Thorston Heins – the Blackberry CEO, in a somewhat debatable statement said that tablets will probably be gone in the next 5 years. In an interview at Milken Institute Conference, he posited, “Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.” Expanding further on his reasoning, he added, “In five years, I see BlackBerry to be the absolute leader in mobile computing – that’s what we’re aiming for,” Heins said as quoted by bloomberg. “I want to gain as much market share as I can, but not by being a copycat.” It might appear to some that he may be trying to justify the failure of Blackberry PlayBook, since the iPad and Android tablets have been a running success and we haven’t seen any signs of that market dying down. In fact, it has been reported that tablet sales are even affecting the sales of desktop computers whose sales have dramatically fallen over the past year. But in his favour, technology has never been predictable and such predictions are similar to a game of dice where his predictions just might come true after a few years. However, Blackberry’s lack of experience in the tablet market aren’t likely to convince many to rely on his statements. It is clear that Blackberry has been contemplating about PlayBook and its future for a long time and whether its successor will be seen or not is a fact that is yet to be established. One thing is clear though, if it does decide to continue with
tablets – the company will have to make sure that it turns out to be successful enough or the losses this time might just make it hard for Blackberry to make a comeback.
