RIM recalls 1,000 PlayBooks

Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry smartphone and PlayBook tablet, has faced an uphill battle as it works to regain market share it has lost to rivals Apple and Google. This week, however, the company faced a setback, announcing it would recall about 1,000 of its tablets, citing a software glitch.

The recalled PlayBooks have a problem in their operating systems that could prevent them from properly loading software, according to Bloomberg. Still, the manufacturing defect is relegated to a small percentage of the company's tablets, and a majority are still in the hands of distributors and have not hit retail stores yet, lessening the blow of the announcement.

RIM had put a lot of faith in its PlayBook device as it hopes to steal some of Apple's market clout. The iPad is the undisputed leader among all tablets, and some analysts project it to sell more than 40 million units in 2011.

"Usually product recalls don't make it into the headlines when it's less than about 100,000 devices," MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen told the news service. "It shows that people are using a magnifying glass when looking at RIM."