Russia Could be PlayBook's Saviour

In Russia, data encrypts you, or something like that.

Research In Motion might have had a terrible six months, but the Russian government could turn out to be the tech company's (temporary) saviour. The Kremlin is considering banning iPads from government agencies because they aren't well encrypted, and could start using BlackBerry PlayBook tablet instead. The government is reportedly still deciding between RIM's much criticized PlayBook and other tablets that run Google's Android OS, but if they went with RIM, it would go a long way to establishing PlayBook as the tablet of choice for agencies that require secure encryption. The same reasoning helped make BlackBerry smartphones the mobiles of choice for government and businesses around the world. If Russia does go with the PlayBook, it would be the first piece of good news for RIM in some time. Just this week they announced they were canning 2,000 employees, or 11 per cent of its workforce, due in part to slow sales.