[app_Developer]

Where did you read that...do you have a name of a credible, unbiased, impartial, and objective source? I can name a whole boatload of folks who don't fit the criteria I just listed, but can you give us one name that fits the criteria?

I guess it depends on what you mean by failure, and whom you consider credible. Clearly, though, you would agree that RIM expected to sell more Playbooks then they did early on, as evidenced by the number produced in April and May of last year? And you would agree they expected to sell them at the same price as the iPad when in fact customers are willing to pay about half that?

Maybe failure is overstating it. Disappointment? To me it will be interesting to see where they price them post February.

From ATD (WSJ) today. I don't know if you consider them credible and unbiased.

"Evidently the holidays didn’t bring much joy to Research in Motion and its struggling PlayBook tablet. Despite steep holiday discounts, the company continues to grapple with its unsold PlayBook inventory, which weighs heavy on it as it heads into the new year. And it’s taking increasingly desperate measures to unload it."

RIM Slashes All PlayBook Prices to $299 - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

[brucep1]

Where did you read that...do you have a name of a credible, unbiased, impartial, and objective source?

Not possible.

[rauldela]

this deal is sweet im telling my cussin about it since he was looking for a tablet and already owns a bberry phone (blackberry bridge )

[gonzo uk]

I wish we could get the 64gb in the uk at this price. $500 over here.

[[email protected]]

I wish we could get the 64gb in the uk at this price. $500 over here.

Can't you order here and have someone ship it to you? Even with the vat it would still be cheaper than $500.

[gonzo uk]

Can't you order here and have someone ship it to you? Even with the vat it would still be cheaper than $500.

No matter, I got a 32gb for �199 which is about $300. I'm quite happy with this deal.

[Chrisy]

I'm still looking gor a 16GB for $199 or less. Where are thry now?

[alnamvet68]

I'm still looking gor a 16GB for $199 or less. Where are thry now?

Sprint........

[anon(757282)]

From ATD (WSJ) today. I don't know if you consider them credible and unbiased.

"Evidently the holidays didn’t bring much joy to Research in Motion and its struggling PlayBook tablet. Despite steep holiday discounts, the company continues to grapple with its unsold PlayBook inventory, which weighs heavy on it as it heads into the new year. And it’s taking increasingly desperate measures to unload it."

RIM Slashes All PlayBook Prices to $299 - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

Neither credible nor unbiased. They have no data about holiday sales performance, but rather are opining in a very negative tone about the new sales prices. This is about as biased a view of the new advertised sales as one could possibly write.

Is the offer of free iPhone 3GS (with contract) a "desperate measure" or a means to get those phones into the hands of more users, to seed the field for future business. Like the sale prices on the PlayBook, it is the latter, getting more of the devices into the hands of customers to grow the business.

[[email protected]]

I'm still looking gor a 16GB for $199 or less. Where are thry now?

Sprint and check out Craigslist. There are tons of the 16bg on Craigslist.

[Beefnoodle]

I guess those distributors gonna be very busy to take back return orders.

[curlman]

Neither credible nor unbiased. They have no data about holiday sales performance, but rather are opining in a very negative tone about the new sales prices. This is about as biased a view of the new advertised sales as one could possibly write.

Is the offer of free iPhone 3GS (with contract) a "desperate measure" or a means to get those phones into the hands of more users, to seed the field for future business. Like the sale prices on the PlayBook, it is the latter, getting more of the devices into the hands of customers to grow the business.

WSJ, give me a break!! How about a headline that goes something like this:

AFTER SLASHING PRICES PRIOR TO THE HOLIDAYS, BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOKS SELL OUT NATIONALLY AT BEST BUY IN THE US!!

[blaisberg]

I have been getting more and more disillusioned with BlackBerry, but also find iPad extremely frustrating with its dependency on iTunes and lack of Flash.

Smart move on RIM's part, I think, with this "promo". It was enough to make me look harder at it, and pull the trigger.

