Are tablets a passing fad?

It seems like the whole world has gone crazy over tablets, and you can't go more than a week without some market research firm posting gloom and doom numbers on the desktop PC side due to consumer interest in mobile. Be that as it may, and despite falling prices for increasingly powerful tablets, not everyone believes the form factor will stand the test of time. Just the opposite, BlackBerry's Thorstein Heins -- the guy who runs the show -- believes tablets are a bad business model that will be lucky to last past 2018.

Android is by far the most popular smartphone platform on the planet, according to data by the IDC.

You can't really call it a smartphone battle royale when the only armies on the battlefield are Android and iOS. Google's open source platform closed out 2012 with a 70.1 percent share of the global smartphone market by way of 159.8 million handset shipments, making it by far the most popular platform. Next in line is iOS (iPhone), a distant second with 47.8 million iPhone sales to claim a 21 percent share of the market. Together, the two platforms accounted for just over 9 out of every 10 smartphones sold last year.

Research In Motion (RIM) has a lot riding on the release of BlackBerry 10, the upcoming mobile operating system that will power a new generation of devices. If all goes to plan, BB10 will thrust RIM back into relevance and save a company that's seen its share of struggles in recent times. More likely, however, BB10 will stand in the shadows of next-gen OSes from Google and Apple, and if that happens, Samsung's best bet is to acquire RIM, according to analysts with investment firm Jeffries.