Canadaâs Research In Motion (Nasdaq:RIMM) is an amazing company, no question about it._ Soaring near $70 per share earlier this year on the strength of its corporate warrior tool, the Blackberry, and hot anticipation for its supposed iPad killer, the PlayBook, it seemed nothing could stop this juggernaut of a company._ Revenues were soaring, shipments of the BlackBerry jumped more than 40%, and the smart phone was the number one selling smart phone in the U.S., Latin America, Canada and the UK._ The PlayBook could only help fuel this companyâs climb, right?_ Well, not exactly._ The early reviews are so bad that the ultra hyped tablet might as well been called DoomBook for the damage itâs causing to Rimmâs reputation. _ Released to great fanfare, it turns out that the PlayBook lacks e-mail and even a calendar._ Reviewers claim that its buggy and the power button is too small for normal size hands._ These items combined with a viral You Tube video of the CEO losing his cool when cornered about security issues spell the start of a rocky road for the successful company._ My initial impression from the Mike Lazaridis angry video and the PlayBook launch video is that Steve Jobs has nothing to fear in the charisma or charm department from this guy._ Some CEOs just shouldnât be the public face of their company, and this guy is no exception._ With this said, itâs truly unreal that a tablet billed as the âWorldâs First Professional Tabletâ doesnât have a calendar and e-mail._ The PlayBook can only get e-mail in conjunction with a BlackBerry device._ For something costing $499, itâs beyond ridiculous. _ Rimm states that they will add in these features in future developments but for the company to launch the product before its ready to actually compete with the iPad, not to mention the scads of Android based tablets, was downright stupid. _ On the heels of this disastrous introduction, Rimm shares gave back 1.7% on Thursday and continued to fall another 1% in after hour trading.__ However, shares are bouncing back in early trade on Friday._ Perhaps Lazaridis will be a Lazarus bringing the DoomBook back from the dead._ Time will tell._ Good trading!
Yea another rushed product to the market place to compete with apple, its seems all of these other companies playing catchup aren't doing so well. I saw the Motorola tablet a few weeks ago and they wanted $800 for the damn thing. Talk about being wayyyy overpriced, I can buy a whole laptop that can do a thousand more things for half the price, what are these companies thinking....... Fast forward and here we are a few days left before the playbook comes out and it seems its just another worthless piece of technology that's just going to be forgotten about, the market is becoming wayyyyyyyyy to saturated at this point, there are dozens of tablets coming to the market, the newest one from cisco is coming out at the end of May. If you want to play in the game you have to offer a lot more for a lower price, if they want market share the only thing left for them to achieve that is to have pricing power, when you come out with a product thats lacking email and screen size and you're asking the same price as the Ipad there is something wrong. Too much competition is being created in this tablet market, too much.