PlayBook Launch Strategy Revealed: Delayed Gratification!

April 20, 2011 at 1:05 pm PT

Despite a launch marred by lousy execution, PR gaffes and middling reviews, there’s still promise in Research in Motion’s PlayBook–particularly once the company addresses its early shortcomings.

First-day sales weren’t jaw-dropping–estimates range from 30,000-50,000 units sold, including pre-orders–but the consensus seems to be that they’ll ramp up as RIM gets the PlayBook to where it really should have been at launch, the marketing efforts take hold and distribution, evidently quite limited yesterday, expands.

One of the many analyst notes I read in prepping this post included an entire section entitled “Delayed Gratification,” if that gives you a better idea of the thinking here. Rushing the PlayBook to market was unwise and RIM will pay for that in the short term. But in the long term?

“After ‘playing’ with the PlayBook for the past few days, we largely concur with most of the reviews of the device,” says Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt. “Its application selection is poor in both quality and quantity currently, which limit its consumer appeal relative to the iPad2. However, everything else about it is really high quality and innovative. In our opinion, this device is an Amazon app (for ebooks, movies, tv, etc…) and a native PIM app away from being a serious competitor to iPad2, both of which we suspect are coming over the next few months.”

[Image credit: Illustration by Joy of Tech]

Tagged with: BlackBerry PlayBook, delayed gratification, hardware, John Paczkowski, PlayBook, Research In Motion, RIM, Tavis McCourt

comments so far. Add yours.

Anonymous

Of course the Playbook will be a contender to the pathetically flawed iPad 2. The Playbook is a better product, hands down. The iPad 2 will be old news soon.
http://twitter.com/sanelly Sanel Selimovic

I see, and how exactly is iPad 2 flawed? What criteria are you using to define Playbook as “better” product? What need does the Playbook meet that HP Web OS can’t, that Android, Windows or iOS can’t? What incentive is there to a developer to write applications for a 5th platform? How does RIM intend to build an integrated and consistent user experience across all it’s devices? How exactly is the Playbook price competitive with the iPad for instance? I don’t think that a smaller screen at same cost is exactly competitive.

All of this before one even begins to consider hundreds of thousands of applications built for Android and iOS over the past 3 to 4 years that extend the features and functionality of those two platforms beyond anything RIM offers out of the box.
Anonymous

So the iPad 2, which hit the ground running with millions in sales, is flawed and the incomplete, rushed to market, RIM PlayBook is not? And that makes it better how? It will be fun

Wow, RIM must really have it’s social marketing people out spamming reviews, trying to cover their tracks after such a bad launch.
Anonymous

John

AAPL missed analysts estimates, rather significantly, on sales of iPad 2. My thought people are considering Playbook and Xoom in droves. What are your thoughts???

Why did you leave Abramsky’s view of Playbook aka the other half of the article above – out of this post??

freddysrevng
Anonymous

John

One more quick “housekeeping” question. Why would people buy an iPhone 4 with the iPhone 5 coming out in September? It sounds like it will have number of improvements…Your thoughts??? Thanks, as always.

freddysrevng
http://twitter.com/sanelly Sanel Selimovic

I wouldn’t worry about it too much. After all they are reporting quarterly numbers and iPad 2 has only been out for about a month. I would also venture a guess people stopped buying the first gen in the month or two leading up to iPad 2 in anticipation of new device. Combine that with the earthquake and you can see how they missed out.

I don’t own their stock but I don’t have much concern for the largest most profitable corporation in the world. I’m sure they and their stock holders will do just dandy when Lion is released, iPods, iPhone and iMacs are refreshed.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_47XHGLZVO6IUYLMWVUYFVN5LQU Dr No

Just look at the increasingly juvenile comments by RIM fanboys (like SpaceFace here) all over the internet, and it will tell you all you need to know about the failure of a once relevant company. The PlayToy is another flop in a long line of flops that occur every time RIM tries to directly challenge a superior Apple product. Just look at the failures of the Storm, Storm2, and Torch for examples of where the PlayToy is headed. It’s all over but the crying for RIM, the smart and lucky investors saw the writing on the wall late last year and dumped their shares. The ones still clinging to theirs are left to troll comment sections of the various financial websites and post the type of desperate, delusional nonsense we see scattered above. Sad.
Chris

“Why would people buy an iPhone 4 with the iPhone 5 coming out in September?”

First, a September iPhone is just rumor. Second, you must not own much technology. There is always something better around the corner. iPhone 4 is great today. I’m sure iPhone 5 will be great whenever it is released.
Anonymous

I have never thought that the iPad was a poor product, only focused on entertainment and not “real” work.

The Playbook is intended for adults and won’t have the mass consumer appeal the iPad has. However, the initial version of the product is clearly intended for currents users and subscripted Corporations. Other features and functions will come along in the next few months widening the appeal and increase volumes.

