[tgtallinn]

I can't help but think that future is more on 8" tablets than superphones, because of the screen real estate. But it seems that RIMM is committed resources to phone only and don't have a multidevice vision anymore whereas they were pioneering it and this was the most interesting in the playbook approach: how to deliver the value with minimal redundancy (even though they may have been more margin and security driven), which can be quite appealing to the markets RIMM is currently succeeding in.

I also think that this screen real estate makes it more prone to buy applications on a tablet than on a smartphone where free apps dominates. This is my gut feeling about why iOS store dominates Google store: it has more tablet backing. It might not be right for the music though, but clearing for gaming the playbook form factor is the best, and most of app sales are there. Professional apps are there too (see car use, or look at package delivery devices).

I really miss that jolla was dumb enough to try yet another smartphone and not trying complementing Rimm while seeing it dropping tablets. Because they could have licensed the bb10, making the bb10 port and adding their extensions thanks to their Qt knowledge, but saved ressources on OS front. And then they could have extend to cheap non redundant feature+ phones as a complement of the tablet where RIMM probably wouldn't have gone. But I digress.

Here is the situation:
- I want to listen to music with my speaker, i need a music gateway.
- I want to watch a movie while reading new on the tablet, I will need a miracast dongle to hook to my tv, and eventually a router if I stream the movie. Or I will need a new expensive tv where a dumb panel can be enough (even for 3d).
- I want to shout casual movies (including 3d) or picture, I need a camera,
- I want to draw, I use a wacom like tablet (not a galaxy note!). Well resistive techno a la touchco or stantum looks a better fit than capacitive.
I can add trackpad use... and a lot of other devices that could all be resume to 4 devices to cover the needs with minimal redundancies, thus consumer cost, thus competitive advantage compared to companies betting all on a single device designed in isolation.

These are
- a dumb tv panel, cheap, maybe with a webcam on top of it.
- a featurephone+ (basically the price of a miracast dongle + lte stack), not that expensive, to act as a dumbphone, lte router and miracast and take the above camera input. No touchscreen, not much memory nor huge powerful soc needed so price can be low.
- a 8" tablet (can act as penpad, tablet, desktop) with big soc, wifi stack only, and cameras
- a full size wirelesss keyboard, cheap
...
so once home I plug the phone to the dock next to the tv that is connected to the hdmi of the tv, the speakers and the webcam. And I use the tablet (which could handle the phone calls as well...) on the couch as a tablet or a track/pen pad with the wireless keyboard.

Now a tablet on a 8" 16/10 we can probably reach paperback size B tablet (about the current size of the playbook) while having the size of a paperback A fully utilizable screen (just puck a pocket book on top of the playbook to vizualize it), sharp izgo techno can help for small bottom bezel. Then supporting a UWXGA resolution shall be more than enough to cover all needs while not pushing too hard on the pixel count to stress GPU and require battery life.

So who will support this vision? Can RIMM reinvest back to tablet once pockets are refilled with bb10 phones to go back to the maybe initial playbook vision?

[GreyGhostRos]

No one can say what RIM is going to do in the future. For now confirmed is BB10 phones for Q1..
Their roadmap however did so a future Playbook.. I think it was 10"..
RIM tried their hand at the tablet market with the Playbook which obviously didn't go too well but maybe with a better ecosystem which they hope to get with bb10 maybe their next will go off better..

And personally I wouldn't let go off my phones for any screen real estate.. A phone in my opinion is meant to fit in your pocket. I would personally find it idiotic to use a device like the galaxy note as a phone.

[Xopher]

Don't forget that BB10 is coming to the PlayBook. Also, they just released the newest PlayBook with an updated processor, wireless data, and I think it also added NFC. There is also another PlayBook in the 2013 roadmap.

Right now, the concentration is on phones and BB10. They have to get those out, and done right. Just because that's all we're hearing about right now doesn't mean they don't have plans for continuing the PlayBook.

[TgeekB]

Their concentration right now is getting BB10 out on the new phones as this is the only thing that will keep them in the game. Without this being successful, there are no future tablets...or anything else. I'm sure there are future plans but we will have to wait to see what those are.

