Despite a promising launch, Research in Motion has cut its PlayBook sales estimates by half causing investors and analysts to panic that the company can't compete with Android and Apple tablets.
Shares slipped on the news but long-term views of the company are still positive, according to the Wall Street Journal, because of strong international demand.
In a note to clients, analyst Kevin Smithen acknowledged "numerous challenges" for the company, including "delayed product launches, insufficient and misallocated R&D, poor management reaction to changing industry trends, subpar communication with investors, strengthening competition, falling [average selling prices], and ineffective CEO and Board structure."
(Yikes! Does RIM have a chance? It sounds like it's being run by distracted kindergartners.)
The tablet computer market is a growing one, but one still dominated by Android and Apple, so any other tablet operating system has a lot to overcome. (It's rumored that Amazon will also join the fray with its own Android tablet.) While many state that the iPad has the market sewn up, Android tablets are also proliferating and becoming part of the personal and enterprise landscape.
Either way, with such popular competition, RIM can't afford to be inefficient, irrelevant and crippled with poor communication and mediocrity.
