[Maestrodog]

Ugh.

The dirty secret of sales--outside of traditional seasonal and lifecycle stuff--is they indicate weakness and a lessening of value. 50 percent?

FIFTY???

Four months into launch? A mere 120 brief summer days with several full blasts of national advertising all through the hockey playoffs and everywhere else?

That's simply grim. RIM is desperate to try to get some mo for this thing, and to get retailers to care. Pretend otherwise all you want, even as you've been made a fool for buying it at full retail and suffering the flawed OS updates and lack of application development for your troubles.

HP is a freaking sideshow, end of life fire sale. Of course people will buy a device for $99. The parts are worth that.

This is scary. Once you do this, it's that much harder to get anyone to pay full retail ever again. They'll know to wait for the next capitulation.

[PTZ]

Maybe this is one of those "if it is to good to be true then it probably is" scams. If you give someone your credit card info you are taking a risk you know, ecspecially if you know nothing about them. Half off sounds great, yet I remember getting burned before in the old days on Ebay. I never got a Playstation that was on sale at a super price. They were the hot item that year and the kids were begging us for one - so we bought one with our credit card info and never got it as did many other people. I don't mean to rain on everyones parade i just thought a word of caution maybe applies. I hope I am wrong as I beieve it is an overlooked cherry in the tablet world. I will keep watching this line for developements as I would like to get one at a great price too.
Why not sell the Playbook through the Crackberry Store for those two days? I saw that shopping cart at the top of the page and got that idea.

[Blacklac]

LOL, Have YOU ever owned a house? I just had my house appraised a few months ago and its worth $150,000 more than what I paid for it 5 years ago.

Congrats in the recent market. Im sure a couple people made money when the stock market crashed too.

I think its safe to say a lot of people's home values went down over the past 2-3 years or so with the "housing bubble".

[SharpieFiend]

I think what we're seeing here is RIM getting rid of the existing inventory ahead of the OS 2.0 launch, or should I say relaunch... The hardware itself will be the same, but the packaging/initial software will be new. It's probably much cheaper for RIM to blow out what is already in the supply chain then recall and repackage it.

[caysmooth]

do i have to be signed up with staples to receive this deal or could anyone buy this , im real interested!

[jamigraham]

I clearly am totally lame because I still am unsure if I need a business account to purchase one at the discount...can normal consumers potentially snag one at this price as well?

[Mark PPG]

I think you guys might be overlooking the obvious...

2 weeks away from announcing earnings, they may want to pump up sales numbers and announce 2.0

[SharpieFiend]

I think you guys might be overlooking the obvious...

2 weeks away from announcing earnings, they may want to pump up sales numbers and announce 2.0

I think you're right that they are going to talk about Tablet OS 2.0, but Playbook sales won't matter much as they're still insignificant compared to the competitors. Everyone is going to want to know how many OS 7 phones they've been able to move in the past few weeks since that is their core business.

[myrv]

The problem is, when you release a product like this and then heavily discount it shortly afterward, you sour your customers on your other products. I have a playbook. I love my playbook. However, If they do something like 50% off now... well, I will feel much abused. I understand as an early adopter I will take a certain hit, however, the thought of a 50% hit is unrealistic, as is upgraded hardware in less than a year's time (barring a screen size change).

Honestly, something like this could have me hold off on buying my 9930 and wait for it to drop as well or just wait for a QNX device.

[soccernamlak]

Congrats in the recent market. Im sure a couple people made money when the stock market crashed too.

I think its safe to say a lot of people's home values went down over the past 2-3 years or so with the "housing bubble".

They may have went down, however, that's the nature of the market. You don't buy a home, though, to make a quick high dollar turn-around though (or many don't anyways). Houses though are supposed to be an investment, not a money pit, as they can still retain (or grow) in value as they age, whereas technology/cars/etc lose value as new products become much more advanced and desirable.

[Maiev]

im also a little sad, i expect technology to drop in price but not 50% by err 4 months. just imagine you bought your mac book air and 4 months later its from 1500 after tax to... 750 after tax

I expect it to drop but not

50%

if mac book jet came in to replace mac book air, fair game. but we're talking about nothing! lets hope the 4g is ready... then i'm kinda okay... but if 4g pb isn't ready and the price dropped that'd be sad panda

just my 2c

[phathead50]

I would totally pick up a either a 16GB or 32GB. I need to find someone who has a business account lol

[missing_K-W]

To the best of my knowledge. Multiple vendors at the same time discounting merchandise comes from the manufacturers request. Staples and Bestbuy discounting the PB at the same time represents IMHO a request by RIM.

This is most likely due to Tablet OS v2.0 relaunch.

[CrackBerryHarry]

ok, I am so confused.

What's not clear is - are we guessing that there is going to be a new piece of hardware released (Playbook 2) or we're just talking about a software service pack bringing Playbook to operating system version 2.0??

