A major blow to Research In Motion was rendered recently when one of their most important employees, Ryan Bidan, left it only to join Samsung, one of main rivals of the company. Bidan is the second employee of RIM that has left it in one month, and this has been quite a serious blow for RIM. But things didn’t stop right there and another blow came when Apple, one of the main rivals of RIM, released its blockbuster quarterly results, according to which Apple’s shares are high as usual while the shares of RIM have fallen down to the lowest level in five years. This situation is certainly alarming for RIM.

Ryan Biden was a senior product manager at RIM who had the responsibility for PlayBook tablet computer. After leaving RIM, he joined Samsung as a director of product marketing. This was announced on Biden’s LinkedIn profile. RIM has refused to comment on this latest development, although they acknowledged the fact. Biden was perhaps the most renowned personality in relation to PlayBook, RIM’s device which faces stiff competition from Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1.

According to the marketing experts of the electronics industry, RIM seems to be going through a phase of serious operational as well as marketing reconstruction. Biden’s farewell to RIM was the second of its type in one month, followed by the departure of Brian Wallace who was the head of RIM’s digital marketing efforts. He also left RIM to take a job at Samsung.

RIM’s earning for this years have considerably declined, which according to RIM is due to the ‘arms race’ prevailing in North America. RIM acknowledged that Biden and Wallace were under pressure due to the tough competition from Apple and Samsung. Situation for RIM was further stiffened when Apple announced the sale of 20 million iPhones and 9 million iPads in the last quarter, other than gaining considerable growth in the international market which was the strong point of RIM. It seems that Apple is gaining weight over RIM in places like Latin America and Middle East, where previously RIM’s position was quite strong. According to the Toronto Stock Exchange, RIM’s stock was down 0.7 percent at C$25.27.

RIM released its PlayBook in April which was the first RIM tablet to run QNX-based operating system. According to The Waterloo, some 500,000 units of this product were shipped in the first six weeks. Plus during the last quarter, some 13.2 million BlackBerrys were sold as well. RIM is considering cutting a considerable number of jobs in order to regain its lost position in the race of smartphones. RIM has also been facing criticism due to its inability to compete with Apple and Samsung in the aforementioned race.

Several other noteworthy personnel from RIM are also absent, among them chief operations officer Don Morrison who took a medical leave this June and is expected to return later this year. Amidst this entire touch situation, RIM would certainly need a lot of effort to regain the lost glory.

Day one of the International CTIA wireless show in Orlando Florida is just getting started. International CTIA is the event which brings together wireless and converged communications, wireless broadband, mobile web. The three days event debuts with the CTIA golf championship, continues with seminars and workshops on intense business themes, on-going exhibitions,  unceasing learning process and great networking opportunities. The organizers are expecting over 1000 companies and 40 000 visitors this year as they laid more emphasis on networking rather than power point presentations.

What should we expect form the CTIA 2011? They are going to see prices for products which have already been introduced to us during CES 2011, but also new tablets to be launched on the market. We can definitely look forward to finding out prices of the tablets announced in Las Vegas earlier this year, and to new tablets getting unveiled over the next three days. Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is one of the most expected tablet that could make its appearance on March 22nd.

Samsung is not the only tablet to be introduce on this occasion. There will be other tablets on the stage, sharing the spot light, most of them running Android. As far as the OS is concerned, Apple is the great absent of the event; RIM is focusing on its Playbook event in May, so we will probably hear all about android at this edition of CTIA.

Nokia is promising to show us a tablet and many Smartphones running Symbian this year. Nokia has signed the Agreement with Microsoft, and its tablet PC will have an ARM CPU but they cannot afford to wait for Windows 7 to be functional on tablets, so most probably,  Nokia Tablet will be running Symbian or Meego by Intel, and once Microsoft is ready with Windows 7 for tablets, Nokia will make the switch to this OS. We can only hope that Windows 7 would be available for the first tablets sold by Nokia with Symbian.

TabletsForU brings you fresh news from CTIA, so stay tuned to find out all about tablets.

Fresh news on the very much expected Blackberry Playbook. Blackberry Playbook could be released on March 27th, five days after Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 would be officially presented at CTIA 2011. The unofficial source also refers to a price range starting from $499 and, depending on GB storage, rising up to $699, similar prices with tablet PC s from Apple and Samsung. Although BlackBerry has its own operating software called RIM OS, Playbook users will take advantage of the Android Market Applications. The device has a 1GHz dual Core Processor, 16, 32 or 64 GB  storage, weights 425 g and has a 7 inch display. A 4G model will also be available.

Below a preview and first impressions:

BlackBerry PlayBook Technical Specifications

According to Bloomberg, it will take more than 18 months for Microsoft to unveil their first tablet. By then Apple will have the iPad 3, Samusung for sure at least 3 Galaxy Tab and other Android users will launch their products. They will face a strong competition without considering web OS and RIM which are very fast forward players as well.
It is hard to explain how the market leader for computer PC’s fails to take start in the tablet software competition.
Aren’t they interessted in a share of this big pie? Bill Gates unveiled first tablet at CES 2001 and still the great battle of tablets caught him sleeping.

BlackBerry Playbook received very good reviews since its launch but the fact that there aren’t too many applications compatible with its OS RIM made it not so desirable as it could have been. There are reports from Bloomberg saying that guys in Ontario  (HQ of Research in Motion) are working to provide the users of Playbook tablet the possibility to install applications made for Google Android 3.0.

With more than 130 000 application available, high speed connection feature of 4G tablet and its super convenient size,  tablet could be indeed an experience like no other.

BlackBerry PlayBook Technical Specifications