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Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer of Research In Motion, holds the new Blackberry PlayBook with a screen projection of the device as he speaks at the RIM Blackberry developers conference in San Francisco, California in this September 27, 2010 file photo.ROBERT GALBRAITH/Reuters

Research In Motion has recalled about 1,000 of its PlayBook tablets due to a faulty operating system - a tiny fraction of the devices expected to be sold this spring but another bump in the BlackBerry maker's shaky transition to a new generation of products.

"The number, at about 1,000, is relatively small given expectations for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of units, sold in the coming weeks," Edward Jones technology analyst Bill Kreher said Monday.

Kreher said he expects 500,000 PlayBook computer tablets to be sold in the first quarter and a total of two million over 12 months.

But Kreher said it's "absolutely critical" that Research In Motion get its upcoming new BlackBerrys smart phones to market without any problems.

"We would like to see better execution, given these product delays and what was a less-than-stellar launch in terms of execution on the PlayBook," he said from St. Louis, Mo.

The Waterloo, Ont., smart phone maker has said it will launch two new BlackBerry Bold smart phones with an updated operating system at the end of the summer, a bit later than expected. A new generation of BlackBerrys using the same operating system as the PlayBook tablet aren't expected to hit the market in early 2012.

"In order to recapture mind share with consumers, the impetus is really on the company to deliver a compelling product," Kreher said.

RIM said the majority of the affected devices were still at retailers and hadn't reached customers and involved problems in the initial setup of the device. The recall only affected the 16-gigabyte version of the PlayBook.

"In the small number of cases where a customer received a PlayBook that is unable to properly load software upon initial set-up, they can contact RIM for assistance," Research In Motion said in a statement.

RIM has faced criticism in recent months for being too slow to react to the young, yet highly competitive, tablet market where Apple Inc. has a stronghold with its iPad device.

The PlayBook debuted to little fanfare and some negative reviews earlier this month, while Apple's iPad 2 was greeted with huge demand from the consumer market.

The Canadian smart phone maker has lowered its first-quarter revenue and earnings per share after saying that sales of its existing BlackBerry smart phones in Latin America would likely be lower than expected and would be selling for less on average as it transitions to new phones.

Analysts have recently expressed concern about RIM getting its new products to market in a timely fashion without any technical bugs.

William Blair & Co. analyst Anil Doradla said RIM is in "catch-up mode" as it transitions to new products for another six to nine months.

"Consequently, we believe that the company is exposed to the risks associated with execution missteps, timing delays in introducing products, and the hyper-competitive smart phone landscape," Doradla wrote in a recent research note.

National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson said while the operating system that's in the PlayBook tablet is "fantastic," its launch in a new generation of BlackBerrys is "precariously late."

"Our concern is timing," Thompson said in a note to clients. "The smart phone market is rapidly changing and will present new threats to RIM while we await new handset launches."

Share in the company were down eight cents to $41.84, a penny shy of its 52-week low of $41.83, on the Toronto Stock Exchange. RIM's 52-week high was $69.30.

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