BlackBerry PlayBook: A game-changer for RIM?
Only this morning I was sat amongst 100 or so mainstream and new media journalists as the RIM team conducted their initial pre-briefing under strict embargo.
At the end of the event, there were a lot of glum faces. The announcements were good, but not necessarily earth shattering (I’ll write more on those shortly).
Everyone was hoping for some hardware announcements and in the light of the Wall Street Journal post last week discussing the ‘BlackPad’, we were all hoping for some tablet news.
It didn’t come. The reaction from the media was palpable, with small groups huddling to discuss their disappointment, shock — and angle. I overheard one internationally renowned mainstream media chap explaining that he would write a piece demanding to know where the tablet was.
I was sitting at the back of the pre-brief pondering RIM’s enterprise position. I’ve been watching one particular Fortune 100 company go through the pain of iPad evaluation, recognising that if you want iPad in the business, you need to play by Apple’s rules — i.e. you put the user in full control of their experience. Completely unnatural for most IT departments.
Once you’ve got through the pain barrier, deployed iPads to executives and realised that the world is still ticking away (and that your users are quite content), it’s all good. Indeed as an IT manager, you can (generally) stop worrying about your iPad and iPhone installed base. If users raise any issues whatsoever, you just blame or point to Apple. (For instance, I observed one senior executive getting annoyed that he couldn’t print from his iPad — until, that is, it was explained to him that Steve Jobs doesn’t want you to print from iPad. The executive simply answered, ‘oh’, accepted that at face value and carried on with his day. Can you imagine that reaction from someone using a Dell? — I know printing is coming in 4.2)
That pain barrier has been one of the key reasons RIM has retained it’s position. RIM’s executives just have to mention ‘NSA approved’ and most executives simply melt. In the wake of the Indian and Middle Eastern Governmental concerns, though, it’s a little bit dangerous to play the encryption card. And once IT executives actually take a fresh look at their device strategy and associated costs, it can be very, very bad news for RIM.
Another CIO I know is considering dumping absolutely everything to do with Exchange, BES, RIM — and moving to ‘enterprise 3.0’ as he calls it, outsourcing the ‘craft workshop’ to use a host of tools such as Google Apps, Salesforce and so on. With 250,000+ BES installations out there, all generating nice annual revenues, Android and Apple (together with other players) are increasingly well placed to take a chunk of that away.
So the company needed a strategy to secure it’s BES infrastructure. It also needed to move swiftly to secure the consumer mindshare associated with iPhone and iPad (in the States alone, the Best Buy CEO estimates 50% of laptop sales are being replaced by iPad sales).
And the answer from RIM is the PlayBook tablet.
7 inch screen, 1024×600 resolution, 1080p HD capable screen, 2 cameras and an all new QNX-based operating system working on top of dual core super fast processors. And it’s coming in Q1 and Q2 next year (so 6 months+).
My first impressions of RIM’s PlayBook are positive. I’ve not touched one or had a play as yet (I’m hoping we’ll get the opportunity).
I’m thoroughly impressed at the possibilities, though. I’m delighted to see some innovation in the form of Adobe Air, Flash and RIM’s own WebWorks HTML5 compliant apps (and Java, of course). All built around RIM’s now legendary security architecture.
Yes I could see this playing very well in enterprise. Very, very well.
In many enterprises, where messaging just needs to be reasonably secure, Mobile Exchange to an iPad or iPhone will do fine. But lawyers, doctors and the military have serious, serious issues with the likes of the iPad. They’ll eat the PlayBook up.
Elsewhere, the fact that the PlayBook plugs straight into existing infrastructure and keeps the IT security teams sleeping soundly at night, will really help the purchase decision.
The question for RIM is whether they’ve waited too long to deliver the device into the marketplace. Although we’ve had the announcement, we’re not going to see the device arrive for another 6 months. We’ll probably have had yet another iteration of the iPad introduced by then — but more importantly, all those expectant senior executives still want one.
Is it too much to say that the PlayBook’s success is now in the hands of perhaps 50,000 super high level senior executives around the planet who don’t yet have iPads? If those executives seriously push for an iPad *now* (if they haven’t already), it won’t be good news for the PlayBook.
I know one CEO of a global Fortune 500 firm who is loving his iPad. Everyone he meets, he shows it to. Every one of his senior executives also has one. They are also using it at every single meeting, internally and externally to the firm. Every time the CEO or his executives meet another senior cutomer/supplier without an iPad, they deliver a 5-minute sales pitch. Which results in huge pressure on the respective IT departments.
“Well, Jim over at So-And-So Inc has got one. In fact his whole team have them!”
And before you know it, any IT or Security person who values their position removes any resistance to the adoption of iPads.
Can the marketplace be encouraged to wait for the PlayBook?
I think it’s eminently possible.
There are a lot of questions though:
– Price: A very big issue here. $399 or $899? Or more?
– Battery life: Needs to match the 8-10 hours of the iPad
– User interface: The touch screen needs to be as good as the iPad
– Evolution: We can’t have 200 different ROMs for the PlayBook, it’ll need to be easily and swiftly upgraded to support new features as necessary
– Apps: Yes it’s got Air, Flash, WebWorks and Java … but will the developers take to it? The 6-month lead time certainly gives companies time to build for it.
Read the full RIM PlayBook release.
And here are the basic specifications:
– 7″ LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
– BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
– 1 GHz dual-core processor
– 1 GB RAM
– Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
– Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
– Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
– HDMI video output
– Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
– Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
– Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
– Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
Ultra thin and portable:
– Measures 5.1″x7.6″x0.4″ (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
– Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
– Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
– RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.
What are you thinking about the PlayBook?
