Sprint-promised RIM PlayBook 4G not happening

In the latest bit of bad news for BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, Sprint won't be offering its 4G-enabled Playbook, as the pair first announced at January's CES 2011 event.

In a statement Sprint has sent to news outlets, the move was described as a "mutual decision" between the two.

"We apologize for any inconvenience but the BlackBerry 4G PlayBook Tablet that was announced in January for summer availability will no longer be coming to the Sprint network," Sprint said the statement.

Paget Alves, president of Sprint's business markets group, told the Wall Street Journal that, while the concept of the tablet was "interesting," it hadn't caught on with enterprise users as much as RIM would have liked. "There are so many tablets in the market, it creates confusion for the average customer," Alves added.

A Sprint spokesperson separately added that the decision "has no impact on our relationship with RIM," and RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis was quick to add in his own statement that RIM was focusing on the LTE flavor of 4G, rather than the Sprint-offered WiMax. (Sprint plans to eventually offer LTE as well, but for now that's neither here nor there.)

Bad blood or not, the announcement leaves RIM without a 4G Playbook carrier, with Sprint and a handful of major retailers offering only the WiFi version of the Playbook.

While during a March earnings call previous to the PlayBook's launch executives said that a number of enterprise customers were interested in deploying tens of thousands of PlayBooks each, and that the tablet would launch in more than 20,000 retails outlets — "They're not going to have like or two devices [each], so I think you can kind of see [sales aren't going to be just] tens of thousands," RIM Vice President of Investor Relations Adele Ebbs said during the call, in response to a request for sales guidance — RIM sold only 500,000 PlayBooks during the first quarter. While 60,000 more Xoom tablets than Motorola managed to move, it was millions fewer iPads than rival Apple sold.

Bummed about a lack of 4G?

"Customers can easily bring a 4G experience to BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet or any tablet by pairing it with Overdrive Pro from Sierra Wireless, Novatel 3G/4G Mifi or any Sprint 4G device offering mobile hotspot capabilities," Sprint said in its statement.

Highlighting, underlining and just short of announcing with firecrackers that there's no bad feelings between them, Sprint said that it offers more BlackBerry products than any other U.S. carrier.

"We are proud of our long-standing relationship with RIM," it added," and look forward to additional RIM products in the future."