Anthony Payne, Director, Platform Marketing at Research In Motion.
Prior to joining RIM, Anthony was Vice-President of Marketing for supply chain software vendor Wesupply and before that Director of Product Management for GXS, a global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions. Prior to GXS Anthony held a number of senior product management and marketing roles in the information services division of GE. Anthony has extensive experience in the IT industry working with customers from a wide range of sectors including retail, manufacturing, financial services and the public sector.

[Q] Is the PlayBook the natural replacement for any BlackBerry user, or does the PlayBook complement your range of smartphones?
[A] I think there was an opportunity in the mobile space for a different form factor and obviously there were other products in the marketplace, and we saw that there was an opportunity for us too. I think we also saw that our tablet could be a complement to an existing BlackBerry user, but also a replacement for their handset if they wanted this.
What we wanted to do was build a device that had all the multimedia features such as a great browsing experience, but also from a business perspective, we wanted to give those users high levels of security for instance when linked to their BlackBerry, so we do see the PlayBook as a great complements to existing BlackBerry users, but at the same time as a legitimate standalone solution as well.

[Q] How have you approached the different users of the PlayBook from a design perspective?
[A] We have designed the PlayBook from the ground up. We looked closely at the whole package and ensured that the operating system we developed could use the hardware that the device would be offering. We do call our web browsing uncompromising, as you can view the entire web including all Flash- based sites on the PlayBook. We know that we have an extremely powerful consumer orientated device.

[Q] Focusing on security, how does the PlayBook interface with a user's existing Blackberry handset?
For business users incorporating BlackBerry Bridge is a great bonus. The key with Bridge is to allow a completely secure link between a BlackBerry and PlayBook to enable any user to respond to emails for instance in a completely secure environment that their IT department would be happy with.
The Bridge offers a secure Bluetooth connection that allows a business user for instance to move their work to the larger screen of their PlayBook, which of course can be very useful when writing emails or updating calendars for instance. From a security perspective this link is very important, as if the Bluetooth link is broken, there is no data residing on the PlayBook itself. BlackBerry users are used to their handsets being very secure and controllable by their IT departments.
So by using the Bridge this effectively extends this security into the tablet environment. We bring the existing security policies onto the larger device, which business users really love about the tablet. We have a long history of robust data encryption with our BlackBerry handsets. We are now extending this to our tablet as well. We have a number of accreditations including the US Government that have cleared the PlayBook for use by federal agencies.

[Q] What is your approach to the Apps for the PlayBook? Does your platform have the ecosystem of Apps to make it a viable business machine?
[A] From a development point of view the Apps that we have on the PlayBook the ideas was always to make the platform as open as we could to give developers the freedom they need to create great Apps for either the consumer or the enterprise markets.
We ensured that developers had the tools they needed. Developers in the web environment that have perhaps long experience of developing for the corporate market could easily continue to develop for their customers using the PlayBook platform. The other aspect was of course to allow developers to use Flash as they want without any limitations. And of course our recent announcement that we will be supporting Android in due course gives developers even more flexibility on the consumer side of the market.
What we are seeing is that the Apps that PlayBook customers are using tend to fall into a number of categories including what I guess you could call the prosumer Apps such as expense management and other Apps with those sorts of capabilities, and we are seeing a rapid growth of Apps in the App World store that are diversifying as you would expect.
Some of our key partners have developed Apps including SAP and Citrix that recently announced that they have a Receiver that is hugely important for enterprise users. Among the Citrix Receiver capabilities the Playbook distribution supports access to virtual computing infrastructure and seamless access, utilizing your enterprise SSO infrastructure, to SaaS and web Apps. What this of course means is that deployed Citrix users can deliver access behind a firewall that is on the PlayBook.

[Q] Can you explain what you mean by the phrase 'the first business-class tablet'?
[A] We do describe the PlayBook as the first 'professional grade' tablet. What we mean by this is that the device was designed from the ground up from the hardware, operating system the built-in security are all the key ingredients for enterprise users. On top of that we have BlackBerry Bridge, which I think is the real breakthrough, as you add something like Citrix Receiver and you have the kind of working environment that enterprises are looking for on mobile devices.

[Q] Now that you have a platform in the market place, how do you see the PlayBook evolving?
[A] The future for PlayBook includes two core developments: We are from a device perspective adding device management. These will includes things like policies to enforce passwords for instance, and is coming soon, as this is important for enterprise. We are also be adding a native email client and calendar. We know that there are many business users that have deployed PlayBook and use it with BlackBerry Bridge, but we also know that clients also want native applications on the PlayBook as well.
Directionally I think the interesting thing in the tablet space is not that you can do your email on a larger screen, but that businesses can take a mobile device with a larger screen, and utilise that to deploy their services. For instance, Surrey County Council have a pilot where they have equipped their social services teams with PlayBooks that can access systems and information back at their central offices. Today the most exciting thing is how businesses are using the platform to deliver their own services or products.