BlackBerry’s first foray into the tablet space didn’t go too well. The company’s BlackBerry PlayBookwas unveiled in 2010, launched in 2011, and never sold particularly well. BlackBerry eventually marked down the price significantly and never got around to releasing a follow-up.

But the BlackBerry-watching bloggers at n4bb say it looks like there could be a new BlackBerry tablet by the end of 2015.

blackberry-playbook1

This time around, BlackBerry is said to be focusing on enterprise markets and users in niche industries such as medicine, although if the company does release a new tablet for businesses and industrial use, it could also be made available to the handful of consumers interested in spending money on a BlackBerry tablet.

Nothing’s set in stone at this point, and it sounds like BlackBerry is looking into the launch of a new tablet rather than making any promises. So there might not ever be another BlackBerry tablet.

Launching a tablet in 2011 did nothing to keep BlackBerry’s share of the smartphone market from continuing to shrink. But a new model aimed at the company’s core strengths in supporting enterprise security and communication features could have a chance of helping BlackBerry at least hold onto some of its remaining core users.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,457 other subscribers

14 replies on “BlackBerry’s next tablet could be aimed at enterprise”

  1. “it could also be made available to the handful of consumers interested in spending money on a BlackBerry tablet.” — handful being the operative word. After seeing how BB neglected the overpriced PB, who would buy a follow-up tablet from them?

  3. The only real viable tablet option for BB right now would be one aimed at specific niche markets. The overall cost would be lower because the tablets would only serve specific purposes as opposed to the all-encompassing mentalities people have when developing current tablets.

    It’s akin to how they’re dealing with the automobile market. Infotainment systems are fairly specialized and don’t need all the capabilities that your phone has or your walk-around tablet has.

    Less features to develop equals less cost, faster and more efficient production, easier upkeep, and less bugs out the door.

  4. Wasn’t the Playbook aimed at enterprise? Or was it just general BlackBerry users since it could be Bridged together?

    At any rate it would be interesting to see a BB10 take on the tablet. I think it would have to be more than a blown up UI. It would have to incorporate some changes to make it different than the phone, for example: the Active Frames on the tablet would be actual widgets

  5. Playbook OS is slightly different than the phone OS but fundamentally the same underlying bones. I don’t think it makes sense to think about Blackberry as bringing a ‘tablet’ product to market as much as a significantly larger touchscreen and perhaps wifi-only ‘phone’.

    All that Blackberry would really need to do, considering the phone OS is already a complete product, is touch up the landscape/portrait modes of the phone OS, makes some adjustments to multitasking (the Playbook could run a lot of apps in true multitasking mode which is something not exactly enabled in the phone) and make sure higher resolutions are supported by the OS. Basically, not much work to bring the phone OS to a bigger screen and call it a tablet.

    And yes, I still find my Playbook to be a superior product to the various Android and Windows tablets in my household, and even with it’s rather gimp 1ghz processor it tends to be in my bag consistently as opposed to anything else.

    I’d kill for the EXACT SAME DEVICE with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 and 2gb of RAM. Even with its limited app environment, it’s that great.

    1. I agree. Blackberry may not exist by the end of 2015. There is no hope for Blackberry if it takes them that long to bring a product to market. The mobile space changes so quickly. Blackberry seems like a ship without a rudder.

      1. So are the hackers trying to hack networks via mobile phones. Which EMM is best to fend off hackers in enterprise? By the end of 2015 Blackberry will move mostly to enterprise and you will see mostly Blackberry phones used in enterprise, …

  9. I love the QNX OS however, BB has taken so very long getting things worked out with it, and the hardware just didn’t cut it.

    I hope they are able to compete but I’m doubtful, and what a shame if BB10/QNX dies with them.

    1. Who in “enterprise” has the “fu” capital to take a chance on these things?

      1. Currently it is the only OS that is NSA proof atm so imagine most businesses with 2 cents of common sense will be up for it

Comments are closed.