RIM’s upcoming PlayBook tablet… or more accurately, the FailBook?

this is actually quite sad, but it just has to be said and should be rubbed in liberally considering the amount of smugness displayed by RIM’s co-CEOs in everything they do. it’s one thing to be confident in your company; take Apple’s Steve Jobs, for instance. He may be arrogant, not so much smug, but look at where he has taken them in the past decade. RIM, on the other hand, seems to be playing their best impression of Blockbuster Video opposite Apple sporting the Netflix character. granted, the metaphor isnt a perfect fit, but the course Balsillie and Lazaridis seem to insist on staying has only one result, and that’s a Blockbuster-like demise as they manually steer that ship right into a clearly visible iceberg.

so far to combat the rising deployments of not just the iPhone, but the iPad, encroaching on their home turf of enterprise, these two idiots have decided to take on the iPad with a device of their own called the PlayBook. this PlayBook, of which there are still no actual hardware samples (beyond one displayed at the Adobe event last month) to provide anyone yet they are pushing a release date in early 2011, is being hyped by them personally of it’s “speed, Speed, SPEED” as it claims features a whole new OS, 1GHz+ dual core processor, oodles of RAM, etc. as they specifically call out the iPad and how it’s already “yesterday’s news” when it comes to “speed.” unfortunately, RIM has managed to cut a huge hole in this ship to ensure it sinks upon hitting an iceberg… they said it will be available in one configuration and ONE CONFIGURATION ONLY. this configuration is WiFi only. if you want access to a 3G mobile network, it must be tethered to a BlackBerry. no, not a smartphone; specifically a BlackBerry. this would be absolute comedy if it werent true, but it is. with their grip on enterprise loosened each passing day by both iPhone, Android, and soon to be Windows Phone, they made their yet-to-be-released device nearly worthless as it lacks any sort of connectivity, and the only way to provide any is with a device enterprises are currently screaming and running away from for reasons such as lackluster, incapable hardware, exorbitant setup and operating costs, vice grip on security, stale, insignificant software, and no roadmap to address this issue of hardware stagnation, as proven with the recent lackluster release of the Torch and Style devices loaded with their latest, yet still iterative, BB OS6. this is a company that is smugly refusing to shift gears and attack head-on the problems that they are actively creating for themselves. they are captaining a dying brand and instead of trying to reclaim that space, they insist that “nothing has changed as they still lead the sector,” to “stay the course,” and in the PlayBook, are smug enough to believe their brand is strong enough to attempt locking their customers deeper into their limited, outdated, and wholly insignificant ecosystem? good luck.

they are positive that nothing has changed, they still lead the sector comfortably, and that they’re about to show every how a tablet is done properly. sorry, Jim and Mike, but once the mainstream press gets hold of the fact about the PlayBook’s 3G solution, the only thing you guys will have left to do is watch the Chapter 7 unfold. unless you guys show more than a bit of humility, admit the wrongs of your current ways, and start focusing on relevant hardware to showcase a brand new OS, the needs of today’s corporate staff will fully convert to a modern OS, and not your steaming pile of 90’s relic. the longer you wait, the harder it will be to make a turn-around as your audience is dwindling… more and more every day realize that you guys just dont see that there’s a problem; and that’s a problem.

very simply, the both of you and your board should read up in wikipedia (yeah, yeah, wikipedia sucks, but it’s about at your collective reading level, or so it seems) about Blockbuster’s demise at the hands of Netflix. if you two cant see the similarities, your board really needs to relieve both of you of your current duties. BTW, how did it feel to lose Dell as a client recently? even a jackass like Michael Dell can recognize a failure like RIM.