It's not the most transparent blog post ever, but RIM's CTO David Yach has just written a post entitled "RIM welcomes TAT".

"Today we are pleased to confirm plans for The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) team to join Research In Motion (RIM)," he says.

"We're excited that the TAT team will be joining RIM and bringing their talent to the BlackBerry PlayBook and smartphone platforms."

Between the lines?

One reading of this could be that RIM has acquired the Swedish outfit, but there's no mention of this on the TAT website nor is the term 'join' really strong enough to suggest it.

Equally it wouldn't seem to make sense for one of the world's best UI companies to be tied down to a single OEM, especially as it works with the likes of Asus, Google, Motorola, Orange, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and PayPal.

Still, if RIM has bought TAT - which is a possibility reading between the lines - it would demonstrate the company is taking its staid reputation when it comes to interface and screen interactivity seriously.

Either way, TAT involvement means we're looking forward to PlayBook even more.

As an example, this is the sort of thing that TAT thinks about.



[source: RIM blog]