RIM PlayBook head Bidan defects for Samsung

RIM took another big hit Wednesday after its BlackBerry PlayBook Senior Product Manager Ryan Bidan confirmed he was leaving the company. The tablet lead is joining Samsung's US mobile division as its Product Marketing Director. It wasn't clear as of Tuesday night who would replace Bidan.

The switch follows marketing VP Brian Wallace's departure almost exactly a month earlier.

While Bidan's reasons for leaving RIM aren't clear, his exit came just after rash of open letters from current and former employees actively criticizing the company structure. Among them was an anonymous executive, though not necessarily Bidan, as well as many attacks on management for being resistant to change and overly insistent on slow procedures. Allegedly, the CEOs are genuinely confused why they aren't seeing widespread PlayBook adoption even as they've been slow to add basics like native e-mail or to grow support.

Samsung, meanwhile, is so far the most successful tablet maker outside of Apple and may have had genuine early success with the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Its design was more directly intended to challenge the iPad and has the advantage of a complete OS with more polished apps. [via CrackBerry, image via L. Fishkin]

By Electronista Staff