RIM PlayBook only garnering half the prelaunch interest of iPad

Posted:
in iPad edited January 2014
An analyst's survey of 1,100 consumers found just 6 percent reporting they are "likely" to buy RIM's new playbook, less than half the number who said the same of Apple's iPad last February.



The survey, performed by Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky earlier this month after the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, indicates that buyers aren't simply attracted to tablet hardware specifications alone.



RIM's strongest card with its new PlayBook is the promise to deliver dual core CPU performance via its newly acquired QNX real time operating system. However, a major factor of the iPad's success wasn't hardware features but rather its familiarity with iPhone and iPod touch users and the third party developers building apps for it.



Developer interest in mobile platforms



Abramsky noted that "developer interest in PlayBook nearly doubled to 28% in January from 16% in September," citing figures compiled by Appcelerator and IDC of 2,235 mobile developers.



However, RIM's 28 percent interest figure is well behind the 74 percent who reported interest in coding for Android tablets and the 87 percent who said they were very interested in iPad.



Developer interest in iPad is equal to Android smartphones, with only the larger iPhone market reflecting greater interest among developers. Interest in the PlayBook came in below even the 38 percent who said they were very interested in the existing (and incompatible) BlackBerry OS and the 36 percent who expressed interest in Windows Phone 7.



Of all of the features that developers reported as being critical success factors for new Android tablets, 57 percent noted price of the hardware. However, RIM will be debuting its 7 inch PlayBook for the same price as Apple's full sized iPad, offering no advantage in that regard.







RBC's enthusiastic outlook for RIM



Abramsky noted that Appcelerator's developers were more likely consumer-oriented, saying, "we believe BlackBerry's popularity among enterprise developers is significantly higher." The firm expects RIM to sell 6 million PlayBooks in its first full year on the market and 4 million through the end of 2011; that's well ahead of the street consensus of 2-3 million sold in 2011.



RBC is a major investor in RIM, and the two partnered in 2008 with other Canadian investors to set up the BlackBerry Partners Fund to help foster the development new mobile applications. RBC's chief operating officer Barbaras Stymiest also sits on the RIM board of directors. The investment bank's analyst has historically taken an exuberant outlook on RIM's future prospects.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 54
    The PlayBook will only need a few bullets on the box it will ship in:
    • Runs Flash

    • Can play a 1080p video in the background while you play Checkers in the foreground. Useful!

    • Flash

    • Dual-hexacore modulus RAM with L6 cache and asynchronous step-down transformers (iPad has none of these worthless hardware specs)

    • Plays Adobe Corporation's Flash content using its built-in Flash plug-in, which the iPad doesn't have

    • See bullets above

  • Reply 1 of 54
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,855member
    I think the consumer interest in the Playbook will be even lower when people realize that you have to use a Blackberry to make it useful. Even Blackberry owners aren't going to want to be locked in to RIM's double-play.
  • Reply 3 of 54
    DOA, in the words of Mr. Jobs... Too little way too late.
  • Reply 4 of 54
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    An analyst's survey of 1,100 consumers found just 6 percent reporting they are "likely" to buy RIM's new playbook, less than half the number who said the same of Apple's iPad last February. ...



    I've seen this same data trotted out around the web this morning on several sites, but it's complete nonsense if you think clearly about it. The survey purports to gauge "developer interest," with the subtext being that we can tell which platforms the developers think are better or worse or indeed likely to "take off" by examining the data. In fact however, "developer interest" in platforms/devices that aren't even on the market yet, or are so nascent that consumers haven't even had a chance to use them, really tells us nothing at all.



    "Developer interest" is indeed a good gauge of what platforms are more likely to succeed, but only after they've been around and fighting it out for a while. The absolutely huge developer interest in Honeycomb tablets for instance reflects nothing more than the hopes of the developers and can't really be used in any analytical way to say anything at all.



    Most of this data is essentially meaningless. It's a survey of opinion, and that opinion is just based on all the same advertising we've all seen ourselves. There's nothing to really inform it at this stage.
  • Reply 5 of 54
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post


    The PlayBook will only need a few bullets on the box it will ship in:
    • Runs Flash

    • Can play a 1080p video in the background while you play Checkers in the foreground. Useful!

