At last, I see signs of some movement from Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, in response to the inroads that its rival are making into the smartphone scene.
Is this what a BlackPad will look like?
It is much too early to tell whether this move will help RIM stave off its rivals’ inroads into its market share, but it is at least something. However, I believe RIM needs more than just a new device. Apple is successful because of the entire framework – apps, iTunes, chic branding. RIM is lagging in the Apps arena and does not have any music framework. The only thing it can leverage on is its branding from the success of its BlackBerrys. Even that is fading fast in the face of the popularity of the iPhone. I wonder if people still use BlackBerry as a verb anymore? Assessing company email from the phone is old news. What do people talk about nowadays? Apps – Apple apps and Android Apps.
RIM has acquired the internet rights to blackpad.com, fueling speculation that it is developing a tablet device to challenge Apple’s wildly successful iPad.
According to the Whois database of Internet domain names, the domain name assigned to RIM was created on July 8 and expires Sept. 8, 2011.
Bloomberg reports that there was no record of a trademark application for “blackpad” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as of today.
Apple, the maker of the iPad, claimed in June that it has sold 3 million of the tablet computers within 80 days of launch in the US.
Other device makers are vying to develop tablets following Apple’s success with its iPad, although the concept of tablet computers is not new and had been actively but not as successfully pursued by Microsoft nearly a decade ago.
Hewlett-Packard, which bought smartphone maker Palm earlier this month, applied to the Patent Office on July 9 to register the name Palmpad for computers and computer software. HP said last week it plans to produce a tablet device this year.