Shockingly, in an interview with BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, Mike Lazaridis, the co-chief executive of Research In Motion (RIM) put halt on the whole affair. The incident happened when Cellan asked a question about the security issues faced by Blackberry’s problems in India and Middle East countries. Instead of giving answer to the question, Mike said that the question was unfair, and the interview was over.

Giving his views on his blog, Cellan wrote,

“Mr. Lazaridis was talking about RIM’s tablet, the PlayBook, he was “bubbly and enthusiastic”, but it all went wrong when he asked about security issues. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room chilled, Mr Lazaridis told me my question was unfair, and his PR executive informed us that the interview was over. We were there, apparently, to discuss the new product and nothing else. RIM is not alone amongst technology firms in wanting to exert tight control over its message but it seems surprising that the company would not address an issue of great interest to its customers across India and the Middle East.”

It’s been a rough year for RIM, especially as it faces steep competition from new global leaders, like iOS and Android.  Gartner predicted that the company may miss out on the tablet frenzy in the next five years as it may be hard for its bespoke QNX operating system to stand against its Android and iOS brethren. It also reported that the Playbook will achieve only a 5.6 percent market share in 2022 that will rise to 10 percent in 2015, still behind the likes of Android and iOS.

“It will take time and significant effort for RIM to attract developers and deliver a compelling ecosystem of applications and services around QNX to position it as a viable alternative to Apple or Android. This will limit RIM’s market share growth over the forecast period,” said Carolina Milanesi, research VP at Gartner. “It will be mainly organisations that will be interested in RIM’s tablets because they either already have RIM’s infrastructure deployed or have stringent security requirements,” she added.

Still, RIM has hopes from PlayBook Tablet. But Lazaridis is really disappointed with the way people are perceiving their brand, and it is quite clear from the excerpts from a rare interview given by him.  Looks like RIM executives are still on the defensive when it comes to their brand.  From Lazaridis’ interview:

“Why is it that people don’t appreciate our profits? Why is it that people don’t appreciate our growth? Why is it that people don’t appreciate the fact that we spent the last four years going global? Why is it that people don’t appreciate that we have 500 carriers in 170 countries with products in almost 30 languages? I don’t fully understand why there’s this negative sentiment, and I just don’t have the time to battle it. Because in the end, what I’ve learned is you’ve just got to prove it over and over and over.”