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Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Blackberry-maker Research in Motion (RIM), became the latest industry boss to join the backlash against controversial comments made by Steve Jobs on an earnings call yesterday.
Steve Jobs took aim at the upcoming 7-inch Blackberry PlayBook in declaring that 7-inch tablets were ‘DOA’, occupying a no-man’s land between the tablet and the smartphone which would fail to find a market. He also said that RIM would fail to attract developers in the same way as iOS and Android.
"For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field," fired back RIM boss Jim Balsillie in a blog post on the company’s web site. "we know that 7-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market."
"We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash."
"We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple," added Balsillie.
Balsillie went on to question statements made by Jobs concerning sales of the iPhone versus Blackberry, pointing out that RIM had broken company shipment records for five consecutive quarters and accusing the Apple boss of comparing quarterly results with different reporting periods which "doesn’t tell the whole story."
"As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story and sooner or later, even people inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story."
