BlackBerry PlayBook: Looks Good on Paper, But…

February 2, 2011 at 3:50 am PT

The PlayBook’s hardware specs might beat anything on the market, its QNX OS might be rock solid and its “Web fidelity” might outshine that of the iPad, but Research in Motion’s forthcoming “professional tablet” will be poorly received when it finally ships. This according to Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair, who believes the device to be signifigantly flawed and claims it will be “dead on arrival.”

A scathing appraisal, but Blair has his reasons.

The PlayBook’s lack of native calendar and email applications, a core RIM strength that has oddly been left out of the device’s first iteration.
The need to tether it to a BlackBerry to access those applications, a feature intended to appeal to enterprise by obviating the need for additional security measures, but one that will inevitably alientate non-BlackBerry users.
A profound lack of applications and a sub-par application storefront.
No easy mechanism for content delivery and consumption. “How will users get music or movies on there?” Blair asks. “Through the BlackBerry Desktop download manager? Well, we have tried this and it isn’t easy.”

(Considered drag-and-drop, Brian? Not the most elegant solution, I know, but a solution nonetheless).

These are the makings of a sharply inferior tablet, Blair argues. To launch it in a market alongside the likes of the iPad and its successor, as well as with forthcoming offerings from HP’s Palm unit and Motorola, is folly.

“The PlayBook demo impresses many people, including many tech writers, and we believe it’s because of the outstanding multitasking capability that is showcased in a coverflow manner,” Blair concludes. “This slickly shows apps running in the background while a main app runs in the foreground. While we agree this is a leap over what other tablet operating systems can do, we see it as a visual ‘smoke and mirrors’ because of the aforementioned shortfalls in getting content onto the device, offering limited applications, and excluding a native email application. In short, the PlayBook’s screen and hardware specs and multitasking capability look excellent on paper, but without the other pieces to the puzzle, it feels in many ways like an expensive web browser.”

Tagged with: Apple, applications, appraisal, apps, Blackberry, BlackBerry Feature, Brian Blair, calendar, capability, digital, email, hardware, Hewlett-Packard, HP, inferior, innovation, iPad, John Paczkowski, multitasking, OS, PlayBook, QNX, Research In Motion, RIM, security, shortfalls, specs, storefront, tablet, Wedge Partners

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Anonymous

I’d like to introduce you to a new technology we call wi-fi.

Apple has invented this technology and is shipping millions of iPads that have only wi-fi – showing beyond all doubt the way of the future.

I think this garbage would be more acceptable if you just came out and admitted your agenda, and appealed to the world to join in your religious devotion to Apple. It would at least have the virtue of honesty..
Anonymous

Except in my employment, I can’t remember the last time I used an email client other than via the web. Consumers generally use web clients for email.

A primary advantage of the Playbook to enterprise is the fact it will be secure out of the box without needing to spend expensive IT dollars on securing the device.

And since the vast majority of enterprises still use BlackBerry as their primary communication device, the Playbook will be deployable within weeks of its release.

It’s actually a positive – not a negative.
Anonymous

Still holding that grudge I see James. You really should get over it.

Rumour has it that RIM was at the SAP sales meeting recently displaying Playbooks running Business Objects. Can you do that with the iPad?

Quite a few SAP apps were running on the Playbook. I suggest Playbook will very shortly become the way to use SAP. I recommend you get over your prejudice and start learning Flex/Flash.

Lots of SAP customers are investing heavily in Flash development. It’s the way of the future, and sadly none of those apps will run on the about to be defunct iPad but will run on the Playbook – and then some.

