s display. This size isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion. While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.
Apple has done extensive user testing on tough interfaces over many years and we really understand this stuff. There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touchscreen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps. – Apple CEO Steve Jobs, October 18, 2010
Miller reports, “Consumers have had the chance to buy smaller tablets for months, though sales haven’t threatened the iPad’s dominance. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, the size of the PlayBook, went on sale in October and had shipped 2 million units by the end of 2010. Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. last week cut the price of the device for a second time this year to spur sales.”
MacDailyNews Take: Please see the related article: Samsung Exec: Galaxy Tab shipments were 2 million; shipments, not sales to end users – January 31, 2011
Miller reports, “The PlayBook starts at $499, the same as the least expensive iPad 2. The priciest PlayBook is $699, while the top- end iPad, which comes with a 3G connection, is $829.”
MacDailyNews Take: Great reporting. Oh, by the way, the PlayBook’s tiny screen is just 45% the size of iPad’s screen. Sorry, for again mentioning such an irrelevant fact (smirk).
Miller reports, “A large installed base of business customers should help RIM sell about 250,000 PlayBooks in its current fiscal quarter which ends in May, and 5.4 million over the fiscal year, predicts Alkesh Shah, an analyst with Evercore Partners Inc.”
MacDailyNews Take: iCal’ed.
Miller reports, “The device will probably capture 10 percent of the tablet market by 2015, compared with 47 percent for the iPad, research firm Gartner Inc. predicts. PlayBook sales will be about 29 million devices in 2015, eclipsed by a forecast of about 138 million iPad sales, according to Gartner.”
MacDailyNews Take: And iCal’ed.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In the case of RIM vs. Apple, two heads aren’t better than one. RIM’s half-CEOs have combined to sound very much like Palm’s CEO once did.
Related articles:
Pogue reviews RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook: Half-baked, buggy, and missing important features – April 14, 2011
RIM’s half-CEO Lazaridis walks out of BBC interview – April 13, 2011
Research in Motion’s half-CEO admits to being clueless – April 11, 2011
Apple corners market for display panels – April 7, 2011
Apple’s upfront cash payments secure components, blocking out competitors – April 7, 2011
Gassée: ‘The inmates have taken over the asylum’ at BlackBerry-maker RIM – March 28, 2011
Apple to consume majority of touchscreen displays in 2011 and 2012 – March 14, 2011
RIM shares drop as marketing chief leaves company on eve of supposed PlayBook launch – March 4, 2011
Analyst: RIM’s expensive, flawed PlayBook tablet will be poorly received – February 1, 2011
Steve Jobs: I don’t see RIM catching us; Android is a fragmented mess; 7-inch tablets will be DOA – October 18, 2010
Basically it is an external monitor for my phone. Bad idea, really bad, like, how did that make it past the clay model stage?
So, I guess they never heard of the disaster that was the “Palm Foleo.”
> The device will probably capture 10 percent of the tablet market by 2015
By 2015, it is likely RIM will not exist, at least not as a separate company.
Pretty funny that he thinks having to (1) pull out a BlackBerry, (2) set it to pair with PlayBook, (3) hope it’s battery is not weak, (4) pull out a PlayBook, (5) set it to pair with BlackBerry, THEN (6) finally get to work… is superior to (1) pull out iPad and (2) get to work.
It’s also pretty funny that limiting “appeal” of PlayBook to existing BlackBerry customers is supposedly a good thing. Did Apple limit iPad’s appeal to existing Mac or iPhone customers?
Doc, please… are you sure you want a MaxiPad? Or a 7″ for light days? I mean, c’mon man.
Balsillie said, ‘I like our chances for a lot of share,’ he said. ‘We’re very excited about where we are.’”
Steve Ballmer on Windows mobile, “I Like out stragtegy, i like it lot”.
Echo, echo, echo…
It would not be fair criticism if RIM’s tablet was the first of its kind — but it isn’t. Pairing a tablet and a phone for email – means RIM is only catering to people with Blackberry’s. I guess they really don’t want to succeed.
The mention of the “RIM Faithful” got me thinking…
Anyone remember where you were when Mac OS 9.2 was released…?
That.
yea, RIM is dead. Consumers and corporations are not idiots. RIM said 3,000 developers would get a free playbooks – so, the sales of 2,995 on ebay should sustain the playbook market for a year … outside of RIM employees, the max market for this tablet above $99 is a few thousand.
I like their strategy (I mean chances), I like it a lot…
That’s the desperation that is revealed just before gravity takes over on the body slide to the bottom.
Who’s this Miller guy kidding. The Rim playbook has no software, no email, no calendar and he’s predicting that it will have sales. Why would anyone want to try this when they don’t even have email working yet. A very basic function like email should be there before they release this product. But like Microsoft they want to jump the gun and put out a half baked piece of crap that nobody will want or buy. I can hear the crickets chirping on the shelfs already.
