BlackBerry tablet seeks to crush Apple iPad

David M Williams
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 13:22

Your IT - Mobility

Research in Motion has announced its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. RIM has clearly paid attention because this slick tablet addresses some serious shortcomings of the Apple iPad.

The Apple iPad was a game changer; love it or hate it you cannot deny it single-handedly invented a new market and has been wildly successful.

Much like the original 7" ASUS Eee Linux-based laptop invented the entire netbook genre fitting midway between mobile phones and full-blown computers, so too Apple has brought into existence a slate-based genre for much the same space.

It was inevitable competition would come and while almost all vendors have been planning Windows 7-based devices it is refreshing to see Research In Motion (RIM) come to the party, building on their excellent BlackBerry technology.

RIM no doubt have an axe to grind, with Apple's iPhone biting hard into RIM's previous dominance of the smartphone market.

On the other hand, RIM's touch-screen iPhone-competitor - the BlackBerry Storm - was a fairly horrendous device.

Yet, this time around RIM look like they have really paid attention and tried hard. The PlayBook (although that's not really the most business-friendly name, let's face it) makes up for some major deficiencies in the iPad.