Steve Jobs really screwed up when he decided not to provide Flash support.
Anonymous

Quit posting under aliases Lazaridis ..
http://www.facebook.com/JayDook Jeremy Duke

I want to address each bullet point here is I may:
-As far as the lack of a native email or calendar app, head of Playbook product development Ryan Bidan confirms the Playbook will have a native email and calendar app when he states, “Yeah. Absolutely there will be a native email, calendar, contacts app…”
-Also, RIM’s core constituency is their Enterprise customers. RIM must please their core while trying to appeal to general consumers.
-No one has seen the storefront from the Playbook. We know it is App World, but we don’t know what it will look like and what functions/features it will have. As long as we have plenty of apps, and all the important ones, which we will, then the Playbook’s “lack of apps” is irrelevant to most. In fact, 300,000 apps.???? Unnecessary.
-The company producing the tablet and OS doesn’t have to (or need to) deliver the content too. It’s obvious this guy is used to way Apple controls things (I’m not knocking iTunes, it is central to their success)… Third parties are the ones that are supposed to deliver the content. But since, unlike iPads, Blackberrys function as removal disks drives, then put the videos on there (drag-n-drop), download them from the internet, download them on your home wifi, use Orb, use some other media server… etc etc . My point is there are multiple and many ways to get media onto the device. We don’t need one source feeding us our content or managing our media.
I share some of the same concerns outlined in this article, but this Brian fellow views the tablet as behind the curve when the Playbook is a beast, and a force to be reckoned with. But, fanbois will be fanbois ;)
http://www.facebook.com/JayDook Jeremy Duke

@jamesapple: Bluetooth tethering is far from old fashioned. Tell me, how do you tether your iPad? Oh wait…. Now if you had to used a wired connection with the Playbook, I would agree with you.. But you don’t…so I don’t agree with you. The Playbook functions as a standalone tablet or as an extension of your Blackberry handset… Why is this so hard to grasp for the Apple fanbois of the world?
http://www.facebook.com/JayDook Jeremy Duke

Apparently he has to have media and content fed to him by daddy Jobs….
http://www.facebook.com/JayDook Jeremy Duke

7 inch is a different segment of the market, and larger Playbooks are being released later this year…. the size has nothing to do with the caliber of the machine. Too bad your big @$$ iPad has a quarter of the RAM and a single core-processor, but hey… And I am aware that the iPad two will have better specs, but this 7″ from RIM is class leading at the moment
Anonymous

See how nicely iTunes syncs up your BB when called by the Desktop Manager? Now if Apple decides to treat the BB Desktop Manager differently and disallows iTunes to sync up your BB Torch, guess what? You have to buy a iPhone then in order to sync up with the MacBook. Count your blessings that you have a MacBook so that your BB Torch is forgiven. Apple always treat MacBook users extra nicely.
Anonymous

You should take your MacBook out to a candlelight dinner to show your appreciation of those wonderful playlists. I know that you are a plastic keyboard addict. You should try out the awesome 2 pound light MacBook Air. It’s a dream.
Anonymous

Buy ten Playbooks and get ten Playbooks free. Now there would be enough materials to build yourself a staircase to the basement made of cheaper costs than slabs of stones.
Anonymous

You have a much brighter future as a spelling checker than finding my typos.
Anonymous

Netflix is one of the Rosetta stones for qualification of a modern day tablet. Methinks you are a rabbi trying to preach in a Country Club.
Anonymous

Dude – you’re 100% wrong here. This is not a case of the Palm Pre syncing natively with iTunes.

RIM simply reads the XML files that define the playlists in iTunes and syncs those files. It ain’t rocket science, and Apple is not involved in any way.
Anonymous

People should know by now that Apple is for the Affluent and Sophisticated. Stop envying Apple. The aspiring and the have-nots seem to have a fiery fervent drive and tons of motives in criticizing the Affluent and Sophisticated. It’s pitiful to see the march of the Apple Wannabes.

Do Billionaires criticize a BMW? No billionaire would buy a BMW duplica even if it is built better.

Although imitation is the highest form of flattery, but it is never flattering to wear an imitation, and the Taiwanese Playbook is an iPad imitation among 50 other copycats.

There are ten thousand ways to achieve success, but only one inferior way to imitate success, and it is never flattering at all.
Anonymous

I have been a certified SAP ABAP Specialist for almost 18 years. Your information on BO and Flex are confused. That’s your problem, not mine.

