1. Ricardo_N's Avatar
    "LET THE BUYER BEWARE"...I do not normally blog or post here b/c normally a few have a tendency to ridicule and be condescending. Not sure why but I will get to the point. After purchasing my PB about a month ago I love reading the crackberry forums whether they be good bad or indifferent.

    There's been conversations about RIMs financial future alluded to in that they are in trouble in so many words. I shrugged them off as indifferent; enough said on that statement. There's also been conversations that Staples and Best Buy were not promoting the PB for the same reason. I shrugged them off once again.

    Today I saw the PB going on sale at Staples and read another post about the docking station being on sale at Staples. Long story short, tonight just less than a half an hour ago I was directed to the clearance rack by the sales employee store saying it was on clearance for $14.31 w/tax. I asked why.

    The employee said that Staple's higher management said that RIM is in financial trouble and that they (RIM) will not be making anymore hardware going forward. Now, I am not here to start a stink or get into he said she said crap. Trust me I didn't even want to post this but...

    RIM needs to step up to the plate and put this to rest period. Crackberry as much as I love them cannot continue to be their advocate and all us of; no matter how much we love the BlackBerry brand and loyalty. Simply said, RIM needs to do this not Crackberry not the fans etc. It needs to come from RIM directly.

    Why do I say this? If Crackberry continues to support RIM in way of belief...it could (if true) be considered as material misrepresentation which in lay terms = fraud. I hate to say it and this but I wish no harm whatsoever on Crackberry...but if it knows something we do not by promoting RIM it puts them in a slippery slope.

    I bought my docking charging pod for $14.31 with tax and yet I continue to scratch my head why? Why would a major retailer continue to do this to RIM w/o provocation unless it knows something we don't. I am on the fence with this but if this proves to be true...CAVEAT EMPTOR. I hope my dollars were for not and RIM step us sonner than later on this matter.
    11-18-11 05:54 PM
  2. surplusdealdude's Avatar
    There's a lot of bad press about RIM right now and lot of it seems to be bought and paid for by somebody.

    I think someone is trying to drive the stock price down prior to doing a takeover.

    RIM still makes a LOT of money from its monthly fees, the new OS is state-of-the-art and I notice the tablet reviewers have hated EVERYTHING from EVERYBODY this year - they just seem to be in a bad mood.

    Besides, Mike Lazardis is one smart cookie and I think you'd be wise not to bet against him.
    11-18-11 06:41 PM
  3. surplusdealdude's Avatar
    There's a lot of bad press about RIM right now and lot of it seems to be bought and paid for by somebody.

    I think someone is trying to drive the stock price down prior to doing a takeover.

    RIM still makes a LOT of money from its monthly fees, the new OS is state-of-the-art and I notice the tablet reviewers have hated EVERYTHING from EVERYBODY this year - they just seem to be in a bad mood.

    Besides, Mike Lazardis is one smart cookie and I think you'd be wise not to bet against him.
    11-18-11 06:43 PM
  4. dagerlach's Avatar
    Are they going under? Naaa. Are the getting biiiitch slapped? Yep. They will have a terrible time moving forward when they can't get any financing through stock sale. They are undervalued right now. However, RIMMs market share is being taken very quickly by the competition.

    Research in Motion Watches Verizon and Sprint Customers Disappear (NASDAQ:RIMM, NASDAQ:AAPL, NASDAQ:GOOG, NYSE:VZ, NYSE:S, NYSE:NOK, NASDAQ:MSFT) | Wall St. Cheat Sheet

    Can RIMM come back from the depths? Sure, If they can deliver a solid competitive product free of bugs. Is QNX/BBX the solution; well no. It takes a **** load more than just a solid OS. They are under a lot of scrutiny and will be watched very closely. The stock market is looking for a good sign. The investors will come back quickly if they produce.

    Business deals and partnerships have been lost through what I perceive is business arrogance and bad strategy. I still think they can still pull it out from the brink, but it's going to be costly versus having made better decision early on.

    Sometimes a company has to go through a tumultuous period to clean house and focus. Hopefully, this is RIMs catharsis and a new well oiled machine will break free.

    dg
    11-18-11 06:46 PM
  5. peter9477's Avatar
    "RIM needs to step up to the plate and put this to rest..."

    Sure, okay. How many times do they have to do that though?

