Blackberry Playbook Upgrading To Playbook OS 2 Next Month

There has been a lot of RIM news out there lately - be it stock prices, patents, devices, or speculation.  While not all good, the old adage “no press is bad press” may just sum up the situation they now find themselves in.  During the Q2 report presented by RIM’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie on September 16th, RIM will be releasing Playbook OS version 2 next month.  With all eyes on them, this may be the boon they've been looking for.

When RIM first launched the Blackberry Playbook back in April, there was a lot of excitement by the enterprise community, and rightfully so.  The ability to have a business tablet that would perfectly sync with your Blackberry was pure gold.  The only problem is that the Playbook launched without calendar, contacts, or email support. Whoops, seems that these are a big deal to business people going about their business lives.

The new update will be a large one, and will include, amongst other improvements, the aforementioned calendar, contacts, and email support.  There will also be a push into the consumer market, presumably to better compete with the iPad, Android, and new Windows 8 tablets.

Furthermore, the Playbook will finally see an Android app emulator, meaning that Android apps will be able to run on the Playbook, boosting the current Blackberry app offerings significantly.  Finally, the Playbook will be treated to Blackberry Movies, making the Playbook a real media centre with over 10,000 movies and television shows, which should pair nicely with the Playbook's HDMI output.

Availability of Playbook OS 2 should be soon after the October Blackberry DevCon.

What do you think?  Will this offering be enough to keep the Playbook afloat?