“In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore. Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.”

That, rather incredibly, is the somewhat questionable (or should we say, over-optimistic?) view of none other than Blackberry’s CEO Thorsten Heins, who apparently seems convinced that all the expert analysts are wrong, and that the flood of consumers rushing out to snap up cheap tablets is destined to slow down to a mere trickle.

But wait a minute, stop your giggling at the back there, for a moment…

Hein’s comments might seem questionable at first, but could his prophecy come true? Does the possibility exist that tablets will no longer be relevant in five years? Surprisingly, the answer to that question might just be a “yes”, because there’s always the possibility that some new, so-far unseen gadget will take the mobile world by storm, like Apple’s rumored smartwatch, or some kind of better heads-up display than Google Glass.

Let’s not forget that as technology progresses, so do the possibilities for already existing devices.  Flexible devices would seem to fit the bill as the “next big thing”, as we’ve seen that mobility and portability is of the utmost importance in consumer’s minds.  People need devices that can fit in their pockets, their small bags, or anywhere else convenient, without the risk of being easily damaged.

But let’s look at Hein’s statement from another angle.  Is there a possibility that BlackBerry is just bitter because its PlayBook wasn’t remotely successful?

We all know who the tablet leaders are: Apple and Samsung, and they both proved that they were able to monetize in a tablet market, whereas Blackberry failed miserably.  Even Google, Amazon, and Microsoft’s tablet offerings were better received than the PlayBook.

You don’t hear anyone saying, “I think I’ll buy a PlayBook.”  People either go for an iPad, or else one of the dozens of Android tablets available.  Why?  Because the PlayBook was a lame duck.  It lacks anything like the number of apps its competitors have, and certainly doesn’t have anything to offer that Android or iPads don’t already have – hell, it doesn’t even come with an email client!  So yes, there’s a possibility that Heins is just bitter, in which case that explains why he’s so quick to dismiss a market that BlackBerry did not excel in.

Funny thing is, BlackBerry apparently has a tablet slated for a third quarter release, assuming that the company’s leaked roadmap for 2013 is real.  The device is dubbed the “B10 L”, though nothing much has surfaced about the device up until now (possibly because no one cares enough?).  But this raises the question – If BlackBerry is releasing a tablet this year, does this mean that the company already knows that it won’t be a success, hence, Heins’ statement is some kind of pre-emptive effort to get his excuses in early for when it fails?  Bizarre perhaps, but there’s a chance he’s just waiting to say “I told you so”.  Even so, it’s a pathetic state of affairs for a company like Blackberry to be in, where it’s effectively given up the ghost even before the device has been launched.

Even so, no one can really blame Blackberry for this miserable situation its found itself in. It’s hard to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung – take for example the Z10, which BlackBerry set on a pedestal. The firm recently announced it had sold over one million units for the quarter that’s just ended. Impressive? Perhaps, for Blackberry, but it’s still nowhere near enough to raise hopes that the firm will once again reign in the mobile industry.

On the bright side, its new Q10 phone at least, seems to be selling fast off the shelves in UK, so there could still be hope for BlackBerry yet, even if that means just sticking to making phones with its good old, tried and trusted, physical QWERTY keyboard. After all, that’s what people loved about their devices in the first place.