In a research note issued this morning, Peter Misek of Jeffries said early indications from retailers and others point toward pent-up demand for the device. “We were optimistic about the PlayBook but were still surprised at how positive the feedback has been from the channel and retailers regarding the product,” he writes. “Many view the tethering as a positive since it does not require a separate data plan, and enterprises see it as an easy fit into their existing security and device management protocols.”

Misek, too, expects the PlayBook to launch in April. And he doesn’t seem much bothered by predictions that it will be “dead on arrival.” The PlayBook isn’t going to be a flop, he said. And there are four reasons why:

1. It’s effectively a PC category player. Therefore any sales are incremental and importantly create new avenues of growth and expansion.
2. It’s been a success with enterprises that have trialed it.
3. Its lack of native calendar and email applications isn’t the deficit that it’s been made out to be, since accessing those functions from a browser as one might do on a PC is logical and easy.
4. It will account for far less than 10 percent of sales and earnings in even the most optimistic models on the Street.

Plausible reasons, certainly. But ones potentially subsumed by a few remaining wild cards Misek doesn’t note: price (not specified beyond RIM’s co-CEO’s claim of “under $500″), battery life (also not yet specified), the size of the PlayBook’s app ecosystem (will it support Android apps?) and the breadth of its distribution channel.

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.”

Next Issue‘s initial incarnation will only work for devices running Google’s Android software, CEO Morgan Guenther tells me.

It’s not a technical issue, Guenther says, because “we’re ready to support Apple as well,” and he says he’s confident that will happen. But “Android is a very important tablet platform, and a very important platform for smartphones.” (Read Walt Mossberg’s review of Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy Tab.)

Guenther wouldn’t disclose other details about his launch, but you don’t have to squint to read between the lines here. The takeaway is that Google has been flexible on the business issues that are important to the publishers that own his company. And that Apple’s not there yet.

The key split, still: Publishers want the ability to sell their tablet magazines directly to consumers, or at least to be able to access the data that iTunes collects when it sells them.

Some publishers tell me that Apple’s stance has softened somewhat since this summer, when the company refused to let Time Warner’s Sports Illustrated sell subscriptions for its app. But that hasn’t led to any real concessions so far.

If you buy a subscription to Newsweek’s iPad app, for instance, the publisher has no idea who you are or how to reach you: Apple keeps all the data, as well as 30 percent of every dollar.

Presumably Guenther and his publishers are hoping sales of their magazines take off on Android tablets and phones, giving them leverage in discussions with Apple. And that seems to be what Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was getting at it with his oblique but pointed comments last week.

But all of this wrangling may be non-issues if publishers can’t figure out how to come up with digital magazines that people are interested in, at a price they’ll pay. Aside from a few outliers like Condé Nast’s Wired, early sales numbers from iPad magazines haven’t blown anyone away.

[Image credit: Hard seat sleeper]

Sources familiar with the retailer’s plans tell me, and The Wall Street Journal as well, that it’s putting the finishing touches on an Android app store that will compete with Google’s (GOOG) own Android Market. No word yet on the storefront’s name, but I’m told Amazon (AMZN) hopes to open it relatively soon–perhaps even before the end of the month.

Apple (AAPL) could announce a print-subscription offering as early as the next month or two, some of the people familiar with the matter said. One of these people cautioned that Apple is still working on the technology and may prefer to announce its periodical service early next year, along with the likely introduction of a new iPad.

The subscription push appears to be a sign that newspapers and magazines will be Apple’s next front in its sale of media like music, television shows, movies and books.

A hub for buying newspapers and magazines–similar to Apple’s iBooks storefront–also could help the iPad stand out from a coming wave of rival tablet computers backed by Google Inc.’s (GOOG) software.

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