RIM: BlackBerry PlayBook Is Great Even Without A BlackBerry
One of the more unusual aspects of the upcoming tablet from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is the fact that users need to synch their BlackBerrys to it to fully access their email, calendars and memos.
Context & Ripple Effects
RIM has been building toward this launch since it unveiled the PlayBook in September 2010, then priced it under $500 in November with an obvious eye on Apple's iPad. What Forbes surfaced on January 17 is the catch inside that pitch: the QNX-based tablet only delivers full email, calendars and memos when paired with a BlackBerry handset.
That makes the PlayBook less a standalone iPad rival than a companion device for RIM's installed base — 'great even without a BlackBerry' is the marketing claim, but the sync requirement means core PIM features are gated behind hardware most iPad shoppers do not own. RIM's positioning leans on the pairing as an enterprise security story, though it also concedes the consumer market where the iPad competes as an independent computer.
First-order effects
- Non-BlackBerry owners who buy the sub-$500 PlayBook get a tablet without native email, calendar or memo apps at launch — a direct handicap against the iPad in exactly the price band RIM chose to compete in.
- RIM's own messaging splits in two: the device is pitched as great standalone while its most-used functions require a BlackBerry, leaving reviewers and buyers to reconcile a claim the product spec contradicts.
Second-order effects
- Apple and Android tablet vendors gain a clean differentiation point — full-featured standalone email — letting them attack the PlayBook on completeness rather than price.
- Enterprise IT departments already standardized on BlackBerry handsets become the PlayBook's natural first market, pushing RIM to defend its corporate base instead of expanding into consumer share.
Third-order effects
- If the paired-tablet model holds, the tablet market stratifies into ecosystem companions versus standalone computers, and RIM cedes the standalone tier to rivals unless Tablet OS matures past its dependency.
- The gating of core apps behind another device previews the broader gatekeeper question: how much of a device's advertised capability a vendor can reserve for its own ecosystem before regulators and buyers push back.
The trend: Tablets are emerging as accessories locked to their maker's smartphone ecosystem rather than independent computers, and RIM's PlayBook is the sharpest test yet of how far that tethering can go.