[VerryBestr]

... From ATD (WSJ) today. I don't know if you consider them credible and unbiased. "Evidently the holidays didn’t bring much joy to Research in Motion and its struggling PlayBook tablet. Despite steep holiday discounts, the company continues to grapple with its unsold PlayBook inventory, which weighs heavy on it as it heads into the new year. And it’s taking increasingly desperate measures to unload it."
RIM Slashes All PlayBook Prices to $299 - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

Credible? Hardly. What a silly piece of "analysis." How is the unsold inventory weighing heavily on RIM, when RIM has already written down its PlayBook inventory? And how is RIM taking "increasingly desperate measures" by raising the 16GB US sale price by $100? It seems evident to me that RIM is actually holding back inventory for the PlayBook relaunch, when they will be sold with the V2 software installed. "No joy?" -- it appears that RIM has tripled the number of PlayBook users since the sales began. Any association with the WSJ does not improve my opinion of this "analysis."

As I just wrote in another thread: Given the number of PlayBooks that must be in inventory and the way RIM has conducted these sales, it seems pretty obvious that RIM is indeed holding back inventory. Where I am in Europe, there is no PB sale. Most everywhere there have been sales, the 16GB model at least was quickly out of stock. There may be various reasons for the sales: getting some publicity; placating retailers with stock on their hands; experimenting with consumer reaction to different price points; getting some buzz with developers and getting PBs into developers' hands. If RIM were really trying to blow out its whole PlayBook stock, I would think that the PB would be on sale all over the world and that the out of stock situations would be quickly resolved.

Unbiased? I wonder what that even means now, given the incredible display of pack journalism on the RIM story. A rumor comes out, and within hours Google News will list dozens and dozens of news outlets repeating the same story -- they are all, I presume, competing for their share of page hits. The trend is toward not even crediting the original source. When the rumor is repeated enough, then it becomes a fact in subsequent tech journalism. By the way, I don't think any conspiracy theory is necessary to explain this. The RIM-is-dying story simply attracts readers' eyeballs, and journalists and PR people know this.

A simple example of this pack journalism is the idea that the Kindle Fire and the PlayBook share essentially the same hardware. This was a rumor advanced before the Fire came out. It has been endlessly repeated, recently by a famous tech journalist on the Newsweek site. The difference in hardware capabilities should make a journalist think twice about repeating the rumor: twin cameras, GPS, video out, etc. all on the PlayBook but not on the Fire. Once the Fire came out and teardown results were available, it became clear that about the only piece of hardware common to the two tablets is the processor chip itself. But this rumor-become-fact will live on.

[insvijay]

shopblackberry.com has removed the option to select the capacity . bummer. only one . $299. what a shame ,was just going to buy a 64 gig.

[jonty12]

Same here. Well I got a 16 and a 32 at least. Maybe they will fill my 64 order tomorrow. They must be moving some serious inventory. Hope this gives the platform the boost needed.

Tried again this morning. Failed. Was able to call the 866# though and when I spoke to someone in the call center they were able to process the order.

Speculating here, but maybe it's because I'm currently in Canada (visting) and was trying to bill/ship to the U.S.. Maybe the website choked on my Canadian IP address trying to order on the U.S. site.

[palmless]

Is the offer of free iPhone 3GS (with contract) a "desperate measure" or a means to get those phones into the hands of more users, to seed the field for future business. Like the sale prices on the PlayBook, it is the latter, getting more of the devices into the hands of customers to grow the business.

Well, to be fair, your example of the 3GS occurred after one year of record sales and one additional year of being the #2 top selling phone in the US.

By the third year, it's appropriate to use it as an effective promotion.

The Playbook don't call it a closeout sale is occurring after a briefer, less-distinguished period of sales. To be kind.

[randomact45]

hypothetically speaking, if my playbook accidentally broke and I had to get it replaced, could I request the 64 gig if I had a 16? Same price right???

