BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins made some odd comments about tablets today at the BlackBerry Live conference. They’re odd because just last month he seemingly would have disagreed with what he is now saying.
“The industry got stuck on the term ‘tablets’,” Heins told CNET, before adding a stance for the company. “We want to create something that’s easier to use.” His plan is to make the tablet essentially a paper weight unless it’s paired with a mobile phone — in this case, a BlackBerry — to act as a brain.
That completely contradicts his view from last month, when he essentially claimed that tablets would be dead in the water within five years. “We believe in a single element of mobile computing: one on your hip,” he said. Even that seems to be a contradiction as well, since BlackBerry released the BlackBerry Playbook a couple of years ago… which is a tablet. It was a failure of a tablet though, so perhaps the company was bitter about tablets because they have scarred themselves with a flop.
While it seems Heins has reversed his views from last month today, it doesn’t look like that means BlackBerry will be coming out with another tablet any time soon. The focus has been mainly on mobile phone hardware and the BlackBerry 10 OS. “The pure hardware play isn’t making a lot of sense today,” Heins remarked, but later added, “We’re interested in the future of tablets, whatever that is.”
Whatever you say, Heins.
[via CNET]