RIM Finally Launches BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 Update
It’s finally here! The OS update BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users everywhere have been waiting for has arrived. Read on for a quick look at the long-awaited new features and RIM’s strategy with PlayBook 2.0 in the future…
PlayBook 2.0 serves to provide overall enhancement with some more modern web-based social network integration, in addition to the much coveted native mail application that was once previously absent without using the BlackBerry Bridge with an existing BlackBerry. And speaking of the BlackBerry Bridge, PlayBook 2.0 provides new functionality for that very service, allowing the BlackBerry to be a keyboard and mouse for the PlayBook. Fancy. But the most interesting part of RIM’s PlayBook 2.0 release is the little snippet that RIM snuck in at the end…
“In conjunction with the release of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, RIM is making available an initial release of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion that will include support for managing BlackBerry PlayBook tablets and BlackBerry smartphones in an enterprise. The full release of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion (with mobile device management capabilities for iOS and Android devices) is planned for general availability in late March 2012.”
You’ll remember we covered BlackBerry Mobile Fusion’s closed beta in December 2011, when RIM had said it would be ready for a March 2012 release. Nearly a month later, it looks like RIM will be keeping its promise. If RIM times everything correctly, the PlayBook 2.0 update, followed by a Mobile World Congress 2012 launch of BlackBerry 10, might just spur new interest in MDM solutions from RIM, like the aforementioned cross-platform BlackBerry Fusion. Unfortunately, I’m wary of that quick level of progress, considering it all hinges on BlackBerry 10’s reception. Let’s hope it’s a good one.