PlayBook and BlackBerry working together: Very swish

There’s been quite a lot of concern in the marketplace about how the PlayBook will ‘work’ with email, with a data connection and so on.

As the launch of the PlayBook gets nearer, it’s getting pretty clear that RIM have really thought about how many of their executives will be using the device in concert with their BlackBerry.

It’s an utter dream for the enterprise IT guys. An utter dream.

There’s no new thinking required to deploy a PlayBook (vs the total nightmare that is Apple iPad).

How does it work? Simple. You connect both your PlayBook and your BlackBerry together. Once they’re connected — boom — that’s it. Your email appears precisely as it does on your BlackBerry. It’s still going through the BES/BIS. It’s still running through your corporate systems. It’s still ‘secure’. No need to activate an IMAP server or open up ActiveSync for every user or all that jazz.

RIM have released a video demonstrating just how swish the whole thing is. Have a look:

I know some readers will be thinking, ‘What, the PlayBook doesn’t run independently?’ — however I really can see the logic. I haven’t yet met an executive who *lives* on his or her iPad. They still use their BlackBerry, their laptop, their desktop — as *well* as the iPad. The iPad might be used in meetings, on the train, or at home. The PlayBook will most probably be used in a similar set of use cases. Therefore whenever it needs a connection, it just needs to hop on to your existing BlackBerry. Which, of course, is never more than 5ft away from any ‘connected’ executive.

It’s all looking rather good.

There are a lot of outstanding questions of course. But I think they’ll be answered when we see the PlayBook in the flesh at MWC.