Sprint Plans To Kill The BlackBerry PlayBook… Again

Jordan Crook

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. Hello → Learn More

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
playbookkilled

For the second time over the course of a year, it would seem as though Sprint’s ready to kill the BlackBerry PlayBook. A new version of the PlayBook OS is set to debut in February, but according to an EOL (End of Life) report out of SprintFeed, Sprint isn’t prepared for the wait. Not even for a week.

Of course, the WiFi-only PlayBook will still be available at various office stores like Best Buy and from RIM directly, but Sprint’s execution of the PlayBook marks the end of the product’s life on a carrier shelf.

At least for now. Rumors of a new BlackBerry PlayBook have been swirling around as of late, and just a couple days ago former CEO Jim Balsillie confirmed the existence of such a device. Still, it’ll likely be a while before PlayBook 2 hits the market and I’d be comfortable assuming that, even with the price cuts, RIM still has quite a few tablets it’d like to unload.

That said, getting the boot from Sprint likely isn’t great news over at Waterloo, but the good news is that it’ll hopefully be replaced by a tablet with a 1.5GHz processor, an NFC chip, and support for 42Mbps HSPA+.

Maybe specs like that will fare better.


Company: Sprint Nextel
Launch Date: 1999
IPO: NYSE:S

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving almost 49 million customers at the end of the second quarter of 2009; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone.

→ Learn more