[dale-c]

If the playbook had launched exactly as it did, but marketed as a beta product and sold for $299 and up, I really think it would have done so much better.

First, the price would have been the best on the market at the time, $200 less than the iPad at the time. People would have snagged it up just to have a tablet at that price.

Second, if it had been advertised as a $499 product, but selling for only $299 in beta, both users and reviewers would have been so much more positive about it.
It WAS a beta product but sold as a finished product. So it got hammered in reviews.

Had it have been sold as beta, for a beta price, reviewers would have been so much more likely to review it for potential rather than where it currently was.

Posted via CB10

[howarmat]

not many people are going to pay $300 for a BETA edition of something IMO. You might have sold a few more but I dont see it making it a success either

[dale-c]

not many people are going to pay $300 for a BETA edition of something IMO. You might have sold a few more but I dont see it making it a success either

Better than $500 for a beta product which is really what they did.

Remember, this was before there was a tablet for that price.

Posted via CB10

[redlightblinking]

The only thing that would have saved playbook is if they had initially released it with the ability to to email and a calendar. DOH! It took them a year to add that.

[cbvinh]

It might have been received/reviewed better as a beta, but a beta product doesn't sell to the masses, and for a low price, the volume needs to be there to make a profit.

[howarmat]

Better than $500 for a beta product which is really what they did.

Remember, this was before there was a tablet for that price.

Posted via CB10

you could snag a samsung galaxy tab 7 for about 300-350 back then. Again labeling anything BETA would be a non starter and turn people off unless they are BB diehards, which are pretty much the only people that bought the tab anyway

[Old_Mil]

No calendar or email was an epic fail. I can't imagine any manager approving a product for launch in the modern era with that functionality lacking.

Then launching an LTE version of it was a bad idea. The faster processor is nice but that would have been nice to have in the original along with more memory so that it could have run Bb10.

It also was too expensive for what it was. When you are fighting for market share and recognition you cannot price your products on par with established market leaders. You need to incentivize people to choose your product.

Posted via CB10

[tovento]

What could have saved it? If BBRY was serious about taking a run at the tablet market, they should have thrown more resources behind it and released a more polished product. For a company who had a stranglehold on the smartphone market for a while, the first version of the OS was a complete and utter fail. Looking back on this, the Playbook seems to be a learn and see on the QNX OS after BBRY acquired it. They slapped it onto a device and figured they could fix things as they came up. The OS ver 2 made big improvements over the initial, but still needed a further update. As BB10 was released, the QNX development shifted to the new operating system and the Playbook was left in the dust. I think that the BB10 OS on the Playbook would have been a bigger effort than some may have realized; as they would probably have had to strip out a number of features to get it to run smoothly. Also, if the Android runtime runs as slowly as it does on the OS now, there's no guarantee that it wouldn't have been even slower running a newer runtime.

I know I keep saying it, but I feel that BBRY should concentrate on the phones and let others deal with the tablet market. Even if they would introduce a tablet at this point, it would be met with only small fanfare and they wouldn't make a profit on the effort. Just my two cents.

[fschmeck]

At this point I think any future BlackBerry tablet is a non starter, but certainly if I could go back in time and play CEO I think the PB might have seen some success if:
- BB actually built in what they were known for, ie. Email and calendar
- it launched at 350$ max
- maybe heavily promoted the bridge. So many people still used BB phones back then there was still a market I think for the bigger BB experience.

As it was, trying to compete with the iPad head on with no distinguishing advantage was doomed from the start.

[qwerty4ever]

No calendar or email was an epic fail. I can't imagine any manager approving a product for launch in the modern era with that functionality lacking.
Posted via CB10

If BlackBerry Bridge had been available from the outset the integration of BlackBerry smartphone and BlackBerry PlayBook would have provided the means to read and write email on your tablet while storing all the messages on your smartphone. Unfortunately the company could not even get this in place by the BlackBerry PlayBook launch on 19 April 2011. I still use my BlackBerry PlayBook but the lack of fully functional BlackBerry Bridge for connectivity with my BlackBerry Q5 is ridiculous. And for the premium pricing at launch this tablet should have come with 128 GB flash storage and 4 GB RAM; at the time RAM and flash memory were relatively inexpensive. The company basically tossed their newborn child into the dumpster on a cold winter night as soon as it was birthed.

[Gooseberry Falls]

Unfortunately, I think it is the lack of an ecosystem. No serious push for app development and it continues to this day. Most people have been brainwashed by Apple to think that apps and app stores are needed for everything. Even when BB10 came out, BBRY said that the world's most popular apps would be available. We are still sideloading the android Netflix app. Pitiful. It now sounds like BB10 will continue to depend on the android run time for apps (Amazon). Maybe if they had decided that sooner and offered the Amazon app store for the PB, it would have gone better for them. The average consumer does not have the technical ablilty or time to sideload apps for the PlayBook while being a crapshoot if they will work or not. True, the initial cost structure and email/calendar limitations were not good but they were "fixed" (fire sale and OS2) and the PB still did not take off in sales.

[early2bed]

Instead of "beta" they could have done some marketing like:

"The Not Ready For Pime-time Tablet"
"The This is What We Have So Far Tablet"
"The $299 You Get What You Paid For Tablet"

[fschmeck]

At the time I had a discussion with BlackBerry about app world (shortly after launch). I complained that app visibility was a problem, and that we had no way to make our app visible in a sea of maps and ebooks(at the time they had still not revamped the store). Their response was that it was not their job to market our products. We ended up going into another platform and received direct support and placement.