CrackBerryHarry

[DeputyBob]

Great! I just got a Dell Streak 7 about three weeks ago when they had a $100 off all tablets but the TouchPad and Playbook. So I'm getting another tablet--unless I can use Blackboard, Skype and Netflix on it.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[louzer]

OK here is the reply to my e-mail asking for details on the 50% off playbook sale: (The contact information has been removed as I did not get a definitive answer on it being ok to pass along that info)

Glen,

I will ask but I�m 99% sure it�s only our division having this sale. What I can do is charge each persons credit card and ship them all to you. Or I can set up there home address, use there credit cards. I can definitely take care of you either way.




Staples Advantage
Inside Account Manager

Customer Service:

Business Solutions | Staples Advantage

In order to join Staples Advantage, you need to be a company with at least 20 employees. The email states that he/she is 99% sure it's only this division. I spoke with a Staples store manager today and he only knew of the $100.00 rebate card offer which expires this Saturday. He said that he hopes it's not true for the retail stores since it would result in customers returning all the units sold this week to be repurchased at the discount. He also said that it would be unusual for such a promotion to start within the 14 day return period of a previous promotion.

He said that the $100.00 coupon resulted in more Playbook sales this week in his store than the entire time from launch through the beginning of this promotion. He also said that RIM has paid for the new Playbook endcap display showing it prominantly in the store. And, for the first time, it not only works, but they have it set up with a dedicated wifi so it's not competing for the same connection as other tablets in the store.

I think that the $100.00 rebate card offer will be extended or run again sometime real soon. That's the discount consumers will see. If this 50% off is real, I think that it's an effort for Staples Advantage to get Playbooks into the hands of corporate employees at a very desirable price.

In any event, I'm also interested in a way to be able to take advantage of this promotion.

[FF22]

Well, paying for an endcap showcase does not sound as if Rim is "remaindering" the pb. Maybe there really will be an OS2 sooner rather than later - oh, no, I've now been suckered in!

[louzer]

Well, paying for an endcap showcase does not sound as if Rim is "remaindering" the pb. Maybe there really will be an OS2 sooner rather than later - oh, no, I've now been suckered in!

+1
For a company whose marketing efforts are continually slammed, they've done it to me again. As of now, I'm officially suckered in again too!

[BlackPrince310]

I would be all over a PlayBook at this price. Let's hope its true so more of these things can get into the hands of consumers!

[lnichols]

They need to get more units in more consumers hands to get developers interested in developing the TabletOS which will port to the QNX handsets. Even if they need to lose some money at first they have to get a base out there so the OS has buy-in from people when the QNX handsets arrive. Sucks for us early adopters, but maybe I'll pick one up for the bride so I can videoconference with her while on trips overseas since third parties either aren't filling the gap or RIM is delaying the apps.

[CrackedBarry]

ok, I am so confused.

What's not clear is - are we guessing that there is going to be a new piece of hardware released (Playbook 2) or we're just talking about a software service pack bringing Playbook to operating system version 2.0??

CrackBerryHarry

Neither.
(And why would a 2.0-relaunch lead to trying to clear the inventory?!? That's a pretty dumb suggestion... If there was a new 2.0 software, the Playbook would just download it right after you take it out of the box, making it unnecessary to ship Playbooks with 2.0 built in.)

Best Buy is also having a sale, selling Playbooks up to 150$ off.
Sales have been pretty disappointing for RIM, so they're just trying to clear the inventory, making sure that the Playbooks they shipped can be reported as sold at the upcoming quarterly earnings.

[pjmacklin]

a quiet, perhaps even limited, sale does not some grand conspiracy indicate! and, what we don't know (and what the op has not revealed to us) is if the organization receiving this offer is a staples preferred company that might benefit from such an offer. i'd agree, another public offer on top of the current $100 rebate seems unlikely. not to mention, that offer isn't that attractive.

the best buy deal for everything but the 16gb is enticing to me. will wait to see but if it's still out there after the 8th, a 64gb is in my future.

for those of you that watch all this os-so-closely, is demand really that robust for the variety of products out there? really? folks keep pointing to rim/analytic disappointment with playbook sales performance but i'm not bight enough to figure why. 'splain...please!

[tegee]

i have the contact information for my inside sales representative. Please send me a PM and i'll be more than happy to provide for anyone who is interested in placing an order.

Glen

Glen -
Sent you a PM.

[sta1]

Sorry everyone. I got done working a 36 hour shift last evening and I ended up falling asleep before I could get back to all who PM'd me for the contact information for my Staples representative.

I'll be responding to each and every one this morning.

For those of you who didn't see my last post, my Staples representative has agreed to honor this deal for people. PM me and I'll give you the information you need.

[lawguyman]

They need to get more units in more consumers hands to get developers interested in developing the TabletOS which will port to the QNX handsets. Even if they need to lose some money at first they have to get a base out there so the OS has buy-in from people when the QNX handsets arrive. Sucks for us early adopters, but maybe I'll pick one up for the bride so I can videoconference with her while on trips overseas since third parties either aren't filling the gap or RIM is delaying the apps.

How many products have ever come back after being discounted so drastically? I can't think of any.

I agree that RIM needs to move more units. To do that it needs to increase demand. Price cuts are one way to increase demand. Do you know what another way is? Sell a product that people actually want to buy! Apple does not need to discount. If RIM had any faith in this 2.0 relaunch (and if it was coming soon) I don't think it would permit this kind of discounting.