Research In Motion’s PlayBook has yet to hit shelves, but the head of a prominent venture  firm says the tablet computer is already attracting interest from software developers. “Developers are extremely excited about the PlayBook coming to market and the evolution of the tablet,” said fund manager Kevin Talbot in an interview.  Though not a developer himself, Talbot understands how they think. As co-managing partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund, he invests in companies that make applications for mobile computing devices. Since its 2008 founding the Toronto-based venture firm has backed 12 companies in areas like mobile ads, mobile payments and mobile video.  Not all of those companies have created products for tablets, but Talbot expects they will. Consumers are enthusiastic about tablets, he notes, and the larger screens afford developers more flexibility.  Some of the fund’s portfolio companies will naturally write for tablets because they are infrastructure providers that need to support all mobile devices and platforms, says John Albright, Talbot’s co-managing partner. Transpera, a mobile video ad network, will serve up ads whether users are on smartphones or tablets, for instance.  Email organizer Xobni began as a plug-in for Microsoft’s Outlook system, but released a downloadable mobile client for BlackBerrys after the fund invested in it. Now Xobni plans to make a tablet-friendly version of its software, according to Talbot. “Depending on what their clients ask for, our companies are either on tablets or currently developing for them,” says Albright.  Those tablets could be Apple’s iPad or RIM’s PlayBook. Talbot acknowledges that tablets, like smartphones, will come in various sizes and form a “complex ecosystem”. But he contends that the PlayBook will be competitive alongside the iPad and tablets powered by Google’s Android mobile platform, even though those devices have a head start. “The mobile industry is far more complicated than a two-horse race [in mobile operating systems],” says Talbot. “Our portfolio companies see three leading brands: Apple, Android and BlackBerry.”  It would be easy to ascribe Talbot’s bullishness to the firm’s close ties with RIM. As its name alludes, RIM is a major investor. The fund, however, is designed to pursue investing opportunities regardless of platform affiliation. Google acquired one of its investments—a social gaming startup called SocialDeck—earlier this year and a Google executive sits on the fund’s business advisory council.  Talbot describes the fund as specializing in “the horizontal platform of connectivity.” Increasingly, that means looking at connected devices other than smartphones, such as tablets, household appliances, even cars. Talbot is interested in applications that would allow a refrigerator to automatically notify a repair company when it needed service, for example.  The fund recently reorganized to pursue this expanded target. Plans include raising a larger, second fund from current and new investors and opening satellite offices in places like China and Latin America over the next 12 to 24 months.  The aim: to be the preeminent venture fund in the mobile industry. Other mobile-centric venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins’ Apple-focused iFund, are smaller and more specialized. Says Talbot, “We’re not looking for single-purpose applications that run on one device…We want the smartest entrepreneurs that are doing the highest-impact things for the biggest markets.”
The venture fund wants to be the leading investor in mobile applications, regardless of operating system or device type.