The RIM tablet can connect with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, making it a fit with more enterprise networks than Cisco's or Avaya's offerings.
We'll have our mobility expert, Michael Finneran, weighing in on the new RIM tablet, the PlayBook, shortly. But I wanted to make a few points of quick reaction to the announcement earlier today.
We now have three announced tablets whose focus is the enterprise:
* Avaya Desktop Video Device with Flare Experience (it's a tablet, no matter what Avaya says)
* Cisco Cius
* And now, RIM's PlayBook
What distinguishes RIM from the other 2 is that it's not dependent on your enterprise communications platform--Avaya's device only works with Aura, Cisco only works with Cisco. The RIM PlayBook hooks into RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which in turn integrates with all the major communications platforms. So if you're an enterprise with a mixed communications environment--as most are--and you want to standardize on a tablet, PlayBook makes the most sense from a compatibility perspective, assuming you already run BES for your BlackBerry users.
This CNet article points out, among other things, the many aspects of the PlayBook that maybe help explain the double meaning of the device's name. That is, in spite of the fact that RIM's calling card is business usage, and RIM itself emphasized this device as a business tablet, RIM is also attempting to get some "play" into the device, via high-end video and game developer support.
I can't say what exactly RIM was thinking, but Finneran has pointed out that RIM has been getting more of its revenue from the consumer market in recent years, and this might have played into the tablet design. RIM may understand that, even if you're releasing a device that's positioned as an enterprise tablet, it has to get some lift from the consumer impulse--or at minimum, such consumer-driven adoption can only help as companies jockey for position in the enterprise with their tablets.
On the minus side, the first version of PlayBook won't have any direct cellular connectivity--not even 3G, let alone 4G. So you'll either have to have a fully-rolled-out WLAN, or else your PlayBook users will have to schlep their BlackBerries along with the PlayBook, in order to connect PlayBook to the cellular network via Bluetooth to the BlackBerry.
Those are just a few quick impressions. What do you see when you look at the PlayBook?
