According to MobileCrunch.com, the company that makes Blackberry phones Research In Motion or Rimm for short, just purchased the domain Blackpad.com for their long-rumored BlackBerry tablet.
The devise of course will complete with Apple’s iPad.
“According to registration records, RIM purchased BlackPad.com just days ago.”
The domain is being administered by one of those trademark protection companies, corporatedomains.com
“”The domain name has existed for several years now. It has been squatted by a couple of individuals since January 2002”
“Considering that there are no trademarks for BlackPad, it seems unlikely that RIM paid a huge amount of money for the domain name.””
I see if a domainer owns the domain its been squatted on even if the product doesn’t even exist.
However if a corporation buys the domain, well the shares of the maker of Blackberry, Research In Motion were up over 4% on the news today.
Moreover the mainstream blog got it wrong. Since there is no trademark the owner of the domain probably got paid.
Or at least I hope so.
CSC is an interesting beast. Many Web small businesses use them as their registered agent. Many of those Web small busiensses act as “value added resellers” for domain names. Yet in one of their free Webinars they went out of their way to discourage people from registering a domain name thru a Web small business, and of course suggested for people to go thru them.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you CSC! Anyone who is a domainer should follow them.
mp/m
it was known by weeks that RIM has planned to develop its own iPad
I don’t see any TM issues at all.
It is NOT BlackIpad, is it?
“It has been squatted by a couple of individuals since January 2002”
Idiots
BuyDomains.com owned it until 5/5/2010 (sold)… I’m sure they didn’t sell cheap and I think THAT is when RIM purchased it!
The “last owner” in whois is likely CorporateDomains.com .. aka Jack Spurr ~ RIM likely used them to buy it!
The “Squatting” claim is a bunch of BS from that one blog btw!
The original story has since been updated to:
“I’m not able to find any trademarks for the “BlackPad” name, so it seems unlikely that RIM could have squeezed it out of the previous owner’s hands without a bit of cash.”
LOL nice, he switched that out pretty quick.
Now RIM should get the .ca, why a Canadian company fails to market in .ca is beyond me, lost traffic due to stupidity.
^^ Nevermind, that quote above is the original story from TechCrunch. The story in Erictric.com has yet to be amended, though the author is receiving some heat from some “squatters” in the comments section.
He switched it back to include his squatting comment again but believe me it was gone 1 hr ago. The little prick just added it back.
“It is NOT BlackIpad, is it?”
true
Apple isn’t the new owner of the word “pad”
@ BreakingNewsBlog.us:
> Apple isn’t the new owner of the word “pad.”
Really.
I guess the BlackPad will be a 5″ or 7″ “supersmartphone” and not a clone of the iPad
Jamie
Just confirmed with Buydomains.com the sale in May was NOT to Blackberry
Looks like someone made a nice flip
Thanks for the update, Mike. Hard to believe it wasn’t sold to someone like Trout & Zimmer of CSC who then transferred it over to BlackBerry.
That EricTric guy (?) is a total moron, keeps changing the words back and forth. In his mind he is punishing those that commented on his stupid blog
Let me ask a question someone here may know.
What is the profit margin do you think for apple on the ipad…$100 $200?
about 50% of the price
pcworld.com/article/193746/apple_ipad_costs_260_to_build_isuppli_finds.html
WOW! Thanks
Assume if pricing is similar for the blackpad the margin would be similar?
as already said, I guess that RIM will sell a smaller 5″ or 7″ device with a 4:3 display form factor rather than a true iPad clone
however, the real competition for the iPad will come from low cost eee-like tablets with ChromeOS, webOS, Linux, Android, embedded Windows7, etc. that will have lower profit margins and end-users prices around $200-300
Kind of like Apple isn’t the owner of the word “pad” or names that begin with “i” is the same exact thing about ebay not owning the word “bay” when they go after people like perfumebay.com
Hence, I own freebay.com and ebay has threatened to sue if I launch.
BabyBay.com, KidBay.com, CashBay.com, TamponBay.com, WatchBay.com are all registered by people other than ebay . . . even Breebay. Ebay doesn’t allow affiliates to confuse people with part of its name in your domain. FreeBay.com, I don’t think will be Ebay affiliate site. Barbequebay.com is still available! It has “ebay” in it, as well.
however, the opinion of some IT bloggers (but not me) is that the BlackPad will be a giant FLOP like the Microsoft KIN
I don’t see the ‘BlackPad’ being a big hit. It apparently will require syncing with a blackberry device to use 3g. I don’t really see the advantage of it over an iPad even if they have some sort of syncing or touch enabled blackberry desktop. Unless they pull a rabbit out of a hat and come up with some new amazing application or use the lead the Apple app store has is so great I just can’t see Blackberry/Blackpad catching up. What possible benefit would there be to having a blackberry tablet that is somehow cross compatible with your blackberry, over just getting an iPad? Especially if it’s at a similar price point. Does anyone really believe that they will be able to make a touch interface that is as smooth and polished as Apple’s?
Interesting, i guess i would be willing to try it as long as it has 3g and wifi built in– i dont want to connect thru bluetooth on my phone.