[FF22]

No one can say what RIM is going to do in the future. For now confirmed is BB10 phones for Q1..
Their roadmap however did so a future Playbook.. I think it was 10"..
RIM tried their hand at the tablet market with the Playbook which obviously didn't go too well but maybe with a better ecosystem which they hope to get with bb10 maybe their next will go off better..

And personally I wouldn't let go off my phones for any screen real estate.. A phone in my opinion is meant to fit in your pocket. I would personally find it idiotic to use a device like the galaxy note as a phone.

THAT! Besides my normal, everyday activities which don't always want to be bogged down with something larger than a phone, I hike, bike and cross-country ski and don't need the weight or potential breakage of a tablet along for the ride. I want something discrete and "pocketable or daypackable."

I've been checking out friends' Android phones and find it fascinating that a few years ago everyone wanted the smallest, tiniest phones imaginable and now they are growing. Obviously reading the web on a phone with a larger size is desirable but how big is too big?

[CairnsRock]

Thor was asked directly in one of his interviews last week, if RIM plans to introduce new tablets. He said "we are still thinking about that" So a solid maybe.

[tgtallinn]

I see such citation rather as a step to give up this market given past failure and investment capacity. But the tablet market can only be win with persistence. I read that 2 years ago and I think this is very true but I hope rim still has what it takes to persists. And I'm amused how companies are still not understanding it fully making 180O like apple on ipad mini, or blindly churning form factors like samsung, or entering the tablet market with saying this is not a tablet this is a laptop (bye bye sinofsky, and yet there was the courier...). Somehow I was thinking that RIM had a better intuition there and a good complement with a bold / playbook tethered approach (although the app. partitioning was wrong).
But a committed company would have said something clearer than "we are thinking of it" that put me in a limbo state feeling. As a developer I see more value in developing for tablets that can hook with a large screen to have a dual screen applications rather than a phone because of the real estate of a tablet. In his interview he is talking about a doctor in hospital seeing his patient with his phone. Personally i would have rather imagined the use case with a tablet in his pocket to display the radios, temperature curves and others data to see more stuff. To a certain extent i see the will to support the playbook with bb10 with side comment that nothing shall happen soon with a 2+ year old hardware (not that of an issue besides the screen resolution though) rather than a set back than a move forward. And I feel low interest in investing development in a phone that won't be backed by a tablet.
So while I still think tablet market is open, I don't think this will be the case in 6-9 months from now, and this is why I wish to have some clarity on RIM strategy as a platform. Because now I only see the phone and maybe serialized a 2y+ hw OS refresh, thus with no app, a the end of the tablet market window.

[Emu the Foo]

I remember when everyone wanted the smallest. The Motorola startac and the V. I think 4.5 is pretty much too big. I'm 6'2" and I don't want to be seen pulling a phone out if my back pocket

[RubberChicken76]

He has to figure out how to make money at this game.

It's great that so many of us got cheap PlayBooks, but RIM lost money on them. The hardware was not cheap to build. And with this android spec/price war happening, things are only going to get worse as they try to outdo each other with hardware while dropping the price.

Apple is the leader and can sell at a premium ... and improve their margins due to high volumes and ecosystem sales from music, movie rentals, textbooks and apps.

Amazon and Google are selling at a loss or break-even and hoping to subsidize with their own ecosystems.

RIM doesn't have an ecosystem to use to subsidize PlayBook. I like my PlayBook fine and use it all the time. But from a business perspective, why would Thorsten continue to dump time and money into it after BB10 phones are out?

[vespajet]

If they weren't committed to tablets, they never would have brought the 4G LTE version of the PlayBook out nor would they be putting BB10 on the PlayBook in the near future. One thing to note is that the PlayBook is from the old culture at RIM. If the two-headed monster that was the CEO position at RIM were still running things, they probably would have already put the first BB10 phones on the market and really make the consumers their beta testers. The PlayBook was rushed to market and as a result, it had negative consequences for RIM, the BlackBerry brand as well as the users of their products. Many of us bought the PlayBook in the first few months of it hitting the market based on the promises of what the device was going to be capable of. PlayBook OS 1 was pretty much an extended Beta test and it took the much delayed release of OS 2 to finally start delivering on the promises that sold the device to the early adopters. The downside of early adoption can be buying a product and seeing it a few months down the road start being sold for a lot less than what you paid for it (Well at least we didn't get as raw of a deal as the HP TouchPad early adopters did.....).