What amazes me is your suggestion in running Flash Islands and applications on a 7″ screen. If I could invite you to a solution architectures meeting, I would. I love to see how the solution architects and the end users would agree for once unanimously in taking your head off your shoulders in trying to make them use Flash on a 7″ screen, WebDynpro for Java or ABAP, or BO webi’s. LOL !!!
Anonymous

One final verdict is, Playbook is not an app-machine, it is a Blackberry with a larger screen.

iPad is an app-machine, and increasingly, apps are the clouds. I’ve seen Rim’s advertisements on the idea of their ‘super apps’, their idea is still designed on monolithic structured processes and tasks. Those are not apps, they can never be clouds. I’ve been assigned to convert monolithic programmers to OO and component-based programmers and architects. 90% of them can only think monolithic but only a tiny handful can think OO and component. It’s not hard to establish a SOA or ESOA, but it’s the majority of monolithic architects and programmers who are incapable of thinking OO and component, thus making it very difficult to code Clouds.

iPad is a great cloud, an untethered cloud. Everything Rim makes is anti-cloud, starting with BES.
Anonymous

Ughhh…your tired, old “affluent and sophisticated” argument AGAIN?

If you’d allow me to make an assumption here, James…

I believe you to be a 50+ year-old IT “manager”, without a 4-year, higher education degree, apprenticed into the corporate business environment. Heck, you might be out of the business world just teaching “IT classes” on the side…

But honestly, I don’t work in an IT environment so you would think I would be attracted to the “simplistic” world of AAPL, but frankly I’m not. I consider myself sophisticated in the sense that I can choose what product is best for my uses and the right price for it. Why should I spend extra money on something that forces me to use it like Steve Jobs thinks I should, when I can save money, get the same benefits, and use it however I like?

Good riddance to your bizarre-o conclusions and I’m sincerely sorry that you have fallen victim to “AAPL deceptive marketing.”
Anonymous

Stick with your email Plaything and don’t look beyond your plastic keyboard. Canadian companies like Rim are either going bankrupt one by one, or sold off on the cheap 5 cents on a dollar.
Anonymous

Actually a post last year outed Jamesapple as a ex-RIM employee that was terminated for behavioral issues. He is in his mid-20′s and obviously still hasn’t found employment due to the amount of drivel he posts.

I swear does any of it even make sense at this point??

Just act like he’s a pan handler and walk on by.
http://www.facebook.com/terrence.holder Terrence Holder

OMG some of us dont like to sync… I drag an drop on my BB and my ipod dammit.

But does it matter? really? seriously? its like evryone is jus super nitpicking! the ipad has serious flaws like most !st gen apple stuff… an so will the PB.

IF U DONT LIKE ONE BUY THE OTHER AND SHUT UP WHEN SUMONE WHO LIKES THE OTHER BUYS IT!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/terrence.holder Terrence Holder

When doid drag an drop become bad lol…? i remember ppl not buying ipod touch due to lack of mass storage not so long ago an going for classics. now its no issue??? drag an drop is bad now? one guy was even arguing that some ppl cant get it done… yea caus syncing is soooo much easier. lol. i sit on the fence between mac an pc, but brain washing always amuses me!
Anonymous

Hmmm….

Stick with your terribly auto-correcting touch screen, strict ecosystem that doesn’t allow you think “outside the box”, inferior software, and f@rt and p00p apps.

Different strokes, different folks

I like to believe that I’m productive and I like hardware and software that can keep up.
Anonymous

It already went on sale I think. I’m not hearing much about it. Kinda under whelming response I think.
Anonymous

If you wish to use RIM tools (BES corporate email, BBM) you probably already own a blackberry. There are 60 million of us. If you don’t, I think the next generation Blackberry’s with QNX operating system will convince you.

BlackBerry PlayBook: Looks Good on Paper, But…

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