    • Flash

    • Dual-hexacore modulus RAM with L6 cache and asynchronous step-down transformers (iPad has none of these worthless hardware specs)

    • Plays Adobe Corporation's Flash content using its built-in Flash plug-in, which the iPad doesn't have

    • See bullets above




    Please explain what part of Apple's no-flash strategy leads anyone to believe that consumers give a crap? Is it the endless developer support for Apple's platform? Or the 160Million Flash-less iOS devices sold? Or the product launches featuring people wrapped around the block, eager to get their hands on the newest device that doesn't run flash?



    Nerds and apple-haters care about flash. Consumers do not.
  • Reply 6 of 54
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post


    The PlayBook will only need a few bullets on the box it will ship in:
    • Runs Flash

    • Can play a 1080p video in the background while you play Checkers in the foreground. Useful!

    • Flash

    • Dual-hexacore modulus RAM with L6 cache and asynchronous step-down transformers (iPad has none of these worthless hardware specs)

    • Plays Adobe Corporation's Flash content using its built-in Flash plug-in, which the iPad doesn't have

    • See bullets above




    there is more to life than FLASH... if you're basing your decision on flash alone, then you're going to miss out on the many other advantages to iOS.



    your loss...



    besides... why would you want to watch a 1080p movie while playing chess on the same display???? personally... not what I would do...
  • Reply 7 of 54
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    Quote:

    RBC is a major investor in RIM, and the two partnered in 2008 with other Canadian investors to set up the BlackBerry Partners Fund to help foster the development new mobile applications. RBC's chief operating officer Barbaras Stymiest also sits on the RIM board of directors. The investment bank's analyst has historically taken an exuberant outlook on RIM's future prospects.



    This should have been placed at the beginning of the article. Could have saved me, and others, valuable time
  • Reply 8 of 54
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post


    The PlayBook will only need a few bullets on the box it will ship in:
    • Runs Flash

    • Can play a 1080p video in the background while you play Checkers in the foreground. Useful!

    • Flash

    • Dual-hexacore modulus RAM with L6 cache and asynchronous step-down transformers (iPad has none of these worthless hardware specs)

    • Plays Adobe Corporation's Flash content using its built-in Flash plug-in, which the iPad doesn't have

    • See bullets above




    Guys I think it is called Sarcasm, I know it hard to believe that someone who lives in Calif understands sarcasm,
  • Reply 9 of 54
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post


    The PlayBook will only need a few bullets on the box it will ship in:
    • Runs Flash

    • Can play a 1080p video in the background while you play Checkers in the foreground. Useful!

    • Flash

    • Dual-hexacore modulus RAM with L6 cache and asynchronous step-down transformers (iPad has none of these worthless hardware specs)

    • Plays Adobe Corporation's Flash content using its built-in Flash plug-in, which the iPad doesn't have

    • See bullets above








    You forgot "Comparable battery life".. Compared to what?! Who care!
  • Reply 10 of 54
    QNX is not a "feel good" Operating System like iOS that is for sure.



    iOS is extremely easy for developers while QNX not so much.



    I fully expect the iPad 2 to kick the PlayBook to the curb where it rightly belongs in the RIM scrapheap.



    Steve was absolutely correct that RIM poses no threat whatsoever and should be totally ignored since Apple blew passed it last year in sales and they have no chance of ever getting close again.



    Apple be wise to focus on Android as the primary threat and since all the Honeycomb Tablets initially will be the ten-inch variety Apple should launch a flank attack with a 7" iPad to blow the Gingerbread slates totally out of the water.



    Crackberry users should avoid this tablet like the plague since it is so heavily teathered to the handheld blueberry devices and offers no premium over the might iPad.



    Consider yourselves schooled people. The call me the BUS DRIVER because I take everyone to school. You can thank me later. Also, absolutely no charge for this lesson as I consider it a public service.
  • Reply 11 of 54
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Maestro64 View Post


    Guys I think it is called Sarcasm, I know it hard to believe that someone who lives in Calif understands sarcasm,



    I read it as sarcasm.