    RIM says remains committed to PlayBook tablet | Reuters

    Maybe every time they have a sale they should be telling people the same thing? (But note that the one starting today is part of the same "fall promotion", so do they really need to say more?)
    11-18-11 06:59 PM
  6. Ricardo_N's Avatar
    Thank you both for your responses. I appreciate them especially since there were no tones to them. I really do wish RIM and Crackberry well. I never thought about bad business deals and/or partnerships. Huh? I guess I should then consider myself lucky to have purchased my charging pod and PB at a discount at RIM's expense.

    It just made me sit up and wonder why two of the major retailers would do this to RIM b/c it knows it can hurt them financially. I guess it made me concerned b/c in this world I know there is usually three truths to a story...and it's the truth in the middle that is usually the correct version but I guess we'll never know that.

    Why doesn't RIM hold them contractually responsible or fire one off at them from within the bowels of its ship (legal department)? I know if I were selling a product and my contractual stores were harming me financially I would have the legal department fire off a letter.

    Either way thank you both for your responses...I appreciate your insight. Good night and thank you for making me confident in BlackBerry. Just wish RIM would address this instead of us; that would make me really feel confident in my purchase more. But I know I got a good product and will stay the course.
    11-18-11 07:01 PM
  7. dagerlach's Avatar
    It wouldn't surprise me at all to see RIM stop producing the current model. Gotta be competitive and this platform needs to be upgraded to remain in the lead. This tablet needs to make you realize you don't need your laptop.
    11-18-11 07:10 PM
  8. dagerlach's Avatar
    Most of the time retailers will sell at manufactured suggested retail price. Sometimes they have retail agreements. There are so many different deals worked out between retailers and manufactures you would be shocked. Usually, the more product you can sell, the better the deal; lots of incentives. If RIM wants to move a product they will help a retailer out buy purchasing advertising and marketing as well as providing kick-backs on sales. I'm sure you have heard of this happening with the automobile market.

    Product sales is a good thing right now. So, if RIM can get things moving, we should be cheering. The more Playbooks on the street, the better.
    11-18-11 07:19 PM
  9. trsbbs's Avatar
    There's a lot of bad press about RIM right now and lot of it seems to be bought and paid for by somebody.

    I think someone is trying to drive the stock price down prior to doing a takeover.

    RIM still makes a LOT of money from its monthly fees, the new OS is state-of-the-art and I notice the tablet reviewers have hated EVERYTHING from EVERYBODY this year - they just seem to be in a bad mood.

    Besides, Mike Lazardis is one smart cookie and I think you'd be wise not to bet against him.

    Where is your proof of companies paying to promote bad news about RIM?

    Did these companies plant bad financial information on RIMs books?

    I don't see the conspiracy you do but rather vultures that are taking advantage of the spot RIM put itself in.
    Blood in the water kind of thing.

    RIM is the source of their own bad new and performance, periods.

    Mike and Jim sat on their butts while the worlds tech passed RIM buy.

    I would say RIM, Mike and Jim have had 2-3 years to bring RIM up to speed with what the consumer wants and competitors deliver and to date have not even come close to doing so.

    Q4 and Q3 2011 reports will be very bad but Q1/Q2-2012 will be a killer for RIM. It simply does not look good.

    Proof will be in there financial reports.

    This is much more than a "bad mood". Maybe you should try to find out why they are in a bad mood.

    Tim

    Sent from my BlackBerry
    11-18-11 07:24 PM
  10. dagerlach's Avatar
    Ricardo,

    I'm not sure I feel confident in RIM right now. However, I do know they can still make a mid-course correction and grow their market share. I'm sure RIM is torn in so many directions only because they have lost their technology leadership. It is so terribly hard to move from the lead dog, to the pack, and back to the lead dog. Loosing momentum is sucks.
    11-18-11 07:49 PM
  11. salexs11's Avatar
    It just made me sit up and wonder why two of the major retailers would do this to RIM b/c it knows it can hurt them financially. I guess it made me concerned b/c in this world I know there is usually three truths to a story...and it's the truth in the middle that is usually the correct version but I guess we'll never know that.
    The retailers might not be doing anything to RIM that RIM didn't consent to. This could actually be strategy on RIM's behalf to increase sell-through of the PB so that more people will have it in their hands before the holiday season and in anticipation for the 2.0 update in 2012. It's not uncommon that some manufacturers will take deep cuts into their margins (or even losses) in an attempt to simply get their products into more hands. RIM has been very aggressive with their PB pricing policies as of late...with the Rogers employee discounts, the buy 2 get 1 free deals for biz, and now this... it's kind of like strategic dumping.

