Is RIMM's Commitment to the Past a Winning Formula?

Yesterday was the first-day of PlayBook (RIMM) sales. It's "an Amazon app" enabling easy shopping of e-books and movies on a 7-inch touch display (smaller than the iPad).  
The Playbook is based on the QNX operating system but support for Android 2.3 apps (via app player) is coming later in 2011. 


Blackberry, the PlayBook's brother, is long betting heavily on the Web and not on applications. RIM has only about 5% the apps of iPhone. Pioneer of the smartphones market, the Blackberry has an uphill battle with the iPhone. Smartphone popularity is growing rapidly and there is no wonder smartphones shipments will pass PC deliveries in two years.


There are two totally opposite views of the company in columns that cover the stock:
See Is RIMM one of the stocks to watch this year? 
Or is it the one to sell now? read: RIM does not understand the emerging tablet market