When you're the one who's first to market with a game-changing device, you announce it as close to ship date as possible.

Everyone else announces their me-too products as early as possible to show they're in the game. It's been like that for years now. There are few exceptions.

All RIM announced was a roadmap, but it's an interesting one because it includes an entirely new OS and tablet platform that will eventually become the platform for all of their future mobile devices (barring any software engineering disasters). To me, that's a lot more interesting that all these manufactures who rush to market with their 7" Android 2.2 phones and call them "tablets" merely to cash in on the craze.