Last year was not a great year for RIM. Having launched its PlayBook tablet to lukewarm reviews and not having native email and calendar apps baked in, RIM is rumored to be dropping a new 10-inch PlayBook and another revamped 7-inch PlayBook.

How many times do you have to beat a BlackBerry PlayBook until it admits to being able to run Android apps? It would appear to be three. The feature isn't only speculation and murmurs anymore — RIM's made it official.

There's something not quite right with the burgeoning tablet PC business. As it did with digital music players and touchscreen multimedia cellphones, Apple has created a viable gadget market where none before existed, fortifying droves of copycats and followers smelling sudden success, a "me too!" army pouring through a breach in a fortress wall it had no hand in toppling. But has it occurred to anyone that perhaps Apple's iPad didn't so much create a market for tablets as much as it created a market just for Apple iPads?