BlackBerry should focus on a phablet-free future

Among friends, via my social media channels and at pretty much any other opportunity, I have been campaigning against the ugly, made-up tech term “phablet,” referring to a mobile device that’s sized someplace between a phone and a tablet. Sadly, its usage is beginning to seem inevitable, but hopefully not so inevitable that BlackBerry feels compelled to come up with one.

In the last few weeks some pictures have emerged online which reportedly show leaked details of a BlackBerry phablet or tablet that is under development. Naturally, the company has issued no concrete details, but instead of inspiring the kind of breathless anticipation that greets the possibility of a new iPad from Apple, the general reaction from IT industry people I know has been more like, “Oh, brother.”

It’s not just that this is BlackBerry, whose ups and downs have been difficult for even its loyalists to endure. It’s that the tablet market may not have the kind of growth potential some people think it does.

In a survey conducted a few months ago by U.K.-based research firm Analysys Mason, for example, 75 per cent of tablet users had acquired their device in 2012. That might make it even more difficult for BlackBerry, says principle analyst Ronan de Renesse, because, “tablets are not being replaced as often as smartphones.”

Research in Motion's fortunes began to decline not long after its last foray into the tablet space with the ill-received Playbook, de Renesse points out. “BlackBerry will have to be extremely innovative to convince existing tablet users to drop their one-year-old tablet for a BlackBerry tablet, especially given the company’s poor track record in this segment,” he says. “It will have to bring a new experience to tablet users and regain their trust.”

And not just users. When it launched BB10, BlackBerry was working overtime to lure developers to create enough apps to make the Z10 worth consideration. It would face a similar challenge in encouraging the creation of tablet or “phablet” apps, which don’t always travel neatly from a small-sized smartphone screen to something larger.

An example is DisclosureNet. The Toronto-based firm makes an application that allows business people to easily research corporate filings. This is the kind of software program that would have had “BlackBerry” all over it in the firm’s glory days, but right now DisclosureNet’s focus has been on the iPhone and iPad, says product manager Mihnea Galeteanu. Although DisclosureNet has been looking at the traffic to its app to see if anyone was trying to find it via a Z10 device, there hasn’t been enough activity to create a BB10 version yet.

"As for the ‘phablet’ you speak of, I think the argument stays the same: show me the need and we’ll reprioritize our backlog so that we can meet our customers’ needs,” he says.

“Overall, I think Blackberry’s problem remains in creating a device and offering a set of apps that is rich enough to be used for personal things before a user might decide to use it for productivity apps like ours.”

Well said. Let’s face it: BlackBerry has more than enough work ahead just trying to rebuild its position in the North American smartphone market without trying to diversify into new product categories that are far from mature. There is a strong case to be made for doing one thing really well – Apple followed this approach by scoring a hit with the desktop iMacs before branching into phones, tablets and music players. A BlackBerry phablet could give the world more to talk about, but the tone of that conversation may end up being much different than what company would want.