Comparing the iPad to the Playbook is like comparing a Gameboy to an electric shaver.
Anonymous

Apple sold every iPad they could build. They sold more iPads this last quarter than the PlayBook will sell all year. Ditto for the Xoom.
http://nigeltufnel.myopenid.com/ Nigel Tufnel

The PlayBook is, at best, equal to the iPad2 in terms of hardware (dual-core CPU, but it seems the iPad2 GPU trounces any other tablet out there). But in terms of software, I think a good argument can be made it’s not even up to the standards of what you can run right now on and iPad1. So let’s recap: they can (maybe) equal Apple on hardware, but they can’t beat Apple on software (quality OR quantity), price, battery life, or integration. So please tell me again specifically how they PlayBook is a “better” product than the iPad2?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_47XHGLZVO6IUYLMWVUYFVN5LQU Dr No

Just look at the increasingly juvenile comments by RIM fanboys all over the internet, and it will tell you all you need to know about the failure of a once relevant company. The PlayToy is another flop in a long line of flops that occur every time RIM tries to directly challenge a superior Apple product. Just look at the failures of the Storm, Storm2, and Torch for examples of where the PlayToy is headed. It’s all over but the crying for RIM, the smart and lucky investors saw the writing on the wall late last year and dumped their shares. The ones still clinging to theirs are left to troll comment sections of the various financial websites and post the type of desperate, delusional nonsense we see scattered above. Sad.
Anonymous

Anyone that writes “real work”, doesn’t do real work or real research into their opinions.

My opinion is only bolstered by the Gameboy reference. Real adults that do real work wouldn’t have even thought to make a Gameboy analogy.
Anonymous

Paid astroturfer. New profile and only 6 comments, all on this website and all about RIM.
http://profiles.google.com/harry.j5555 Harry J

You must be a juvenile Apple fan boy as well!
Anonymous

The Playbooks underlying OS is better than iOS and Android and in some respects even its core software beats the competitors.

As for developers, Objective C and Java Android developers are about to be swamped in a sea of HTML5+ apps.

And what incentive is their for developers to build any app? You really think 300,000 apps is good for developers. Most make almost nothing from their apps.

Apps are a phenomenon that will die over the next few years as developers begin to realise the folly of their hard work.

And anyway, why spend weeks building C code when you can churn out web based apps in days.

“I don’t think that a smaller screen at same cost is exactly competitive”

Check it out. It’s actually harder to squeeze all that power in a small unit. Apple couldn’t do it and so stuck with 10″ even though they knew it would marginalise a huge segment of the market. Do you really want to carry around a laptop size tablet?

For those of use that don’t use a lot of 3rd party apps and use BlackBerry, the device blows away iPad2.

If you absolutely must have an email client (does anyone use client email these days) then it may not be the best choice for you.

60 million BlackBerry users isn’t such a bad target market.
Anonymous

Well our SVP refused to buy the iPad because it was too big for enterprise use.

Who wants to look like a geek wandering around with a huge tablet. It may to “real work”, but it’s clearly targeted at 15-25 year old males. It’s software is fairly obviously designed for that segment.

The Playbook on the other hand looks cool. And is terrific for presentations.
Anonymous

I guess we’ll see with Apple’s next quarter then right as it should have the full launch for iPad included.

The fact is Apple rushed iPad 2 out with low inventory. So yeah when you don’t have a huge stock you sell every one you make. Pushing it out to other countries only thined already low stock out.

The trade off is lines and manufactured “hype” media reports huge demand, people think it’s the next best thing – driving demand. Didn’t any of you people take economics?

Knock RIM for lack of marketing and missing software but Playbook has a solid hardware foundation. The screen is gorgeous.
Anonymous

The only people who are waiting on iPad 2 are waiting in line right now at Apple Stores, even after a month. If you even know about another tablet, you know not to wait. An iPad 2 has a 2 year life, during which time, nothing will be competitive.

The current earnings only include 15 days of iPad 2 sales in the US and one day in a small selection of other countries, yet they sold 5 million. That’s a 120 million per year pace. And they could have sold more if they could have made more at this early stage.
Anonymous

A device with half the screen and battery life for the same price is not competitive. Even if it had the same apps.

It needs to have Netflix and Hulu and a desktop class office suite and some way to use the cameras (!) and it needs to cost $349.
Anonymous

Why would people buy any phone, when there is always a new one coming out every 3 months? Because they need a phone, duh. iPhone is the best phone on the market. Square the circle.

And at least with iPhone you get regular software updates for 3 years, like iOS v5 in September.

Please try harder. That is a comically bad troll.
Anonymous

The PlayBook does not even have a presentations app, and PlayBook is crashy. iPad has Keynote, the best presentations app in the world, the app Al Gore used for An Inconvenient Truth. The inconvenient truth is you have not even used a PlayBook to do a presentation.

