[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.