RIM's PlayBook Drawing Interest From Corporate Community
By Stuart Weinberg, OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
TORONTO -(Dow Jones)- BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.'s (RIMM) PlayBook tablet won't be available until the first quarter of 2011, but many companies are already considering how to deploy it and plan to begin testing the device soon.
"I actually got my hands on the first unit today, and will get demo devices in December," said Dave Codack, vice president of Employee Technology and Network Services at TD Bank Financial Group.
Candidates for a PlayBook at TD include executives, knowledge workers who use basic productivity applications like Microsoft Word, mortgage specialists who deal directly with customers and contact-center employees who use basic applications to service customers, Codack said.
It's too soon to say how many PlayBooks TD will deploy, but a key factor will be the extent to which it can supplant laptops, he said. If it can serve as a replacement, TD could end up providing PlayBooks to as many as 10%-15% of its 75,000 employees, he said. If not, it will have a "minimal footprint," he said.
The PlayBook is one of the more important product launches in RIM's 26-year history. A pioneer in the smartphone market, the Waterloo, Ontario firm is facing fierce competition from Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhone juggernaut and a slew of devices running on Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android operating system. The rival devices are making inroads in the corporate-smartphone market, which the BlackBerry has traditionally dominated.
RIM is fighting back, recently launching a new Blackberry operating system and overhauling its support for third-party-application developers. The company unveiled the PlayBook in September to compete in the tablet-computer market and defend its turf in the corporate market. A successful launch could restore RIM's cachet and prop up flagging North American sales. A flop could mean further erosion in the corporate market and accelerate the perception of RIM as an also- ran.
RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said last week that the PlayBook will sell for less than US$500. The iPad starts at US$499.
Sun Life Financial Inc.'s (SLF) Tom Reid said he anticipates ordering as many as 1,000 PlayBooks initially. Reid, senior vice president of Group Retirement Services at Sun Life, said the devices will be used to facilitate enrollment in retirement savings plans managed by the insurance provider.
Enrollment in those plans have traditionally involved paper forms that people often forget to fill out, he said. By using the PlayBook and a custom-designed application, people can enroll on the spot, increasing sign-up rates, he said. Sun Life is evaluating other ways to deploy the PlayBook, including for enrollment in other plans managed by the company or a sales-team tool, he said.
Security was a critical factor in choosing the PlayBook, Reid said. "It's got 128-bit encryption, and when you're thinking about security of our members' personal information, that had to be our No. 1 priority," he said.
Sun Life hasn't ordered the PlayBook yet, but a purchase order is likely since the company spent a lot of time and money developing its application for the device. "When the device is ready to ship, then we'll negotiate--as with any supplier--the terms under which we'll purchase them," he said.
Price is one reason Michael Wright is interested in the PlayBook. Wright, chief technology officer for the Denver International Airport, said he also likes the device's front and rear cameras for video conferencing. Its Flash capability will make for a superior Web-browsing experience, and obviate the need to pay developers to fit an application onto a device that doesn't support Flash, he said. "And we like the price point," he said.
The Denver airport will use the PlayBook to help enhance security operations, snow operations and for in-the-field maintenance, Wright said. He said he envisions deploying up to 300 tablets for the airport's 1,100 employees. Some of these will be iPads, he said, though he "hasn't given much thought" yet to how each device will be deployed.
TD's Codack said the company supports iPads but the device is not "industrial grade" from a corporate perspective. "There's a whole bunch of infrastructure required to manage (large-scale-device deployments) and...the iPad doesn't have that," he said.
By contrast, RIM's BlackBerry smartphone was built from the ground up as an enterprise product, Codack said. It allows companies a high degree of control over how the device is used and managed, and provides tight security, which is paramount for corporations, he said. "If it has the look and feel of an iPad with the kind of infrastructure that RIM provides, I think that's going to be appealing," he said.
