BlackBerry CEO Questions Future of Tablets
BlackBerry Focused on ‘Crazy Multi-Taskers’: Heins — BlackBerry (BBRY) Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins said he sees a limited future for tablet computers, an indication he may shelve plans to build a follow- up to the smartphone maker's ill-fated PlayBook device.
Context & Ripple Effects
Thorsten Heins' tablet skepticism is a rerun with a twist. Back in April 2010, RIM's chief said the market was unclear for tablets — then shipped the PlayBook anyway in 2011, where reviewers found a tablet without its apps. Three years later, the conclusion has flipped: instead of entering the category despite doubts, BlackBerry is exiting it because of them.
The comments land six weeks after Heins laid out his survival plan and dismissed the iPhone as old news, and they sharpen that plan's shape: BlackBerry doubles down on 'crazy multi-taskers' — keyboard-centric power users — while conceding the tablet form factor outright. The pickup across eight outlets from The Verge to the Guardian reflects how much signal analysts read into a CEO talking down his own company's last tablet ambitions.
First-order effects
- BlackBerry's device roadmap now excludes a new tablet: Heins confirmed he sees only a limited future for the category, and reports suggest a PlayBook successor may be shelved — though that specific decision remains unconfirmed.
- Product and engineering resources earmarked for a second-generation PlayBook are freed up for the smartphone line aimed at 'crazy multi-taskers', the audience Heins has defined as BlackBerry's core.
Second-order effects
- BlackBerry hands the entire tablet field — including its own loyal enterprise base — to Apple and Android vendors, removing any reason for developers or corporate buyers to wait on a BB10 tablet ecosystem.
- Rivals competing for the same keyboard-and-productivity niche, like Microsoft with its productivity positioning, face a BlackBerry that is concentrating rather than spreading its hardware bets.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, BlackBerry completes its transition from a multi-device platform company into a single-category smartphone vendor — a structure whose viability rests entirely on the handset turnaround succeeding.
- The episode adds to a recurring lesson from the PlayBook era: hardware makers that enter new categories without an app ecosystem pay for it twice — once at launch and again when they retreat.
The trend: Struggling hardware vendors are narrowing their portfolios to defensible core niches rather than chasing every form factor, with the tablet market consolidating around incumbents who already own the app ecosystems.