QNX powers the PlayBook, but it won't appear in new RIM smartphones until 2012, which may be too late to help the company, analysts said. RIM has fallen to third place in U.S. market share behind Android smartphones and Apple's iPhone. It now holds 11% of the market, according to IDC, having reached nearly 50% just five years ago.

Kagan said RIM's development of the PlayBook was partly a reaction to the decline in its smartphone market share. "They said, 'Keep your eye on our new entry in the tablet marketplace with the PlayBook,' [and] we all watched and hoped," Kagan said.

If RIM really did exit the tablet market a few months after PlayBook's April launch, "that would be an incredible stunner," Kagan added.

He faulted RIM for losing key senior executives over the last year, including Chief Marketing Officer Keith Pardy in February. His departure came only a month after RIM executives told analysts, during a Boston session showing off a trial version of the PlayBook, that there was a thorny question of whether the Playbook was suited for RIM's traditional business users or for a growing consumer market.

with PlayBook was "the marketing challenge," said Ryan Bidan, RIM's senior product manager for the PlayBook at the time.