Did Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY) Accidentally Leak Its Next Product Early?

Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has been moving on rolling out new smartphone devices that run the brand-new and well-received BlackBerry 10 operating system, and CEO Thorsten Heins has indicated that more devices are on the way following the release of the touchscreen-only Z10, the QWERTY-keyboard Q10 and the mid-range alternative called the Q5. And there was much buzz about BlackBerry making some of its services available on other platforms as it it was trying to be the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) of mobile devices.

And amidst all of the excitement around BlackBerry live in the last couple of weeks, one thing that Heins has been pretty evasive about has been the concept of Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) trying its hand again at producing a tablet to replace the much-beleaguered PlayBook.

Not only has Heins not directly answered the question about whether a tablet was in the works, he went so far as to predict that tablets would not be in five years.  Certainly, he seemed like he was trying to distance BlackBerry from any notion of a tablet – after all, why would we invest in a tablet when we think tablets won’t be around as we know them in five years?

While his statement was certainly nuanced, he has seemed to keep the door open on Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) doing a tablet in some form.

Well, could we have finally gotten a hint through the Twitter-verse of what is on the horizon?

One BlackBerry user in Mexico had recently sent a tweet asking the company directly whether the BlackBerry 10 operating system would indeed, finally be married to the PlayBook thus making a BB10 tablet without actually making a BB10 tablet.

The company’s Mexico division responded with a tweet of its own, which was quickly deleted, but went something like this: “@carlos_wmg Hello. In the next few weeks will be available OS10 update w/ the #PlayBook ! Please be alert!”

Yes, that might cause a double-take as well, don’t you think? Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) didn’t let that tweet out there for very long, but we are fortunate that it was captured, so now we can wonder. Was this something that was supposed to be kept under wraps and was accidentally  sent out just to present good customer relations?

Or was the Mexico division completely wrong? We have not heard yet whether BlackBerry is sending out a clarification, an apology, or “we made a mistake” tweet, so at this point all we can think of is that this was not supposed to get out, but it might very well be true.

But what about the PlayBook? Did it fail as a tablet because of the operating system, and BlackBerry 10 addresses that? Or did Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) produce a product that had other flaws which a different OS just can’t solve? Give us your feedback in the comments section below.

DISCLOSURE: None