We know that RIM has been working on the BlackBerry PlayBook for quite awhile but TechEye snagged an interesting historical rumor. According to one of their sources, a Marvell employee, RIM was working with Marvell for over six months before they ditched Marvell to go with Texas Instruments. As some of you know this was a huge change for RIM since they have been using Marvell chipsets in their GSM phones for years now.
It turns out that Marvell was having quite a bit of trouble getting their hardware to work with the QNX OS and software. According to this source:
“Marvell was having some serious problems getting the software to work with the hardware. The team was just taking too long and there were issues that weren’t being resolved quickly enough,”
This rumor fits in nicely with what we are hearing about Marvell lowering their projections as a major client targets entry level smartphones. It also somewhat jives with previous rumors that RIM was working on a Tablet model and then scrapped the plans to start afresh setting them about 6 months back. I will be really pissed if I learn that Marvell was the reason the BlackBerry PlayBook took awhile to launch.
via TechEye via IntoMobile
mkconnors2008 ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 573
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 9:31 AM EST
This could very well be the main reason for the delay. I work in the industry and when a main vendor is changed like this, th entire project around it has to change. Nice post!
fubaz ( View Profile) Master - Posts: 770
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 9:44 AM EST
I wonder what this means for future GSM phones if they are using a TI chip in the PB.
Terrence T ( View Profile) Guru - Posts: 1777
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 9:58 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9800 | OS 6.0+
That’s a good point!
Hmm.. Maybe a fully ti powered phone. From processor to opamp..
<3
fubaz ( View Profile) Master - Posts: 770
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 10:50 AM EST
we can only hope so… im guessing with OS7 (supposedly QNX) they will have the same issues with the marvell chips…. i guess only time will tell.
Ill hold on to my 9700 until they announce a QNX phone.
altaera ( View Profile) Beginner - Posts: 154
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 11:46 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9800 | OS 6.0+
Oh no, this could mean the current devices will stuck on OS 6…
BarracudaBob ( View Profile) Master - Posts: 1018
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 11:47 AM EST
I think it’s good to see that RIM had a timeline in mind and if the vendor couldn’t deliver, they found one that could.
chestr ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 302
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 4:22 PM EST
I rather wait 6 months then have to have something that is not working to the potential of the software and have a playbook 2 6 months after the initial launch with only minor upgrades
fubaz ( View Profile) Master - Posts: 770
Posted: March 9, 2011 at 5:06 PM EST
I agree Chestr, and that is what RIM has done, and I think this might be one of the reasons it didnt beat the iPad2 to launch.
Also Altaera, most devices now will probably top at os6.1 as 1ghz and above and dual core processors will be needed for os7