I think that we will continue to see RIM support a tablet within their product line as it is expected for smartphone makers to also have a tablet in their product lineup.

[kill_9]

Thorsten Heins is committed to building a mobile computing platform but whether the platform includes a tablet or merely a smartphone has not been clarified yet.

[xKrNMBoYx]

LOL..where did this "future" in 8" tablets come from? Because the iPad Mini is 8"? What is so important about your vision that someone needs to support it?

[randall2580]

If you hear anytime Thorsten speaks about the future of RIM he always speaks of the "mobile computing platform" that runs on smartphones, tablets and more. I think after they get the phones out, BB10 will give them an opportunity to get the next gen of BB tablets that will do anything and everything the others do, hopefully. No sideloading. No emulators. If we believe Alex and Thorsten all of the major apps will be available on BB10, which IMHO was the major reason the PB didn't catch on.

[312Lorden]

Thorsten Heins is committed to building a mobile computing platform but whether the platform includes a tablet or merely a smartphone has not been clarified yet.

_______

I say it will include both. Blackberry will find itself a small, but profitably sustainable niche.

[bdguru]

I hope so. I have the 16gb version. When BB10 is launched I would love to have a keyboard phone and a 32gb PlayBook to go with it

[Bumble2000]

I think the question of tablets or not rests entirely on the success of BB10 on the smartphone. If that is successful, RIM will have a strong basis of market support to build new tablets (7" form factor or otherwise). From a technology point of view, if BB10 is successful the tablet is a relatively small R&D investment as the underlying OS driving both smart phone and tablet will be common. Clearly 1Q BB10 will be critical and if I'm not mistaken, RIM indicated in their past quarterly report that they will be spending close to $1Billion to support the BB10 launch. So I'm very optimistic that they will learn from their past missteps and really hit a home run. Someone once said, I believe correctly, that 'when you succeed you party, but when you fail, you ponder' -- and grow. Coming back from missteps is a challenge that is not unique to RIM, Apple was in much worse state financially before Jobs came back, IBM was equally in perilous situation in the early 90's before Gerstner came in, just to name a couple of well-known examples.

My bet is with RIM and I'm unequivocally pulling for them.

[ChainPunch]

I think RIM wants to be out of the hardware business of making tablets, which makes sense in that they want to be able to license BB10 to a hardware vendor or vendors rather than building their own tablet. With that course of action then RIM will get money from the license and more than likely a piece of the action per device, but if the device does not sale then it is the vendor ithat s on the hook, not RIM as they would have already gotten some money for the BB10 license up front.

[giggabotch]

I think RIM wants to be out of the hardware business of making tablets, which makes sense in that they want to be able to license BB10 to a hardware vendor or vendors rather than building their own tablet. With that course of action then RIM will get money from the license and more than likely a piece of the action per device, but if the device does not sale then it is the vendor ithat s on the hook, not RIM as they would have already gotten some money for the BB10 license up front.

That's not where the market is going right now. Microsoft is pushing forward with their own hardware, the android is so fragmented that most hardware manufacturers are not making money on their devices, which could end up being the same for Windows 8 phone in the future. I don't know that Rim could make money licensing there OS alone, they have nothing to leverage beyond their hardware and software. We know what happens when manufacturers stumble launching their products, Rim, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft. And when it's done well, Apple.
Rim has had success in the past, they've been there, they have the eco systems already in place, they have a plan.

[jpash549]

Blackberry will no doubt have tablets in the future running BB10 if the phone running BB10 is successful. The tablets will probably be both wifi and wifi/phone. The tablets shouldn't require great development effort if they can run the same system as the phone. Blackberry will be able to contract out much as Apple does the fabrication of parts and assembly. Since RIM will not have nearly the economy of scale that Apple has it will be difficult to have very high profit margin. Tablets are probably necessary for RIM to get back the kind of client base that they once had. It may be necessary to get in the tablet/laptop business to complete the mix.This gives you the ten inch with removable keyboard but it needs to be light and run real work programs. But hooray for Moore's law.