Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)/BlackBerry became the subject of intense ridicule in April when the company’s CEO, Thorstein Heins, said that he didn’t see a future in tablets. Today the executive revised his comments, adding some nuance and context to the earlier claim, and made his line of thought much clearer, and less funny.
At the Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)/Blackberry Blackberry Live conference, Heins spoke about his ideas on tablets in a Q&A section with members of the press. The CEO gave some interesting insight into his thoughts on the mobile revolution, and its future.
“We believe in a single element of mobile computing: one on your hip,” Heins stated, though he clarified that comment in an interview with CNET after the session. According to the Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)/Blackberry CEO, “The industry got stuck on the term tablets,” and at BlackBerry they “want to create something that’s easier to use.”
What Heins appears to be hinting at is a physical hardware manifestation of the cloud. Other companies, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) among others, want the user experience to be the same across devices, but they want to do it with cloud software. That means that users can continue to work or read or watch from device to device without a problem.
The Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)/Blackberry CEO appears to be looking for an even more seamless transition. Heins thinks that bigger screens are in demand, but he doesn’t think that tablets are a good way to offer them. One of the most influential designs in the area is the Asus PadFone, which allows users to plug their smartphone into a larger screen.
Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)/Blackberry is apparently pumping a large amount of research money into figuring out a new way to deal with tablets, to give consumers bigger and better screens while cutting down on the amount of processor juice and other redundancies. Other companies don’t seem convinced that this is the way forward.
Forms are changing however, and outside of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), where device categories are still regimented, the continuum between laptop and smartphone is becoming increasingly difficult to delineate. If Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)/Blackberry CEO manages to make a device that can fill in for most of users’ electronics spend, it might be onto a winner.
