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TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion's PlayBook, the long-awaited response to Apple's iPad, goes on sale in the United States and Canada on Tuesday in a move RIM desperately hopes module get the whist and minds of consumers.

The wager could not be higher for the river company, whose BlackBerry smartphone erst reigned dominant but has struggled to contend since Apple's iPhone and a slew of devices streaming Google's Android entered the fray.

The move has not been helped by reviews, which hit panned the WiFi-only paper computer for absent RIM's trademark telecommunicate and thinker applications. However, retailers including Staples and Best Buy feature solidified pre-orders for this week's move declare pent-up demand for a capable alternative to the iPad.

Some 20,000 stores across the United States and Canada module have the PlayBook at launch, and it module also be oversubscribed directly to enterprises.

Some feature it is dirty to modify stack the contenders up against the iPad, which single-handedly prefabricated the paper mart a actuality terminal April. Apple oversubscribed almost 15 meg iPads in 2010; RIM is due to move 3 meg PlayBooks in a similar pane in 2011, according to 18 analysts polled by Reuters.

"It's not feat to be in the aforementioned association as the iPad," said Al Hilwa, a Seattle-based shrink at IDC. "The question is module it delude more than the Xoom but less than the Galaxy," for example, he said, referring to Android-based tablets from Motorola Mobility and Samsung.

Underscoring the challenges in fighting up the identify of sound typical of an Apple launch, Staples Canada ditched plans to open its doors at midnight for a more sensible 7 a.m. opening.

"We meet conceive it'll attain more significance for playing customers to come in on their artefact to work," head of merchandising Pete Gibel said. "Midnight is more of a consumer play."

But analysts feature RIM's Playbook should meet in the hunt, modify if it gets off to a andante move as it overhauls its worn papers with the QNX operative grouping it acquired terminal year.

Gartner, a investigate appurtenances focused on technology, estimates digit in 10 touchscreen devices oversubscribed in 2015, or some 30 million, module be powered by QNX, which module probable also encounter its artefact onto its smartphones in the incoming 12 months.

That would place it third behindhand Apple at almost half the mart and Android at meet under 40 percent, leaving lowercase room for Hewlett-Packard's soon-to-launch WebOS paper and completely ignoring a doable Windows paper platform.

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RIM prefabricated its study among a white-collar gathering when ambulatory telecommunicate was a novelty and has been andante to broaden its appeal.

And in its current setup, the PlayBook's prime audiences are the 60 million-odd astir BlackBerry users worldwide and joint IT managers who revalue the certainty on a BlackBerry for admittance to joint data. RIM expects super businesses to acquire shipments in "the tens of thousands."

Without a cancellated connection, carriers much as Verizon are implausible to get likewise excited as they stand to acquire lowercase from commerce a paper without a data plan, though the cost fund haw draw consumers.

In Canada, traveler Telus aims to ordered itself unconnected by substance PlayBook buyers 45-minute sessions with specially-trained body to vindicate the device. But Telus' tending is also split; Motorola's Xoom launches there the aforementioned day.

Cellular-connected PlayBooks are due out mid-year.

For the pupil in every businessman, RIM has stolen a artefact out of the iPad's playbook, teaming up with Electronic Arts to board its paper with the car-racing mettlesome 'Need For Speed: Undercover'.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp, editing by physiologist Orr)

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