Not saying that BB should have given us special treatment, but if you go into a market without offering something appreciably better than the competition you won't come out on top.

[WiseEyes]

Businesses pay plenty for kiosks; thin client workstations, & BlackBerry's PlayBook could become an excellent choice if allowed to connect it to their own server for file access & to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) of their own for greater security. As a business owner, I could easily see the potential & advantages of this kind of BlackBerry device with my business products, marketing, & staff. Tying in BlackBerry Bridge/Blend would make for end-to-end system security, scalability, stability, & value with less need for patches (you know who), stylish professionalism on the cutting edge, with security-ready outlook for acquiring government contracts (BlackBerry's phones have the highest security clearance), customizable BES restrictions. That not only heightens security prowess but it also makes for phone driven slideshows, movies, & presentations via the mini-HDMI; & nurtures the growth of BlackBerry's market share. BlackBerry. We started it...again!

Posted via CB10

[sorinv]

It's not like BB10 phones are selling in 10x numbers compared to what the playbook did. It was obvious to me in February 2013 when z10 was launched that it will be as "successful" as the Playbook. I don't think that the number of z10, z30, z3, passports, q5, Q10 and Classics sold has exceeded 20 million. It is probably the same ratio of BB10 phones sold as that of iphones to Ipads.

[DamianWarS]

Granted the initial launch was unpolished (so was BB10) but they fixed a lot of it. Plus 1st gen devices tend to be be like that. What killed the PB was that BlackBerry stopped supporting it.

A release of a playbook 2 or PlayBook10 I think would have done wonders. If they released a product that was faster, supported BB10 (plus the legacy PBOS), thinner, lighter, amazon app store preinstalled and all round upgraded I think the playbook would have a fighting chance.


Posted via CB10

[Chris S Mellor]

I would have bought one much sooner if the version that had the NFC chip installed was activated

Posted via CB10

[moegrand]

If BlackBerry had admitted to themselves that they were behind and had fully functional android support at launch it would have worked. both my teen kids say that the playbook is is better than their Android or apple tablets...... just needed the extra apps...

Posted via CB10

[Gooseberry Falls]

If BlackBerry had admitted to themselves that they were behind and had fully functional android support at launch it would have worked. both my teen kids say that the playbook is is better than their Android or apple tablets...... just needed the extra apps...

Posted via CB10

Hardware-wise the PB was first rate. Sure, USB OTG would have been nice. But you have to remember that at that time, the android competition was the Google/Motorola Xoom. It was an initial flop also with list price $800, no OTG, and few Honeycomb tablet apps. But it was eventually upgraded to Jelly Bean, got USB OTG, and was well supported by Google and developers. There is still a hacking community for it developing current android ROMs. So devices don't have to just die.

[joshua_sx1]

If only BlackBerry hired JC during that time...

Posted via CB10

[sorinv]

He has changed the perception, but not much else in terms of number of BlackBerry users.
The newer hardware (z3, passport and classic) is not selling in much higher numbers than the playbook did (keeping the proportion between tablets and phones). Besides, if we are to believe what has been discussed on crackberry, the passport concept predates his arrival.
While J.C has been OK so far, I have yet to understand why he is lionized so much. BlackBerry is not out of the woods yet and its market share has been dwindling under JC.

[D.Vader]

If the playbook had launched exactly as it did, but marketed as a beta product and sold for $299 and up, I really think it would have done so much better.

First, the price would have been the best on the market at the time, $200 less than the iPad at the time. People would have snagged it up just to have a tablet at that price.

Second, if it had been advertised as a $499 product, but selling for only $299 in beta, both users and reviewers would have been so much more positive about it.
It WAS a beta product but sold as a finished product. So it got hammered in reviews.

Had it have been sold as beta, for a beta price, reviewers would have been so much more likely to review it for potential rather than where it currently was.

Posted via CB10

I blame Thor.

[whatsever]

I discussed this a lot with my brother and here and a new browser, keyboard should be good, but most important should be android runtime. New apps and life would bring spotify, netflix, steaming television and news but nothing.

My brother couldn't wait and boughted a z2 tablet from Sony. After that he ditched his blackberry z10 for a Sony z2. My wife and daughter did the same and al in a few weeks.

My brother just throw away his PlayBook because there are no new apps, same with bb10 at least there was android runtime. he said for the PlayBook android runtime could helped here.

I thinking now to buy a Z3 for netflix,streaming tv etc. All these android apps that are working on my passport, which I really like to watch on the PlayBook. Maybe also ditching my phone too if I buy that android tablet.



Posted via CB10

[johnny_bravo72]

I discussed this a lot with my brother and here and a new browser, keyboard should be good, but most important should be android runtime. New apps and life would bring spotify, netflix, steaming television and news but nothing.

My brother couldn't wait and boughted a z2 tablet from Sony. After that he ditched his blackberry z10 for a Sony z2. My wife and daughter did the same and al in a few weeks.

My brother just throw away his PlayBook because there are no new apps, same with bb10 he said so android runtime could helped here.

I thinking to buy a Z3 for netflix,streaming tv etc. All these android apps that are working on my passport, which I really like to watch on the PlayBook. Maybe also ditching my phone too if I buy that android tablet.



Posted via CB10

Get a Z3... From Sony!

Posted from an ME173X

[lokomotifbag]

Get a Z3... From Sony!

Posted from an ME173X

Z3 is great and cheap...