RIM tablet just a rumour?
Posted Sep 27, 2010 03:31:52 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Hold the smartphone! A technology reporter says rumours of a tablet PC from Research in Motion may be exaggerated.
RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie did hint during a conference call last week that investors would be pleased with pending news from the company. And while he didn’t specify what that news would be, the statement has fuelled rumours that Waterloo’s tech giant will reveal plans for its own tablet PC to rival Apple’s iPhone at a developer’s conference today in San Francisco.
Tech reporter Omar El Akkad says technophiles may want to curb their enthusiasm.
“One of the things we could see is the launch of a new consumer-oriented smartphone, we could see a new version of the Storm, we could see them announce buying an ad network so they could put ads on their applications,” El Akkad lists when asked what he thinks RIM will reveal later today. “But we don’t know for sure.”
El Akkad says the Waterloo-based company is notoriously secretive, right down to former employees who are reluctant to talk about the operation.
That said, if RIM is unveiling a tablet PC today, El Akkad says there’s little concern in being second-to-market, behind the iPad.
“Right now the thinking is that RIM is definitely going to try and bundle this thing with the BlackBerry and aim it towards the enterprise as much as the consumer,” El Akkad speculates. “And I think they stand a very good chance of being successful in that because no matter how much attention the iPhone and the iPad get, in the business world, people just can’t live without their BlackBerrys.”
And it’s in the business world where El Akkad believes the tablet wars will be waged. He believes that market is “wide open” right now and RIM may have the edge.
“Quickly we’re learning that hospitals, universities, big businesses, anyone who does sales and has to talk to clients — everybody is really catching onto this thing (the tablet PC),” El Akkad points out. “And that puts RIM in a really good position.”
RIM president and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is one of the keynote speakers at today’s conference in San Francisco.
