BlackBerry CEO: Tablet Market Is Dying

Nerval's Lobster writes "BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins believes that tablets will be dead by 2018. 'In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet anymore,' he told an interviewer at the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles, according to Bloomberg. 'Maybe a big screen in your workplace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.' That may come as a surprise to Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung, all of which have built significant tablet businesses over the past few years. Research firm Strategy Analytics suggested in a research note earlier this month that the global tablet market hit 40.6 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2013, a significant rise from the 18.7 million shipped in the same quarter last year. So why would Heins offer such a pessimistic prediction when everyone else — from the research firms to the tablet-makers themselves — seems so full-speed-ahead? It's easy to forget sometimes that BlackBerry has its own tablet in the mix: the PlayBook, which was released to quite a bit of fanfare in early 2011 but failed to earn iPad-caliber sales. Despite that usefulness to developers, however, the PlayBook has become a weak contender in the actual tablet market. If Heins is predicting that market's eventual demise, it could be a coded signal that he intends to pull BlackBerry out of the tablet game, focusing instead on smartphones. It wouldn't be the first radical move the company's made in the past year."

Should be in reverse!

[Virtucon]

World to Blackberry: In five years there'll be no reason to own a Blackberry.

hahaha. oh they're not joking

[redemtionboy]

I might be able to take their word seriously if they didn't paint the blackberry playbook in a positive light at all. After running one of the worst launches in history, no wonder that thing fell flat on it's face. My favorite review said something along the lines of "It's like paying $200 to see Bruce Springsteen and having to settle for a homeless guy in the subway air guitaring it"

This just in...

[Brucelet]

Guy who was late to the party says the party was boring anyway.

Re:hahaha. oh they're not joking

[larry bagina]

Sounds like he ate too much of his own dog food.

Cmdr Taco, is that you?

[drunken_boxer777]

Did he hire Cmdr Taco to perform his market research?

Re: Hahahaha!

[tysonedwards]

Nothing says f-you, future mom-and-dad like a BlackBerry Playbook.

Re:I agree

[jrmcc]

The horse will mow AND fertilize your lawn!

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree. I've owned computers and related tech for over 20 years and not *one* of them has actually created any content. All of the content had to be created by me :(

Re:I agree

[Samantha Wright]

Pfft! Hey, look, everybody! An objectivity fanboi!