    Why doesn't RIM hold them contractually responsible or fire one off at them from within the bowels of its ship (legal department)? I know if I were selling a product and my contractual stores were harming me financially I would have the legal department fire off a letter.
    Again, this might be RIM's own doing. When it comes to the law...it really boils down to the terms of the contract. Since I don't know what those are....I can't comment. It's likely that the PBs in the retail channels belong to the retailers (title). So any price cuts, in the absence of any agreement b/w the retailer and RIM would eat into the retailer's margins and not RIM's. But again...this could all be RIM's doing.

    I just bought a PlayBook tonight. I'm excited.
    11-18-11 07:49 PM
  12. zoban's Avatar
    This sale I see as a promotion to get more playbooks in the hands of users.. furthest from a "firesale" as you can get..

    It doesn't matter how awesome a product is if there are no users (or too few users) with it in hand to drive application development and the likes.

    More playbooks in end user hands = more users buying apps and even new phones to bridge with thier shiney new toy..
    11-18-11 08:02 PM
  13. bpdude's Avatar
    Take it with a grain of salt. They are moving forward with qnx and new phones. Check this out. New BlackBerry BBX phones will look like the PlayBook, report says - latimes.com

    Its just beginning. I have heard worse things from store salesman.
    11-18-11 08:04 PM
  14. greatwiseone's Avatar
    Wow, a staples' employee's statement based on Staples' "higher management" precipitated this whole thread.

    It's amazing that people think RIM will just fail over night. If you read their financials, they are cash positive, still has growing subscriber base, and is doing fairly well financially. RIM is losing ground rapidly to Apple and other Android phone manufacturers (Samsung, HTC, etc.), but who cares if it does (and frankly it's all in the US, because RIM's growing lots in GB, Indonesia, South Africa, etc.). As long as the company does well, make money, it doesn't matter if it's 3, 4, 5th place in terms of overall size of the smartphone pie.

    I don't understand why people are so fixated that RIM has to get back to be the No.1 smartphone in the US. There are lots of people buying smartphones, and people don't all need to buy blackberries. There is a market for everyone.

    RIM's not in the same situation as Palm where it needed to get cash injections to keep the company going. RIM's fine financially (just not growing as much).
    d3adcrab and glassofpinot like this.
    11-18-11 08:05 PM
  15. deswayze's Avatar
    RIM is financially stable and still one of, if not the leading, smartphone manufacturer outside of the US. I do think, however, that the pricing of the Playbook on release was a mistake. If you want to beat the top seller you need to be (1) better, and (2) cheaper. Ultimately RIM failed at both. Although technically I think QNX and the PB tech specs are superior to the IPad, given the lack of native email, the PB was only better for Blackberry users.

    Rather than compete on price, Blackberry took an unproven platform and matched the price. This, IMHO, was a mistake. RIM should have undercut Apple by setting the price point at least $100 lower than Apple. They used their pricing strategy for phones with tablets, forgetting that for many years their phones were the industry leader and even now have an established user base.

