I was hoping to get my hands on a 16 or 32GB second hand BlackBerry PlayBook to install the new BlackBerry 10 software on to become more familiar with the engine of RIM’s turn around vehicle.
After Friday’s quarterly earning’s report filed by Research In Motion, otherwise known as RIM, doing business as “BlackBerry,” it would seem that the door for an officially supported PlayBook running BlackBerry 10 software is completely out of the question.
In the June 28 filing, RIM reported that no more than 100,000 PlayBook devices were sold in preceding 90-day period. I’m not going to quote how many iPads Apple sold in that same time period because it would be a cruel joke to say anything more than “a lot.”
But 100,000 is still something, right? We should be able to use BlackBerry 10 without having to sign a 2-year cellular contract or shelling out $600+ for an off contract Z10, right?
However, during the quarterly earnings conference call, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins reported that he has pulled the plug on developing a version of BlackBerry 10 for the PlayBook sighting poor software performance on the fruity tablet.
If I was in his shoes, I’d probably make the same call. RIM is fighting for it’s life right now, and a platform that is only moving 400,000 – 500,000 devices annually is not where RIM needs to spend it’s limited software engineering resources right now.
I may still pick up a PlayBook on eBay, but my enthusiasm for one has dropped considerably.