    The first thing the salesperson said to me when I was looking at the Samsung Galaxy Tab... "it runs flash!".
  • Reply 12 of 54
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Those stats look pretty good to me. Of course, it's the user experience of the entire device that will make or break it. Didn't the iPad interest drop after the announcement because of what it didn't have?



    An article yesterday — that I hope AI picks up — has RiM making some pretty bold and definiate claims about the battery. I think this is a very important aspect to customer satisfaction of a tablet so I hope they aren't jut blowing smoke.





    edit: Pipped by Maestro64.
  • Reply 13 of 54
    These numbers get revised downwards twice:



    The first time will be when the Playbook actually gets released, and people actually get to use the device for real, and find out the 4000 apps RIM says will be able when it ships are just web pages that display better on the iPad.



    The second time will be when the iPad 2 is announced.
  • Reply 14 of 54
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleStud View Post




    Nerds and apple-haters care about flash. Consumers do not.







    Excuse Me ! I am a nerd and I dislike Flash........
  • Reply 15 of 54
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,855member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DrFreeman View Post


    Excuse Me ! I am a nerd and I dislike Flash........



    I think by 'care' he meant "are not ambivalent toward".
  • Reply 16 of 54
    takeotakeo Posts: 445member
    I'm shocked it's even getting half the interest. I figured it would be a lot less than that.
  • Reply 17 of 54
    oc4theooc4theo Posts: 294member
    It's all a Public Relations show. RIM has made over 20 announcements about its Playbook and it is not even out for sale yet. On the other hand, Apple made only 1 announcement and item was available on that same day for developers to play with.



    Well, it shows that RIM is scared and is just trying to make noise for noise sake. Just like before Blackberry Storm came out, there were many smoke from RIM but Storm never ignited any fire.



    Playbook is DOA. I will not take it for free.
  • Reply 18 of 54
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,090member
    If vendors are trying to woo potential customers on hardware specs alone, they refuse to acknowledge the reality of what's going on in modern computing.



    I think we are approaching (if not passed) the days where folks don't care what's under the hood anymore. Speed is always welcomed but folks care of the entire experience.



    Give the user a great, smooth, well-thought-out GUI, couple by fast hardware and you have a winner. I think it's the simplicity of it is what makes it so difficult for RIM.



    If it works great with a single-core CPU, folks won't care. They'll complain if that fancy dual-core CPU sucks the battery twice as fast.



    I would expect RIM to have the advantage over the Android folks since (like Apple) they control both the OS and hardware.



    However, until they actually product a tangible product that people can actually touch and see, then they are simply blowing smoke with vaporware.



    I mean honestly, how can one even decide to get RIM's offerings without even seeing the darn thing?



    In the end, they'll probably end up creating an iPad app to hook into their system.
  • Reply 19 of 54
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    First of all, we have to distinguish between what a company "expects" to sell, and what actually happens. All companies make forecasts about the prospect of a new device or product line. Many don't reveal those numbers. With the onslaught of iPads and shortly, Android tablets, I imagine they felt they needed to say something positive. If they don't expect to sell a decent number, then it wouldn't pay to spend the money on it.



    We can be sure that MS felt it would sell more Plays-for-Sure licenses than it did. Same for their Zune line, the Kin's, and, so far at least WP7 licenses. But they didn't give out estimates, because they weren't that sure. Good thing too. If RIM doesn't meet those sales numbers it will look worse than it would have had they not announced them at all.



    As far as battery life goes, they've stated that 8 hours is their goal. Have they reached that yet? Who knows? Even so, it's still 20% short of the twice as large iPad. If they state that battery life is "up to" 8 hours, that means it's really 7 under most uses.



    As far as businesses wanting this, I don't think the interest is really there in a big way. But we also have to understand that interest is not desire, nor is it a commitment.



    I believe this article shows some of the problems with RIM's approach to their tablet. It's three pages:



    http://www.pcworld.com/article/21767...html?tk=hp_new
  • Reply 20 of 54
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    I think by 'care' he meant "are not ambivalent toward".



    Hah, indeed I did. Thanks for the clarification!
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