BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins recently said that in five years there would be no reason to have a tablet. His statement didn't make sense at the time, but we're now hearing that BlackBerry will be getting back into the tablet market.
During a recent interview Thorsten Heins made a comment that completely contradicts what's actually happening in the tablet market, the BlackBerry CEO said:
"In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet anymore. Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model."
According to Know Your Mobile BlackBerry does see a future with tablets and it's working on one right now. While at BlackBerry Live 2013 Thorsten Heins changed his tune when it came to BlackBerry and future tablets while speaking at a media session, the CEO said:
"We want to create something that's easier to use. Pure hardware play does not make sense in today's market."
Heins also revealed that BlackBerry is currently spending money on R&D to make this happen.
A source told the site that BlackBerry is currently working on a "dummy tablet" device. The tablet was described as being similar to ASUS' Padfone, a smartphone that gets inserted into a Padfone tablet that essentially turns the smartphone into a tablet by using the 'big screen' of the tablet; the tablet is only a display and can't run without the smartphone.
According to the source, BlackBerry users would physically insert the smartphone into the "dummy tablet" in order to get a BlackBerry 10 tablet. The source went on to give reasons why BlackBerry was going this route of making a larger display and not an actual tablet that can run without a BlackBerry smartphone.
- It's a cheaper and more cost-effective solution than producing a proper tablet device.
- There's a massive demand for larger form devices from BlackBerry's core business users.
- BlackBerry needs something unique to compete with Apple's iPad in the enterprise space.
A word of advice to BlackBerry, it's been tried before and has failed. ASUS has not seen success selling two separate devices in order to create a tablet. In 2007 Palm tried a similar approach with the Foleo, it was basically a netbook that needed a Palm smartphone to do many of its functions. I was part of a testing team for Palm and received a Foleo to test before it would get released to the public. I believed then and believe now that a device should not be dependent on another device to work, it's not making things easier, it's creating a new device to sell as a large smartphone accessory. Palm went on to cancel the Foleo before the public ever got the chance to try it. Hopefully BlackBerry will do the same.
