Hasta La Gadget!

Research in Motion, perhaps becoming increasingly desperate to come up with an answer to the latest smartphones, apparently is developing a tablet as well as a slider touchscreen phone.

The report, from The Wall Street Journal, puts the tablet’s release as early as this year, according to unnamed sources. As the Journal notes, RIM has talked about releasing a new phone with a new operating system by September, but hasn’t released details about that phone or any tablet plans.

The new phone would ship with four gigabytes of storage space and a five megapixel camera, according to the Journal, plus now commonly-shared features like multiple home screens and the ability to search across the device.

In reality, what RIM needs is a little sizzle. For years, the company has thrived on providing business-oriented devices oriented around email, and that has helped  RIM hang on to the fifth spot worldwide in phones owned, with 3.6 percent. The comScore numbers cited in the report also refer to phones owned, not sold. But RIM’s growth has also outpaced the industry at 45.2 percent
year over year, according to IDC.

The BlackBerry
Storm and Storm 2
nominally thrust RIM into the smartphone space, but its limited feature
set and wonky touch interface quickly was overtaken by the iPhone and
the galaxy of Android touchscreen devices.

But Strategy Analytics has marked RIM’s North American smartphone share decline to 38 percent in the March quarter from 54 percent in the year-ago quarter, the Journal reported.

If true, it appears RIM is certainly reacting to the rise in consumer smartphones. It seems safe to say that RIM needs to deliver a winner, however, to bolster the perceptions of consumers.