On August 13th, Beijing time, Sprint Nextel (hereinafter referred to as "Sprint"), the third-largest mobile operator in the United States, has abandoned its plan to sell 4G version of PlayBook tablet PCs, mainly due to the sluggish market demand, which also makes PlayBook's owner's BlackBerry Producer RIM has suffered another setback.
As early as 8 months ago, Sprint became the first mobile operator to announce a collaboration with RIM on tablet PCs, but the company said Friday that it has canceled plans to launch a WiMAX version of PlayBook.
Right now, RIM ’s PlayBook tablet is facing a strong challenge from Apple ’s best-selling iPad, and the competition between BlackBerry and iPhone is also a bitter battle.
Sprint said that the cancellation of the 4G version of the PlayBook tablet is a decision made by both parties.
However, Paget Alves, director of business services at Sprint, said that the popularity of the Wi-Fi version of tablet PCs today far exceeds the WiMax version of tablet PCs.
Alves said earlier this week that the current tablet market is dominated by the Wi-Fi version.
RIM said that compared to WiMax version products, the company will give priority to the development of products that support the LTE standard. RIM said that it has already tested the LTE version of PlayBook and plans to conduct an operator test phase in the US and global markets this fall.
Verizon Wireless and AT & T, two major US wireless operators, are currently deploying LTE networks. AT & T declined to comment on whether it will sell the LTE version of the PlayBook tablet.
As early as the PlayBook launched in April this year, RIM said that Verizon would sell the tablet, but after the product was launched, Verizon said it was reconsidering. Verizon spokesperson Brenda Raney said on Friday that the company is still studying related matters.
Some analysts are puzzled by RIM's choice of WiMax as the initial network support, because the two major mobile operators mentioned earlier that they will deploy LTE networks in January this year.
Even Sprint, which currently relies on the WiMax service provided by Clearwire, is expected to announce its own network's LTE upgrade plan in October.
Currently, Sprint is still selling Wi-Fi version of Playbook.
However, Ed Snyder, an analyst at market research company Charter Equity Research, said that compared with Sprint's wireless technology cooperation issues, RIM is actually facing more problems because PlayBook lacks a bright spot to beat iPad.
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