Now that the speculation about BlackBerry’s sale has finally ended, people have moved on to asking what’s next for the Canadian manufacturer. Earlier this year BlackBerry said it will now focus more on the enterprise market, while releasing only four devices each year. The company’s handset business has contributed a lot to the precarious situation BlackBerry finds itself in right now, even its BB10 devices have failed to regain any significant market share particularly in the U.S. BlackBerry tried its luck a few years ago by releasing a tablet, but that turn out to be a colossal flop. Rumors have started circulating about a BlackBerry PlayBook 2, a tablet powered by the company’s new BlackBerry 10 platform.
BlackBerry 10 was formally unveiled in January. The Z10 was the first BB10 device and was followed soon by the Q10, Q5 and most recently the Z30. The company had previously said that BB10 will be brought over to the existing PlayBook, but a few months ago BlackBerry confirmed that its one and only tablet isn’t going to be updated. The outgoing CEO Thorsten Heins had made it pretty clear that the company would focus on smartphones for now and that it wouldn’t be jumping back in the tablet market once again. Rumors about a BlackBerry PlayBook 2 circulate now as an interim CEO takes the Canadian company’s helm, who has already laid down the law that BlackBerry’s hardware division isn’t going to be shut down for now.
Could a change in top management result in another BlackBerry tablet? Given its precarious financial situation, diving stock price and diminishing cash pile, can the company afford another potential flop? The answers are certainly not clear, and common sense dictates that BlackBerry probably won’t take such a big risk at this point in time. So its best to take all BlackBerry PlayBook 2 rumors with a grain of salt for the foreseeable future.
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