RIM Readies Its Answer to iPad
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. could unveil its new tablet computer—as well as the operating system that will power it—as early as next week, at a developers' conference in San Francisco, say people familiar with RIM's plans.
Context & Ripple Effects
RIM's reported tablet plan marks a reversal of its own public line: co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said in April 2010 that the market was unclear for tablets and touch-only phones, and the company spent the summer absorbing the weak reception of the BlackBerry Torch, whose launch reportedly moved only around 150,000 units. The company also lost its bid for Palm to HP in July, closing off the option of buying a ready-made modern OS — which makes the rumored debut of a brand-new tablet operating system at DevCon the more consequential move.
The arc runs back further than the iPad: RIM has been working touch into its lineup since its touchscreen BlackBerry plans surfaced in late 2007, so a tablet-plus-new-OS unveil would be the culmination of a three-year touch transition rather than a sudden pivot. With the Galaxy Tab already leaked for AT&T's Q4 holiday lineup, RIM's answer to the iPad would land in an increasingly crowded carrier shelf.
First-order effects
- Developers attending next week's San Francisco conference would face a second RIM platform to support alongside BlackBerry smartphones, with a new tablet OS needing apps from day one to compete with the iPad's catalog.
- Apple gains its first challenger from the enterprise incumbent — RIM's corporate installed base is the distribution asset a tablet launch would immediately try to monetize.
Second-order effects
- Carriers heading into Q4 with leaked Galaxy Tab and Windows Phone devices gain another high-profile tablet to bundle, sharpening price and subsidy competition on the holiday shelf.
- A failed Palm bid means HP now fields webOS while RIM must fund its own OS from scratch — raising RIM's software costs just as its flagship phone momentum stalls.
Third-order effects
- If every major handset maker maintains a proprietary tablet OS, developer effort fragments across platforms and app-catalog depth becomes the deciding competitive asset — the dynamic RIM tried to shortcut by bidding for Palm.
- RIM's pivot from doubting tablets publicly to racing one out signals that enterprise incumbents no longer set product-category timing; they respond to Apple's cadence or cede the category.
The trend: The tablet market is moving from a single-vendor iPad category to a multi-OS scramble, with enterprise incumbents like RIM forced to build proprietary platforms rather than license or acquire them.