According to reports that were released today, Research in Motion has abandoned plans to produce the BlackBerry Playbook and just might remove their name from tablets altogether. An analyst with Collins Stewart said that a note was sent out to investors this morning and in the note quotes from an anonymous source at Quanta indicated the news was more than a rumor. The analyst, John Vinh said, “While Quanta last week acknowledged that it had laid off a significant number of production workers from a factory focused on producing the PlayBook, our research indicates that the ODM has essentially halted production of the tablet”, then he went on to say, “Additionally, our due diligence indicates that RIMM has canceled development of additional tablet projects.”
This news comes after a rough year for Research in Motion and their BlackBerry product line. Falling market share and increased competition from Android, Apple and Windows Phone 7 has created a bad situation for RIM in the mobile market. Because the PlayBook has only shipped about 700,000 tablets since its launch, the plan to remove from the tablet market comes as no surprise.
After reading more about the announcement, it was quite clear that the information that John Vinh was passing along was just rumor. Later in the morning hours, RIM reportedly denied that the PlayBook tablet computer was dead and that the company rarely comments on rumors, but said that any information that the “PlayBook is being discontinued is pure fiction”. That quote came into InformationWeek.com via email and it went on to say that “RIM remains highly committed to the tablet market”. With that all being said, it is even clearer that RIM is taking a stance against those that think they cannot produce a tablet that might compete in the tablet market.
Some might be taking RIM’s comments with a grain of salt once they realize that Vihn’s note came the same day that Best Buy decided to slash prices of the PlayBook down to $200. The price discounts came at the same time for other retailers as well. Office Depot and Staples were also reportedly cutting the BlackBerry PlayBook prices in recent days. One main complaint from users of the PlayBook was that applications were lacking and if RIM plans to keep the PlayBook in production the company might want to lure in more app developers to help them out.
