BlackBerry hasn’t delved into the world of tablets ever since the debacle that was the PlayBook but now the company has decided to give it another shot. To say that BlackBerry has developed a new tablet, however, isn’t exactly true. Rather, the company has teamed up with IBM to create an extra-secure version of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S 10.5 which goes by the name of SecuTablet.
BlackBerry Ltd. unveiled a new high-security tablet on Saturday as part of its continuing efforts to expand its base with business and government customers. The new device, developed with Samsung Electronics Co. and International Business Machines Corp., should be available as early as this summer, and will sell for about $2,380, BlackBerry said. It marks the second time the Canadian smartphone maker has tried to enter the tablet market. In 2011 BlackBerry introduced the PlayBook tablet as part of the previous management’s attempt to compete with Apple Inc., Samsung and others in the consumer market. The PlayBook stumbled out of the gate, criticized as lacking core features, and the company ended up writing down hundreds of millions of dollars in unsold inventory. BlackBerry commands little of the global mobile-device market, but businesses still consider it the gold standard of mobile security, a feature governments place a priority on to guard against hackers as they conduct more business over wireless networks.