RIM introduces it's tablet.. the PlayBook (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten ; an iPad can also be secured through the use of configuration files installed directly by IT. RIM has very much dropped the security ball when it comes to the PlayBook.

This isn't really true at all. The Xoom does not in any way have a secure path of communication. Not even close. And all the security through the Server management tool does is acknowledge the device to communicate through an authorized token. It doesn't provide for remote wipes, etc. just an SSL communication between the two devices, which is something that -any- device can do via an SSL communication path. IN fact, if you want to get to that level, yes, there are ways to do this, but why bother when BES will do it?



I think there is an honest, serious criticique of a lot of things I dislike about it. But just like I find it obnoxious when Android fans bash the iPad for the ridicullous or Apple fans bash Android, etc. every platform has some serious pros and cons. You can do a good job giving a negative review of a product without having to "embellish" problems or it appears not make the effort to find out the answer. Kind of disappointing.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by mattCR
I think there is an honest, serious criticique of a lot of things I dislike about it. But just like I find it obnoxious when Android fans bash the iPad for the ridicullous or Apple fans bash Android, etc. every platform has some serious pros and cons. You can do a good job giving a negative review of a product without having to "embellish" problems or it appears not make the effort to find out the answer. Kind of disappointing.

This was more or less my point about the earlier Xoom reviews as well. There's just some sort of laziness and/or inevitable bias in just about all these online reviews near as I can tell. None of them seem to apply the due diligence needed for quality reviews. There's probably just too much of the "get it out first" and "just wanna be heard" attitudes on top of those other aspects...


_Man_

 

[DaveF]

There is the belief that readers demand and read only the immediate (release day or earlier) reviews, which drives most pro reviews.


I'd like to see more follow-up articles. Things like the iPad are so novel that I still want to read how well it works in day-to-day use after six months.They should treat these like cars, with not just the initial impressions, buy 15,000 mile followups

 

[Sam Posten]

Originally Posted by ManW_TheUncool

This was more or less my point about the earlier Xoom reviews as well. There's just some sort of laziness and/or inevitable bias in just about all these online reviews near as I can tell. None of them seem to apply the due diligence needed for quality reviews. There's probably just too much of the "get it out first" and "just wanna be heard" attitudes on top of those other aspects...


_Man_

And this NEVER happens for the iPad reviews...

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten

And this NEVER happens for the iPad reviews...

No, Sam, it happens on iPad reviews as well; when the first iPad came out, there were a ton of reviews that were eager to trash it as a "big ipod" and so on. And while they had a point, the fact is they also didn't do enough work to figure it out. That's the thing.. these reviews rush out the door to get press and up the view count of their website, but as far as actual details that tell you anything, they tend to be poorly researched. There are just basic, fundamental problems here. For pete sake, Farhad @ Slate posted a Playbook review while acknowledging he didn't even have one and had never used one (!!!!!)

Like I said, I think there are some real negatives that you can post about it as a device, but it's more difficult to actually do some work with it and comment rather then just throw out stuff that I feel they've gleened from other websites to just mock together a review.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Exactly.


And honestly, IMHO, those of us who seem to feed off of such half-baked, sometimes even tabloid-like, reviews are just encouraging them to go further down that road...


Now that Matt's reiterated his dismay w/ Farhad's "review", that reminds me of Ken Rockwell...


_Man_

 

[Sam Posten]

Do NOT mention he who must not be named! Not Voldemort, KR...

 

[DaveF]

There are just basic, fundamental problems here. For pete sake, Farhad @ Slate posted a Playbook review while acknowledging he didn't even have one and had never used one (!!!!!)

Part of the problem is politically focused magazines trying to cover tech (and tech focused sites doing politics...ahem, John Gruber...) Sometimes you need to stay in your domain.

 

[mattCR]

So RIM announced their updates today at RIM'2011.. just some highlights:


MS Bing + Co-Op and SIlverlight for WP7 / Playbook type development

New BBM for Playbook



Showed off Android Player (Honeycomb OK!)

