RIM: Customers are tired of being told what to think by Apple

Speaking at Apple’s earning calls this week, the Apple CEO said, “We think the current crop of 7” tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival.”

He called 7” tablets such as Dell’s Streak and RIM’s PlayBook (pictured) as “tweeners” describing them as too big to compete with an iPhone and too small to compete with an iPad.

Unsurprisingly, Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion, doesn’t share that opinion and didn’t hold back in his response to Jobs.

“For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7” tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience,” he said.

“We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash.

“We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple. And by the way, RIM has achieved record shipments for five consecutive quarters and recently shared guidance of 13.8 – 14.4 million BlackBerry smartphones for the current quarter.

"Apple’s preference to compare its September-ending quarter with RIM’s August-ending quarter doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t take into account that industry demand in September is typically stronger than summer months, nor does it explain why Apple only shipped 8.4 million devices in its prior quarter and whether Apple’s Q4 results were padded by unfulfilled Q3 customer demand and channel orders.”

Balsillie concluded, “As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story and sooner or later, even people inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story.”

Watch RIM’s PlayBook in action here.