If Blackberry Had Launched The iPad

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First of all, I'd like to think that parent company RIM would have listened to the women on staff and not named it the iPad.

It would have been something boring like "Blackberry Slate". But, at least it would not be something that makes every woman snicker, roll their eyes and think of feminine hygiene products.

As for what we saw at Steve Jobs' launch yesterday of the iPad:

- Instead of featuring a partnership with The New York Times, it would have been Salesforce.com.

- Instead of showing baseball highlights and box scores, it would have been a dashboard of real-time applications like inventory or distribution or incoming orders, etc.

- Instead of family photos, it would have been marketing collateral.

- Instead of a calendar, it would have been Lotus Notes.

- Instead of anything, it would have been e-mail, e-mail, e-mail.

- Instead of no camera, it would have a WebEx app for web conferencing both face and desktop work in real-time.

- Instead of illustrating how it can be used from room-to-room, it would have been from business sector-to-business sector. For example, imagine waitresses using a 10 inch touchscreen to take customer orders or a claims adjuster using one to interact with pictures, information and street diagrams at the scene of a car accident.

- Instead of no talk of security, it would have featured perhaps a fingerprint pad or face recognition software for access.

- In addition to the QWERTY keyboard touchscreen, there would be an alternative numerical keypad for texting as well.

- It would be availabe through all the major carriers and not just AT&T.

- It would work in both the portrait and landscape position, as demonstrated on Wednesday. However, the screen would also be visible in full sun and have a dimmer to make it less intrusive in meetings, presentations, etc.

- It would have PIP of incoming text messages, tweets and Facebook postings at all times unless turned off at the user's discretion.

- It would function as an eBook. But, it would feature help manuals, trade articles, an RSS reader, white papers, or imagine a PDR for doctors with automatic updates from drug companies and contact links.

Then again, playing games and watching youtube videos on an extra device that costs between $500 and $800 is an idea, as well.

Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio