With recent articles articulating RIM's potential overhang in playbooks, I find it amusing that most stores are sold out (here in Canada anyway). I think this latest price drop is a brilliant move on behalf of RIM because they, among others, are realizing that the Xbox business model is the new future of hardware. Give it away, flood the market, earn revenues with software related sales (apps, games, books, music). If RIM is able to pull this off, and get some much needed advertising and app development, we could see the playbook as not dead in the water, but taking some market share away from Apple. With touchpads, fires, playbooks and nooks flooding the market with the "cheaper alternative" hardware, this may be the new dawn of PC vs. Mac all over again. Where I think RIM differentiates itself is with it's "android player" and security. If RIM can emulate some other OS and maintain security on their platform, RIM may emerge as a dominant platform....an OS for OS's. Windows 8 will be a game changer to watch for. Rim should start making a player for this now.