[leticeberry]

shopblackberry.com has removed the option to select the capacity . bummer. only one . $299. what a shame ,was just going to buy a 64 gig.

Why don't you order it directly from Rim?

[travaz]

I wonder if they will ship whatever they have instead of what I ordered. I ordered a 64 hope thats what I get.

[asherwiin]

Definitely bath time. The bill of materials *alone* is just north of $200 for the 16 gig (? $208). Add in all the other expenses beside the raw parts cost (manufacturing, shipping, something for the retailers etc etc etc) and it's plain to see how bad it is.

People who see this price as a "strategy" are giving RIM far too much credit. Calling it a "loss leader" is revisionist history at its finest. It is plainly a late realisation that this product is a flop and that getting something for their mountain of unsold Playbooks is better than waiting and getting nothing. Time and technology march on.

RIM is just (reactively) embracing the same 'chicken vs. the egg' stategy that Amazon is using for the Kindle Fire. Sell as many as you can at cost or a slight loss, and build up critical mass in the marketplace to ensure that the much more valuable in the long-term proprietary eco-system (apps, subscription fees, transaction fees, etc.) hits the break-even tipping point.

They've written down their inventory, so the existing Playbooks are much, much more valuable being used in the market even if sold at a slight loss than sitting in a warehouse. Once the press discovers that the Playbook is in the top 3 tablets in terms of units sold, the press will have no choice but to stop calling it a failure.

Amazon loses money on every single Kindle it sells, yet no one is calling it a colossal failure - which should be the case from a pure profit/loss perspective.

[Unsure2]

Doesn't look good. But with the internal upheaval taking place in RIM, the company itself may not know what it's going to do with the Playbook.

[alnamvet68]

RIM is just (reactively) embracing the same 'chicken vs. the egg' stategy that Amazon is using for the Kindle Fire. Sell as many as you can at cost or a slight loss, and build up critical mass in the marketplace to ensure that the much more valuable in the long-term proprietary eco-system (apps, subscription fees, transaction fees, etc.) hits the break-even tipping point.

They've written down their inventory, so the existing Playbooks are much, much more valuable being used in the market even if sold at a slight loss than sitting in a warehouse. Once the press discovers that the Playbook is in the top 3 tablets in terms of units sold, the press will have no choice but to stop calling it a failure.

Amazon loses money on every single Kindle it sells, yet no one is calling it a colossal failure - which should be the case from a pure profit/loss perspective.

Unfortunately, there is a vocal and extreme minority that thinks they can shape the future of RIM, or rather, pave their demise....the silent majority, who are the supporters, are never listened to. It's like everything else that has happened to the world, a small but very vocal minority wants what the rest of the overwhelming majority does not; go figure.

[lavieenrose318]

I wrote a post elsewhere in this forum where I speculated this could be RIM trying to expand the market to the size where it tips the scale to the side where developers see a large enough market to be interested in it. I truly hope we are seeing that strategy with these prices.

As to all models at the same price, that is clearly an inventory adjustment. Too many 64 models so make it the obvious choice.

interesting I think you're right... they need to up the amount of people who own these. most people are going ipad, and these days you have the kindle fire and nook color at that 299 pricepoint and look so appealing, so they have to be competitive and increase their market share... ergo lower prices... i think...

or, yea, maybe it is a product dump, but i sort of doubt that, would they really give up that easy? idk.

They were $199 or $299 all during Christmas in my deck of the woods. That also meant they were sold out in most stores, particulary best buys.

[nogutsnoglory]

After unsuccessfully trying to get through to the Shop Blackberry site (numerous times) to check on the shipment status of the 64GB PB I ordered Jan. 1, I called the toll free number and was told that the 64 GB would ship tomorrow. Since I paid extra for 2 day shipping, I should have it by Friday, I hope.

Hopefully there will not be any issues.