RIM denies plans of pulling PlayBook out of the market

As if dealing with stocked PlayBooks in their inventory wasn’t bad enough, BlackBerry makers – Research in Motion Pvt. Ltd. (RIM), now have speculations to ward off. Early this week, we had reported that as many as 800,000 units of BlackBerry's PlayBook were lying in RIM’s inventories after the tablet failed to attract much attention. It was also revealed then that BlackBerry asked its supplier, Quanta Computers to stall the production of the tablet altogether, owing to less or no sales. Following this, Quanta shut the production of PlayBook in its Northern Taiwan unit, rendering as many as 1,000 workers there jobless.

What's the road ahead like?

Now, according to latest reports, it has been learnt that Collin Stewart semiconductor analyst, John Vihnan stated that RIM may have stalled the production of its PlayBook tablet, altogether, and cancelled additional projects. He went on to state that RIM may well be on its way out of the tablet market, after it decides to pull the plug on the under-performing PlayBook and that that they most definitely think that RIM has stopped the production of its PlayBook tablet and an exit is on the cards. Just when rumors of RIM's probable exit from the tablet space began gathering steam, the company came forth and denied all rumors and called it 'pure fiction'. RIM, in fact added that not only was the news of PlayBook exiting the market a topic of pure fiction, they were committed to PlayBook, and the QNX platform used in it.

The RIM spokesperson also did mention the company's plans of using the QNX platform (currently used in the PlayBook) in their 'superphones', scheduled for a launch sometime next year.

Source: Agencies