Anyone who thinks iPad is big has missed the point that it is the smallest PC in the world. It is not a big phone like PlayBook. iPad is the size and thickness of a paper magazine.
Anonymous

That is the most juvenile yet. You just proved his point.
Anonymous

Hundreds of thousands are useless fart apps, you pathetic appletard. Playbook has real multi-tasking (iPad is a joke), supports flash, had good quality cameras, and better UI, better quality screen. the list goes on.
Anonymous

Playbook has true multi-tasking. The iToy is a joke. The Playbook has great quality cameras, both supporting 1080p. The iToy does not. The Playbook screen is crisper and better than the iToy. The Playbook supports Flash. The iToy does not. The Playbook has as many useful apps as the iToy. The rest of the iToy apps are for fart game lovers (like you). Playbook = Ferrari; iToy = Pinto.
Anonymous

Playbook has true multi-tasking. The iToy is a joke. The Playbook has great quality cameras, both supporting 1080p. The iToy does not. The Playbook screen is crisper and better than the iToy. The Playbook supports Flash. The iToy does not. The Playbook has as many useful apps as the iToy. The rest of the iToy apps are for fart game lovers (like you). Playbook = Ferrari; iToy = Pinto.
Anonymous

You are an Apple lemming, with no brain of your own. Go try a Playbook. You will never want to touch a POS iToy 2 again.
Anonymous

Right on br14. And as for the missing email, wait 2 months. Issue solved.
Anonymous

The real issue was APples ramp up of the iPad 2 and people knowing it would come soon. The PlayBook and Xoom have almost no bearing on any of Apples performance. Very few people are considering these. It is already believed that Apple is ramping up additional product so that it can double or more production of shipping units.
Anonymous

That hardware means nothing without software. Spec ahead of usefulness, the old PC fail game. I hope you enjoy looking at it while the features it should have had in software are slowly added over the next year.
http://twitter.com/sanelly Sanel Selimovic

Well, I for instance have not owned any of the previous generation iPhones, despite being called an Apple-tard. I’ve been an owner of RIM products for 4 years. In those 4 years I’ve seen Android and iPhone leapfrog RIM by miles, nothing RIM put out is even remotely competitive to those phones.

But anyways, for one reason or another I never bought into iPhone. I’m actually at a point now in life where I want one and can actually afford one, however, I choose not to buy the 4th generation with 5th one coming out in either June or September. I’ve waited 4 years, I sure as hell can wait till September. I realize my situation is unique, but there are also plenty of people that didn’t jump on board with iPhone 4 for Verizon using the same logic.

I am also of the belief that just because my contract is up does not mean I *must* instantly go out and buy the top of the line product out there. I can wait a few weeks or months for a product I actually want rather than settle for what’s best out there on that very day.
http://twitter.com/sanelly Sanel Selimovic

Good point, the Xoom sold about 100,000 units or less.
http://twitter.com/sanelly Sanel Selimovic

Ok so I won’t stoop so low as you in calling people names. You know nothing about me and I am hardly an Apple fan boy. My argument above would hold just as well if we focus only on Android as a platform. The crux of the argument is thus: RIM is not competitive against two major market leaders at all. They are already 3 years behind Android and 4 years behind iOS, they would need the same amount of time to catch up and I can’t even begin to imagine Android devices 4 years from now.

I agree that Flash support is a big omission on iOS but it’s available on Android so there is already a major platform supporting Flash, soon to become number 1 platform, that already meets almost everything you have outlined above with the exception of a better UI, in my opinion.
http://twitter.com/sanelly Sanel Selimovic

I agree that the usability is superior to that of Android and possibly even WebOS. I think you are right, in long term, that HTML5 apps are the next logical step in evolution of these apps. I happen to be a UI person and some of the companies I work with are already moving on to prototyping apps in HTML5 rather than developing for each individual platform.

My concern there is that Apple is a notoriously closed system and despite being so locked down it’s had tremendous success of getting customers into its walled garden. That, I think, is incentive enough for them to maintain and build up the ecosystem of self-contained application packages rather than HTML apps. The reason they could pull that off is the same reason they can get away with pricing structure of iTunes. The customer buy-in into Apple products is already so large and people’s investment in iTunes music, Applications and Movies is already so substantial that it becomes cost-prohibitive to just up and leave a platform.

I think this presents a real long-term danger to success of HTML5 applications on iOS devices.
Anonymous

It shows how little you know about Playbook. It comes out of the box with Documents to Go Premium edition which includes PowerPoint.

Keynote is nice (on a Mac) but Apple limited the iOS version. A ton of functionality is missing and good luck making changes without messing up your deck.

So to recap. No need to spend $10 on an app for this functioanlity, no need to buy a $40 dongle to output to a projector and the Playbook app has better functionality.
Anonymous

Wrong, wrong, wrong .. again! RIM IS competitive NOW. QNX is far superior to iOS. FAR FAR superior. The UI is fantastic, and once the missing pieces are there, the Playbook will be the #1 tablet. iOS is a dinosaur, and the iPad 2 is a toy for kids.
Anonymous

Regardless of which product you prefer, who can argue with buying an IPad2 at 70-95% off retail price? We have almost 20 of them up for sale starting May 19th. We have a preview page up at http://Bid-Bob.com. If you win one of our IPad2′s, odds are your total cost is somewhere between $80 and $150.

PlayBook Launch Strategy Revealed: Delayed Gratification!

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