Looks like a little drama is brewing between Apple’s Steve Jobs and RIM’s Co-CEO Jim Balsillie. During Apple’s 4th quarter earnings call Jobs took a few jabs at the upcoming competition to the iPad. When referring to the Samsung Tab and BlackBerry Playbook Jobs had this to say.
“Given that tablet users will have a smartphone in their pocket, there’s no point in giving up screen size. Seven inch tablets are tweeners — too big to be a phone, and too small to compete with the iPad.”
“The proof of this will be in our competitors pricing, and that’s why we think the current crop of seven-inch tablets will be DOA. Sounds like lots of fun ahead.”
Some pretty strong words from Jobs in an attempt to dismiss the 7-inch tablets to be released on Android and BlackBerry platforms. Perhaps Jobs was put off by the fact iPad sales were below what analyst were expecting. Well, RIM Co-CEO didn’t stand idly by with that shot. Jim Balsillie came out with the below statement.
For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7” tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience. We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash. We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple. And by the way, RIM has achieved record shipments for five consecutive quarters and recently shared guidance of 13.8 – 14.4 million BlackBerry smartphones for the current quarter. Apple’s preference to compare its September-ending quarter with RIM’s August-ending quarter doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t take into account that industry demand in September is typically stronger than summer months, nor does it explain why Apple only shipped 8.4 million devices in its prior quarter and whether Apple’s Q4 results were padded by unfulfilled Q3 customer demand and channel orders. As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story and sooner or later, even people inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story.
– Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion (RIM)
The RIM Co-CEO really laid it out here even comparing RIM’s history of success compared to Apple. You have to love the choice of words in “distortion field”. Flash is a major part of the web and pretty crazy for Apple to try and get us away from it. I know Apple tends to be the shiny new tech people mindlessly draw to but just because it’s Apple it isn’t always the best. You can’t take away how cool the iPad is but a smaller tablet may just be what consumers want.
Will we hear something from Google on Android? Sound off your thoughts on this exchange.
Via: Engadget, Inside BlackBerry
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