New OS rollout today

Playbook + RIM new phones = direct connect to Microsoft Cloud Storage


Several paper non-stage announcements of direct-connect-app.. including two mind bending ones for the medical and long term care living facility communities; direct integration into their SQL platform apps..


SAP follows suit gets stage time





IBM also bringing mobile management tools to bear...


CSC shows off their mobile Insurance Industry aimed app designed for Adjusters






And PDM! Which means Cerner, etc. have a backend client in the hopper for Playbook..

 

[mattCR]

Brief summary for those who are wondering: some very cool things shown for end users, ie, games and the like, Microsoft Cloud connection and Silverlight are awesome.... they showed off the new stand alone mail and calendaring app which is nice; but the real 'home runs' here were for industry level apps. With large commitments from IBM, Microsoft, SAP, CSC, DST and others they have pretty much roped in a slew of direct to tablet server integrated terminals that will stand out as: only on this platform, we're it. These will be the sell-through "exclusives" that they will use to push this thing.


For casual users, they will be worthless. How many people are going to start jumping up and down over "I can get a CSC Adjustment Client Local?" "SAP is bringing analysis connection local to my pad!" "PDM is straight on my pad with a HCFA billing agent?" "I can process medicaid forms right on my pad!!!"

Yeah, those aren't the kind of huge sells for say, joe end user. But they will certainly help Playbook find a market. Sometimes, you're just better off doing what you're good at.

 

[Sam Posten]

I don't buy that at all. I don't think that will be enough for enterprise buyers to push back against the avalanche of people who are screaming to be able to use the devices they already have and love to be able to get their real work done.

time will tell who is right here!

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten

I don't buy that at all. I don't think that will be enough for enterprise buyers to push back against the avalanche of people who are screaming to be able to use the devices they already have and love to be able to get their real work done.

time will tell who is right here!

Sam-


You do realize that Bank of America still has a contract for network wide use of OS/2? People can push as hard as they want, it's just not how it works. Example: Nurses might LOVE their iPad. But if PDM is a blackberry exclusive, you can bet they'll use PDM in the hospital. Why? Because PDM is HCFA certified.

There are some complaints people can make that matter. There are some they can make as loud and as long as they want and it's like screaming at the sky. This is the part that people don't seem to quite get a hold of.


Let me take a non-mobile design. Nothing related directly to Apple or Microsoft or Blackberry. One of the greatest databases nationwide, and largest runs on Oracle... but SAP and IBM are whole heartedly committed to DB2. Now, there has been some movement on the compatibility of these two. But active agents while available on other eds, run best (and by best, I mean, they are worth running) on AIX. Now, how popular is AIX? It's not. But if you are committed to DB2, guess what you are running AIX somewhere.



I think you look at it like "consumers will push back".. I kind of laugh. I sat in a room of 800 employees while their senior executives explained to them that having an a long list of mobile devices on their premises would get them fired, instantly - because there was no way to hardware disable the camera - get caught on their premise with a camera of any sort, in a phone or whatever, and you'd be terminated with cause. (medical exposure). Or flying to LA and sitting through long strategy meetings of how the owners of a company could install forwarding software to make sure that they received all copies of TXT, SMS, and data flowing from company provided mobile devices (and yes, if Android and iOS devices were part of the bitching..)...


Or, better yet, enterprise that use Spector (http://www.spectorsoft.com/) and the like relentlessly to monitor it's employees.

I mean, I know it feels good to say "this is the coolest thing! There will be employee pushback!" Employee pushback means exactly dick. It's the same reason why Jonas (http://www.jonassoftware.com/Home.aspx) is so popular in PGA locations. You can hate it all you want, but it's remote mobile is Windows Mobile 6.5 ready on a special device. Do they have any incentive to upgrade? No, because it's a single line app.


That's the thing. With something like PDM, they aren't competing with Apple.. the platform for PDM has been for the last four years has been the Toshiba Portege Tablet. It is ubiquitous with PDM. Find somewhere running stuff like PDM, and there is one. The portege is not an ideal unit to lug around, but it does a perfect job matching up with the software so bam, default.

