[YooLi]

"Obviously RIM is so confident of their manufacturing and marketing prowess that they don't mind giving Apple 3-6 months notice of what they plan to ship."

Really? To me it reeks of "don't forget about us". They are telegraphing not because they are so confident in their punch but because they don't want people to forget they are in the fight.

[raganwald]

I apologise for being a little sarcastic. However, "Don't forget about us" is only useful if their customers, especially their "enterprise" customers, are about to standardize on iPads and can be persuaded to hold off on the basis of PR stunt.

It's not obvious to me that consumers interested in buying an iPad for back-to-school or during the holiday season will hold up their purchases to see what RIM actually ships and how much it costs.

[wvenable]

RIM really has nothing to lose -- they're not going to get this tablet out in time for Christmas 2010 so they might as well announce it now. They have little to gain in saying nothing until they launch because they're going to launch too late.

[raganwald]

When you put it like that, maybe we're missing the obvious. Maybe this isn't aimed at Apple, maybe it's aimed at HP.

[guywithabike]

That's the thing, though. They're not in the fight. They're still in the locker room putting their socks on.