    That being the case RIM isn't going anywhere. It has no debt and hundreds of millions of dollars of cash in the bank. Those of us with Playbooks know the strengths of QNX and its superiority to BBOS and other OSs, including iOS. RIM just needs to be very careful and not make the mistakes it made with the Playbook -- don't release a BBX device prematurely and don't set deadlines RIM cannot meet.
    angel_esq and d3adcrab like this.
    11-18-11 08:58 PM
  16. kill_9's Avatar
    It wouldn't surprise me at all to see RIM stop producing the current model. Gotta be competitive and this platform needs to be upgraded to remain in the lead. This tablet needs to make you realize you don't need your laptop.
    To be honest my BlackBerry PlayBook has replaced a lot of the day-to-day use of my notebook but due to the amount of typing required in my life I am hoping the BlueTooth keyboard and case bought from ExtremeDeals.com arrives soon. Though I would prefer my BlackBerry smartphone serve as an input device to the tablet via BlueTooth.
    11-18-11 09:38 PM
  17. blackjack93117's Avatar
    "LET THE BUYER BEWARE"......
    Why do I say this? If Crackberry continues to support RIM in way of belief...it could (if true) be considered as material misrepresentation which in lay terms = fraud. I hate to say it and this but I wish no harm whatsoever on Crackberry...but if it knows something we do not by promoting RIM it puts them in a slippery slope.
    ok so that's your opinion , fine. But to say Crackberry is guilty of fraud is a bit ridiculous....in a free country anyone can promote anything they wish to promote. As you said yourself buyer beware - not promoter beware...
    d3adcrab and glassofpinot like this.
    11-18-11 10:12 PM
  18. xsacha's Avatar
    Where is your proof of companies paying to promote bad news about RIM?
    Did these companies plant bad financial information on RIMs books?
    I don't see the conspiracy you do but rather vultures that are taking advantage of the spot RIM put itself in.
    Blood in the water kind of thing.
    Obviously, the problems with RIM are real and caused by themselves.
    However, it is really quite overblown.
    I mean, their stock price is below their book value -- what's that about?
    There are other companies in much worse positions that are praised in the media.

    Blood is definitely in the water and this is why other companies no doubt see it as a takeover opportunity to expand their enterprise capabilities.

    I'm not saying there is some conspiracy against RIM. There's definitely overblown media reports though.
    11-18-11 10:38 PM
  19. torchdom's Avatar
    but I have to admit I am now a little spooked. Why would Best Buy dump the 64GB like this? They are saying the 64GB version is being discontinued. I'm ok if thats all it is, and thats what Best Buy thinks because they kept the pricing on the 16GB and 32GB the same as it was ($499 and $599). At the price I got it I won't cry if RIM stops with the Playbook, but it is worrisome why we are hearing and seeing all this extreme discounting. Maybe the 3G Playbooks will be stopped when the 4G come out? IF so they better keep using the same O.S.
    11-18-11 10:46 PM
  20. AggreX's Avatar
    I'm spooked enough to buy another PB preOS2 at these fantastic prices and a few more for xmas gifts (exclusive video chatting). The PB preOS2 works great with or without a BB...only better with a BB. Native e-mail is TURNED OFF on all my "shared" electronic devices except my BB. Its a tablet thats ez to carry, surfs the net, plays my music and I'm happy. Pairing the PB as the BB complement tab is priceless.
    d3adcrab likes this.
    11-18-11 10:57 PM
  21. Mom2Fab5's Avatar
    Let me preface my comment ...I have had the Playbook since it came out , finally got Otterbox Defender and I love it ...

    FWIW my recent Best Buy experience ...

    The thin rubber edging by the speaker came lose on PB

    Best Buy said it could not be repaired so they would give me a new one

    Then they said that they had no PB in stock and they could not place an order because PB was no longer going to be sold

    So they were going to give me another tablet that cost what PB had cost

    I said I wanted $ because I enjoyed using my PB with my new Bold

    The called around and found one in Jacksonville Fl ( I am in Miami) so they sent me the new PB

    I still love my PB but it was interesting that Best Buy will no longer be selling PB
    11-18-11 11:05 PM
  22. southlander's Avatar
    RIM does not have the ability to stop random low level employees who shoot their mouths off from creating rumors about things they have no knowledge of.

    Of course if RIM was directly asked about this by someone they felt compelled to answer, they are going to say they will be making hardware. And then if the next day they decide to sell the company that could all change.

    People like to run their mouths. No stopping that. Good news is that no one really cares what someone working at a Staples has to say about this subject.

    If RIM creates products that are in more demand this takes care of itself since the same employee would then make up some positive BS about RIM.

    Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk
    glassofpinot likes this.
    11-18-11 11:06 PM
  23. blackjack93117's Avatar
    Wouldn't it be funny if the price of playbooks skyrocketed because they stopped making them? Or just rumors of them stopping making them? They could be sold at a premium. Maybe buying playbooks now could be more lucrative than buying RIM stock....
    11-19-11 02:27 AM
  24. blackjack93117's Avatar

    If RIM creates products that are in more demand this takes care of itself since the same employee would then make up some positive BS about RIM.

    Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk
    More like if they learn how to market products that SHOULD be in high demand...
    11-19-11 02:28 AM
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