I think you're looking at it like the consumer side makes big influences on corporate realities.. and it does, to some extent. I think BES support for iPhone/Android had to happen, because as more people wanted to use them, the need to capture all inbound messaging for later review by the company becomes imperative. I think BB had to do that. But as far as saying "oh well, IBM will port their app to..." I bring you back to: Bank of America still has nationwide contracts for OS/2.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten

I don't buy that at all. I don't think that will be enough for enterprise buyers to push back against the avalanche of people who are screaming to be able to use the devices they already have and love to be able to get their real work done.

Perhaps you've not dealt with IT at a big company? They don't give a damn what the rank and file employees are screaming for, and instead issue corporate policies prohibiting the use of personal devices on the corporate network.


Or, talking with a brother-in-law, a rising star at a Fortune-500-type place: iPhones do not provide the security needed and are not, nor will not, be allowed for company use.


Since email isn't my killer app, I fail to understand the appeal of the Blackberry, but it seems there's still good money for many years to be made if they can keep the corporate buyers and IT happy enough and locked in at the big companies.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by mattCR



I mean, I know it feels good to say "this is the coolest thing! There will be employee pushback!" Employee pushback means exactly dick. It's the same reason why Jonas (http://www.jonassoftware.com/Home.aspx) is so popular in PGA locations. You can hate it all you want, but it's remote mobile is Windows Mobile 6.5 ready on a special device. Do they have any incentive to upgrade? No, because it's a single line app.

And thanks to you, I've got the Weezer song stuck in my head:

 

[Sam Posten]

You guys do know who I work for, right? You think you have beauracracies where you work? We invented them.

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten

You guys do know who I work for, right?

You think you have beauracracies where you work? We invented them.

No, I don't

But I have no doubt it's a huge bureacracy. That having been said, I'm just saying there is market inertia on some level that just doesn't change, no matter who wants it. I think some industries have huge market inertia, but because of who are there primary targets (for example, the financial industry) they would be amongst the more fleet footed to change. Others are just.. well, customer satisfaction is low.

It's not always about the size of the company or the broadness of the industry as much as it is the acceptance of "X works, we have no interest in changing" ...

 

[mattCR]

Dave-


*hah* Really, if I could find a way to quickly replace all of the inventory management systems I see, and unify them all with some true SQL ala Oracle/MS/DB2 whatever.. my would my day be easier.. But that would make it too simple. Oh wait, we've missed discussing at all software with elaborate hardware dongles.. oh, and have I told you about my love for RSA keyfobs?

 

[DaveF]

Sam, I've got an idea of your employer from your recent move. Which baffles me about the notion they would buckle under plebeian cries for iPhones. I work for an aerospace contractor, and "user focused" is not the top description of IT nor Security

 

[Sam Posten]

Dave, I'm not saying they are giving in to it here right away. There ARE pilot programs that I've read about peripherally that are responding to the changing landscape tho.

You asked if I am am familiar with working in a big company, and indeed I am. I am well versed in the bureaucracies of both private big businesses and public entities. I've seen dumber policies than you can ever imagine. When I graduated college it was in the mistaken belief that we had fought the good fight verses centralized administration and that the PC had rightly won over the dumb ole mainframes. Big mistake, and the lessons of the last 30 years are lost on the Johnny Come Latelys who have a list of rules they must follow and no good sense about anything. They see dollars to be saved by cutting out the costs of supporting all those platforms and LOVE getting rid of stovepipes and putting all their eggs in one basket. Homogenization and lowest common denominator for everyone!


EVERYONE MUST PROGRAM IN ADA!

Security Best Practices!


It's maddening, and you can only fight it until the point of collapse. But sometimes the fighting helps and common sense at least gets a chance to peek through.

 

[DaveF]

Philip Greenspun is unimpressed.

http://philip.greenspun.com/wireless/playbook

I tried reading Gmail from the Web browser on the PlayBook. The page is rendered in a layout that I've never seen before, either on a mobile phone or a desktop computer browser. I was unable either to delete or reply to messages. Buttons that said "delete" or "send" were presented, but then pressing those buttons did not result in any action or change in the screen content.