RIM Starts PlayBook Hype MachineRIM Starts PlayBook Hype Machine

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RIM has spent more than six months pitching its PlayBook enterprise tablet, which will go on sale starting April 19 for $500. The tablet, seen as a response to Apple's iPad, is a key first step for RIM, which needs to rebuild its smartphone cred. It has spent the last 12 months losing market share to Apple and Google. Can the PlayBook reverse that slide?

Aside from the BlackBerry Torch, which RIM introduced last August, the company has barely even refreshed its line-up of smartphones, instead focusing the bulk of its resources on the PlayBook. The lack of new phones from RIM has helped propel Google's Android operating system to the number one spot in the U.S. smartphone market. RIM has a lot of ground to make up in its core business, in addition to the still-new tablet space.

The PlayBook is a big departure for RIM. It forgoes the traditional Java-based platform that BlackBerries are based on and instead runs Adobe AIR and Flash on top of the QNX platform. The platform change means that RIM is counting on a whole new wave of support from developers to create apps for the PlayBook.

RIM has spent the greater part of the last six months pitching developers on the PlayBook OS. It's unclear how successful RIM has been in that endeavor. RIM recently announced that the PlayBook will be able to run applications written for Google's Android platform in some sort of Java emulator environment. Many believe that is taking the easy way out, and that RIM is making the move solely so it can say that the PlayBook has access to tens of thousands of apps. It's a bit disingenuous, to say the least, since Android apps are obviously not written to take advantage of the native QNX code.

RIM has taken a lot of heat of late for its strategy and apparent failure to adequately fight off the iPhone and Android, but co-CIO Mike Lazaridis doesn't feel that way. Speaking to the New York Times, Lazaridis said, "Why is it that people don't appreciate our profits? Why is it that people don't appreciate our growth? Why is it that people don't appreciate the fact that we spent the last four years going global? Why is it that people don't appreciate that we have 500 carriers in 170 countries with products in almost 30 languages?"

While its successes around the globe are indeed laudable, it hasn't changed the fact that the company has lost market share in the vital North American and European markets. Lazaridis continued, "I don't fully understand why there's this negative sentiment, and I just don't have the time to battle it. Because in the end, what I've learned is you've just got to prove it over and over and over."

This is a truism in the world of smartphones, where new players can upend the entire market in a single quarter. RIM was king of the smartphone sphere long before the iPhone came along.

RIM is hosting a media event for journalists this week in New York City, where they'll be treated to the most in-depth look at the PlayBook yet. RIM also has its annual BlackBerry World trade show (formerly Wireless Enterprise Symposium) scheduled for the first week of May. RIM has indicated that there will be big news from the company at BlackBerry World. For its sake, that news had better concern the company's rapidly aging handset lineup.

Between now and then, however, it will be all PlayBook all the time.