A list of some companies/organizations evaluating the PlayBook:
TD Bank Financial Group
Sun Life Financial
Manulife Financial
ING Direct Canada
Denver International Airport
Colorado Department of Corrections
Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, LLP
Lake Travis Independent School District, Austin, Texas
SAP AG
-By Stuart Weinberg; Dow Jones Newswires; 416-306-2026; stuart.weinberg@ dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires 11-17-101951ET Copyright (c) 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
SAP Readies Software for RIM's New Tablet . By SPENCER E. ANTE SAP AG said it will have mobile versions of its business software ready for Research In Motion Ltd.'s new Playbook tablet computer when the device hits the market early next year.
Its backing is a vote of confidence in RIM, as the BlackBerry maker struggles to defend its corporate market against incursions from Apple Inc. and gadgets built on Google Corp.'s Android operating system.
"SAP is definitely supporting the RIM Playbook," Oliver Bussmann, SAP's chief information officer, said Friday.
SAP is the leading maker of so-called enterprise resource management, or ERP, software that many companies use to run basic functions such as finance, human resources and manufacturing. "All of the ERP apps will come out on the Playbook," Mr. Bussmann said.
RIM lags well behind Apple and Android in the number of apps available on its operating system. But the company is betting a more modest but high quality menu of business apps could help it catch up in the tablet market, the next big battleground in mobile computing. Although RIM once dominated the smartphone market, the Waterloo, Ontario, firm is coming late to the tablet game.
Apple's iPad leads the tablet market. As of the end of September, six months after launching the device, Apple had sold 7.5 million iPads. In addition, Apple said that over 65% of the Fortune 100 is already deploying or piloting its tablet. This fall, the first Android-based tablet, Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy Tab, began rolling out.
"The penetration of the RIM Playbook will depend upon the apps," said Mr. Bussmann. "Apple has more enterprise apps ready. That is an advantage."
RIM offers about 10,000 wireless apps for its BlackBerry while Apple carries more than 300,000 apps and Google is serving up 100,000 apps through its Android Market.
Apple is the only company that is offering apps built exclusively for tablet PCs, with more than 30,000 native iPad apps as of the end of September. Google has said the current version of Android, designed for smartphones, isn't specifically tailored for tablet computing.
SAP was quick to roll out the iPad to its employees. The Walldorf, Germany, company began supporting the iPad, purchasing 1,000 units primarily for the company's software developers. Now, Mr. Bussmann said SAP is supporting almost 2,000 iPads, adding 300 to 500 per month, and is distributing them to its executives and sales force.
SAP is also looking at adopting Android-based tablets. While Mr. Bussman says tablets aren't a total replacement for other portable computers, he says the advent of tablets will lead to "less buying of netbooks and smaller laptops."
SAP will make the under $500 PlayBook available to some of its employees in three to four weeks, Mr. Bussman said.
A 7-inch tablet computer, the Playbook will run on software built by QNX Software Systems, a Research in Motion unit that makes software used to run everything from cars to nuclear reactors. Research in Motion bought QNX earlier this year, and has been working to adapt the software for mobile phones.
Unlike Apple Inc.'s iPad, the PlayBook supports Adobe Systems Inc.'s Flash technology. Flash is used to power many videos and applications on the Internet, as well as many SAP applications, Mr. Bussmann said.
Although it won't be available in North America until the first quarter of 2010, the PlayBook is starting to attract interest from some big companies. Executives at TD Bank Financial Group and Sun Life Financial Inc. said they plan to place orders for the tablet computer. Others, including the operator of Denver's airport and a school district in Austin, Texas, say they are evaluating uses for the tablet.
In late September, RIM unveiled the Playbook at a conference for software developers and announced partnerships with SAP, Oracle Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. to develop business apps. At the time, the company said the three companies were testing RIM software designed to build business apps.
—Stuart Weinberg contributed to this article.
Write to Spencer E. Ante at Spencer.Ante@wsj.com .
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