It looks like RIM’s losing more than one team member to Samsung. Ryan Bidan, whom we’ve seen in several official BlackBerry PlayBook demos, is moving on from Research In Motion. He was a senior product manager that handled the BlackBerry PlayBook development. Before that, he handled gaming at Microsoft.
While people in the wireless industry move around all the time, it’s hard for this to look great for RIM among talk about the Wi-Fi PlayBook being phased out of production and the clear sense of employee discontent. The cellular versions of the BlackBerry PlayBook have been pushed back to the fall, and we still haven’t seen Bridge-less e-mail and other productivity apps within the projected timeframe. That said, RIM’s been talking about restructuring, and with the PlayBook spearheading of the next generation of BlackBerry operating systems, the company really can’t afford any more setbacks. I’m curious to see what lessons from the PlayBook launch Bidan brings to Samsung, and likewise what RIM’s new product manager brings to the table.
[RT @ryanbidan, pic]