RIM Co-CEO Shrugs Off Netbooks

One of the co-CEOs of BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM)-maker Research in Motion had not long ago made the somewhat ballsy statement of equating the BlackBerry Storm to a netbook. Mr. Lazaridis’ compatriot in executivity, Jim Balsillie, has one-upped that angle, and gone so far as to dismiss netbooks as a remote threat to smartphones. The constraints of size, he claims, will keep people coming back to something they can easily pocket and won’t cost an arm and a leg. If a bigger screen or other functions are in demand, Bluetooth connectivity to peripherals can pick up the slack. While smartphones are making great progress, they still don’t quite have the horsepower of an honest-to-goodness netbook, and it will be some time before they do. Besides, who’s to say the tech world isn’t big enough for both? Using a smartphone to gain tethered connectivity for a netbook sounds like a match made in heaven. What’s your take? Will people with BlackBerrys necessarily shy away from picking up netbooks?

[via Reuters]