RIM's PlayBook Tablet Leans On BlackBerry Phone For Corporate Email Access

At a media and analyst event on Thursday, RIM said that the first Wi-Fi-only PlayBook won't be able to connect to many corporate BlackBerry email accounts on its own; instead, users will be able to access webmail and other Internet-based email by syncing the Playbook to the BlackBerry.

According to a report earlier this week from Business Insider, a former member of RIM's corporate development and M&A department named Raymond Reddy said that the RIM's Playbook is facing unexpected problems porting the Blackberry experience to its QNX platform, and that the new Playbook will not include wireless connection capability for corporate email accounts without 3G connection to a Blackberry phone. This is problematic given that importance of email in the corporate space and the importance of the corporate space within RIM's market strategy.

RIM could not be reached for comment on the report.

In addition, PlayBook's power-efficient QNX operating system reportedly will not support the entirety of the Blackberry ecosystem, including several third-party applications. Unlike Apple's iPad, however, the PlayBook will include Adobe Flash support.

RIM's chief executive has publically derided Apple's App store strategy and rejected the notion that applications are a necessary part of the web-browsing experience. In a conference in San Francisco in November, Jim Balsillie said that software developers for mobile devices can rely on the existing ecosystem without mobile-specific browsers or a mobile-specific SDK.

Aside from running QNX, specifications for the RIM PlayBook read much like that of other tablet devices such as Samsung's Galaxy or Dell's Streak 7.

The PlayBook runs on a 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with 1 GB of RAM and symmetric multi-processing. The PlayBook features a 7-inch 1024 x 600 multi-touch capacitive display, a USB port, and support for Adobe Flash 10.1 and HTML 5. It offers 1080p HD video capability with built-in dual HD cameras offering real-time video conferencing as well as HD display and stereo sound.

Despite some negative review following CES, RIM's PlayBook offers access to RIM's BlackBerry App World as well as support for development platforms including POSIX OS, SMP, Open GL, BlackBerry 6, WebKit, Adobe Flash, Java and Adobe Mobile AIR.