It seems as though Research In Motion (RIM) is going through some rather tough times – what with their BlackBerry range of devices losing market share to rising sales of Android and iOS devices. On the tablet front, their PlayBook did not fare any better either, as solid hardware that cannot be backed by a decent amount of software is a no-go for the well-informed consumer these days.
Having said that, even a 4G-capable version of the PlayBook is not going to move folks across the US to line up for one – and to add insult to the injury, Sprint decided to halt sales of the 4G-enabled BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
This means that not a single of the three largest US mobile carriers are willing to put the PlayBook up for sale, and without the carriers’ backing, it means that RIM will have to fork out money from their own coffers to do sales and marketing for the device in addition to application development.
According to Paget Alves, president of Sprint’s business markets group, “It’s an interesting concept, it just hasn’t caught on with business customers as much as they would like. There are so many tablets in the market, it creates confusion for the average customer.”
Filed in . Read more about BlackBerry, Blackberry Playbook, Playbook and Sprint.