Playbook Launched as a Rival to iPad

Research In Motion the makers of the Blackberry phones have announced the launch of the Playbook tablet computer at Devcon in San Francisco.

Playbook is the first business-centric device in the tablet market and is seen as a smart move by Research In Motion whose smartphone is already seen as the phone of choice in this sector.

RIM chief executive officer Mike Lazaridis said at the conference “This is one of the most exciting times in our history. RIM set out to engineer the best professional grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world’s most robust and flexible operating systems.”

Stuart Miles the editor of mobile technology website Pocket Lint said “RIM’s Blackberry Playbook tablet looks to be a real challenger to Apple’s iPad, playing on its business credentials, rather than being just another joy machine’.”

“Whether RIM can deliver what it promises in the business environment with a selection of new apps on yet another operating system will be the real test though. Either way, it’s clear that the battle of the tablets is now full steam ahead.”

The new playbook has a 7 inch screen with front and rear facing cameras to enable video conferencing, a great feature with a lot of appeal in this market. The operating system is QNX software which was recently acquired by RIM and not the new Blackberry OS 6 software.

The operating system has been designed specifically for the new tablet thereby avoiding difficulties that may arise from adjusting a smart phone OS to a tablet platform. Bluetooth and WiFi are included but there is no 3G capabilities, however 3G data connecting is possible in conjunction with a Blackberry smartphone.

RIM plans to ship the tablet to corporate customers and developers during October and it will become commercially available early next year. No price has been set as yet but RIM says it will be in the lower range of prices for consumer tablets presently available.

Apples iPad presently dominates the tablet sector with estimated sales of 12 million by the end of this year. The tablet marketplace will be a $40 billion market in the next few years according to Todd Bradley executive vice presidents of HP.

The tablet sector is becoming more competitive. Samsung recently introduced the Galaxy and Dell introduced the Streak. Other companies developing tablets include Asus, HP, HTC, Acer, Google, Microsoft and Cisco.

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Two Arabian Gulf states have announced bans on some functions of the Blackberry mobile phone. They are claiming that they have security concerns and will restrict the use of the best selling phones.

Saudi Arabia is to prevent the use of the Blackberry to Blackberry instant messaging service and the United Arab Emirates is to block sending e-mails, accessing the Internet and delivering instant messages to other Blackberry handsets.

Both nations are unhappy that they are unable to monitor these communications via the handsets. This is because the Blackberry handsets automatically send the encrypted data to computer servers outside of these two countries. The Saudi ban will begin later this month and the UAE ban is to start early October.

Saudi officials have admitted that the decision is intended to put pressure on Blackberry’s owners to release data from the user’s communications when needed. The UEA’s telecom’s regulator, TRA, said the lack of compliance with local laws raised “judicial, social and national security concerns”

Blackberry’s Canadian owner, Research In Motion (RIM) has yet to comment on either case. There are almost 1,000,000 Blackberry users in the two countries.

TRA has stated “Censorship has got nothing to do with this. What we are talking about is a suspension due to the lack of compliance with UAE telecommunications regulations close”.

In 2007 RIM refused TRA access to the code for RIMs encrypted networks so that it could monitor e-mail and other data. TRA allegedly attempted to install spyware on Blackberry handsets. last year.

It seems that the two governments concerned with their repressive laws and a trend towards increased surveillance are not happy that they cannot monitor information sent and received via Blackberry users.

Given the popularity of the Blackberry in the two states an outright ban will be controversial.. This is seen as a power-play from the authorities, especially the UAE, to force RIM to hand over security codes or face losing a lucrative market. Whilst indeed this area is a lucrative and wealthy market it is also a small one compared to Blackberry’s global sales.