“The priciest PlayBook is $699, while the top- end iPad, which comes with a 3G connection, is $829.””
He’s comparing apples and oranges (no pun intended) here, PlayBook has no 3G, so he should be compaing it to the high end Wi-Fi at $699. Hmm, still the same price, and you still get more from the iPad. The extra $130 and 3G are just icing on the cake!
55% more screen on the iPad’s display is even more icing.
Apple for years has been accused of “preaching to the choir”.
In this case, it seems that Blackberry is only “selling to the choir”. What it really shows is it’s desperation to try to continue to sell phones, as it forces you to stay with a Blackberry phone and keep your loyalty totally to RIMM…talk about proprietary!
Apple is selling Macs(see next Wed.’s results) based upon the iPhone, iPod, iPad pleasure experience, not by arm-twisting.
Shareholders should realize the late miss-the-bandwagoness of RIMM…it is sad that they sat around and rested on their superiorness laurels(and thumbs) as Apple really needed a good competitor.
PR advisors should be able to tell those CEO’s to quit showing how weak they look by saying “it’s not fair”…they would get more loyalty by saying, “we are late, but we believe we have a quality product and a quality experience.
It is the same as Obama saying, “I inherited this problem”…is lame as all getout. Excuses just don’t work in this fast-paced industry.
Yes, yes, yes! RIM’s CEO is sounding half-baked and delusional. He even stormed off an interview the other day.
However, this quote from Jobs in the article, justifying the 10″ screen as the smallest size, is classic Jobs sleigh-of-hand distraction– and doesn’t make sense. Read it carefully, folks!
“There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touchscreen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps.” – Apple CEO Steve Jobs, October 18, 2010
If that’s the case, how come the iPhone has done so well?!!
You coulda fooled me– millions are reliably tapping, flicking, and zooming them!
This is exactly the type of thing Jobs says a few months to a year before he says “one more thing” — and pulls a mini-iPad out of his inside coat jacket pocket. (Can’t you see it now? He’s on stage with a jacket for change?!! Everyone’s wondering why…) Apparently, the RIM tab doesn’t even fit inside such a pocket–a truly poor design choice!
Finally, MacDailyNews gang, lose the animated ads on your web pages. They’re as big a distraction as Balsillie, Lazardis, etc. are!
Dude, you took Steve’s quote OUT OF CONTEXT.
Smartphones are a compromise for mobility. Tablets are not supposed to be a compromise compared to other portable devices. Steve’s quote is about no-compromise tablets.
If you want a compromised screen experience, like a smartphone, then you get a smartphone.
Headline could be libelous. Did the RIM CEO really say
“It’s not ‘fair’ that our ‘superior’ tablet is getting bad reviews.”
It suggests he did.
I agree with roby– lose the animated ads. Makes me less likely to return!
The ads make this site exist. If you don’t like them, talk with the owners of the site about how you plan on funding their operating costs.
When you can’t lead WHINE!
Apparently the source videos at Bloomberg have been disabled. Here is where you can watch them ANYWAY:
1) RIM’s Balsillie Defends PlayBook Tablet Against Critics
OMG Marketing-Speak ad nauseam.
2) Taylor Says RIM PlayBook Tablet Has `Number of Flaws’
“….. ‘I like our chances for a lot of share,’ he said. ‘We’re very excited about where we are.’”
Sounds familiar. Hmmmm, dancing, boy, chairs. Can’t quite place it though.
It’s funny but I’m watching Real v Barça in the top left of my 15″ MacBook Pro screen and reading MDN in the right half of the screen. Possible to do therefore, but not desirable.
Hummm… Sounds to me like these guys have either 1) Had too much to drink/smoke/snort/shoot OR 2) Have forgotten that they are getting their pants eaten off by their competitors AND are going to continue to LOOSE market share until they have NONE !!!
Sure hope they have a REAL heavy boat they have to anchor with that shipping container of PlayBooks THEY CAN’T SELL!!
Lastly, to quote MacDailyNews “the PlayBook’s tiny screen is just 45% the size of iPad’s screen. Sorry, for again mentioning such an irrelevant fact” ……smirk …smirk …smirk…
Wah! Wah! Wah!
Cry like a baby.
Waah! Waah! Waah!
That’s not how a CEO is suppose to act.
Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!
You need a whipping.
I believe the whipping is on tap.
I agree. RIM needs some guidance. Maybe Google will buy them for a couple of billion, that should help them with their bottom line, and Google could get a discount on joining the exclusive Nortel patent club in the bargain.
Even if Steve Jobs did not like this much, it might help these companies innovate instead of wasting all their money constantly suing each other. Android-powered Blackberries could be interesting!
Innovation, not litigation. Just what the Dr. ordered.