[brucep1]

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my PlayBook, but this isn't a temporary thing. The original price point was too high, and I think RIM has come to understand that. I expect AT LEAST a $399 $499 $599 price point change.

Again, this isn't an investment, its a tablet.

[scorpiodsu]

I highly doubt this is a temporary sale. I think they are permanently dropping the price for the current playbook. Sure everything goes on sale sooner or late but not too many things drop so drastically in a relatively short time after release unless it's just not doing well. And for all intents a purposes if it were doing well there would be no price drop. Now I do equate it to a firesale like the touchpad but it's a price reduction. I'd be very surprised if the price goes back to original price point.

[brucep1]

Sales often happen before a next generation product comes out. Just sayin'

While this is true, sales also happen when a product line is planning to be phased out. Both sides of the argument are considered here.

[bb.pl]

Every laptop in my house is at least 300 less than what I got it for. I buy new laptops in the Spring each year, so 6 months ago in my case.
I've purchased laptops and then have seen them a month later in a Best Buy or Staples flier for 200.00 less, plus a 100.00 main in rebate!

"What/which" laptop did you buy that lost 40-50% value in 5 months ????

[scorpiodsu]

"What/which" laptop did you buy that lost 40-50% value in 5 months ????

Probably one that was already behind current laptops. And new laptops come out all the time that surpass current ones. So that's nothing new. But to take that and apply it to the playbook is silly. Every product doesn't function like that. All products will eventually see decrease in prices not drastic changes don't happen 5 months after it comes out. Sales do but $200 off a $500 product? Not too often unless it's another one coming out or it's just not doing well. And it's pretty clear that the playbook isn't doing as well. But I'm not surprised because it was ready and quite frankly should not have even been out.

[NickA]

I bought it for $249 at Staples on monday. $349-$100 mail in rebate...

$249/$499 is approx. .5 or 50%

Yep, you're right. I was talking about Best Buy but didn't think about the mail in rebate Staples had. Actually, if Staples price matches the 299.00 from Best Buy, and honors the 100.00 mail in rebate, that's an even bigger percentage.

[sleepngbear]

Probably one that was already behind current laptops. And new laptops come out all the time that surpass current ones. So that's nothing new. But to take that and apply it to the playbook is silly. Every product doesn't function like that. All products will eventually see decrease in prices not drastic changes don't happen 5 months after it comes out. Sales do but $200 off a $500 product? Not too often unless it's another one coming out or it's just not doing well. And it's pretty clear that the playbook isn't doing as well. But I'm not surprised because it was ready and quite frankly should not have even been out.

For some users, maybe. But there are a lot of us using and enjoying the PlayBook exactly as it is. Of course there are improvements that can be made, but for many of us, we knew what we were getting and it just works.

I still say its biggest failure was in the marketing and advertising. Never once in all those ads that boast the PB's media and multitasking capabilities did I see anything about what you can do with it and a BlackBerry phone. Or after the first big release that added video chatting (which I personally couldn't care less about), not a peep about it publicly. What was up with that? There are millions of BB users out there who are not members of CB or just not in the loop who probably think the PB is just another tablet. That's what's called a vast untapped market that RIM pretty much ignored and left uninformed, as much as they claimed to acknowledge that the first release of the PB was mostly going to benefit BB users, while the stuff for everyone else would be coming later. (Exactly what 'later' means is, of course, its second biggest failure.) I'm sure in the 70-some million current BB subscribers there's more than 700,000 that could also be enjoying the PB as some of us are now had the thing been better marketed. They hit almost exactly 1% of their initial target market, and I'll go out on a limb and suggest that that failure has basically nothing to do with missing native email.

[z_scorpio_z]

Even the tech people did not know about playbook, when I told them it is BB tablet and they are like oh I don't like the BB OS and prefer Android/iOS...sigh. Then I have to explain to them that PB OS QNX is something entirely different...

Marketing is definitely failing, nobody heard of Playbook, and other just know it is RIM and no clue about QNX being different from BB OS.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[NickA]

Even the tech people did not know about playbook, when I told them it is BB tablet and they are like oh I don't like the BB OS and prefer Android/iOS...sigh. Then I have to explain to them that PB OS QNX is something entirely different...

Marketing is definitely failing, nobody heard of Playbook, and other just know it is RIM and no clue about QNX being different from BB OS.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Same thing happens with Windows Phone 7 (or 7.5 now). People think of it as the old Windows or PocketPC OS.

[adjdudley21]

does it matter people? really? weather its a price drop or a sale.. blackberry isnt gonna stop working on the playbook... either you like it or you dont... all this speculative stuff needs to stop... everybody on here that has one loves it... or wants features that are comin in the next update... soo can we please start have productive forum discussions pleeeaassee... this is garbage

[Economist101]

I still say its biggest failure was in the marketing and advertising.

This has been a valid criticism for years. The question is what it will take for RIM to fix it, and why they haven't in the previous years it's been applicable.

[Mercury]

I love how no one thinks outside of the box..... Being in sales, I've noticed in the past 6 months, people are tighter with their wallets as well as companies and its showing that there is a big fear of an economic break down in the future. When you mark product down in price, it is usually to generate sales, and right now, the global economy is on a downward spiral and people are more apt to not spend money, so why not entice the consumer to spend money with lower prices?

This isn't a meltdown for RIM, this is a strategy to move Playbooks and especially right now these days the markets are very volatile and economic uncertainty has grasped a lot of people right now

[dandbj13]

I love how no one thinks outside of the box..... Being in sales, I've noticed in the past 6 months, people are tighter with their wallets as well as companies and its showing that there is a big fear of an economic break down in the future. When you mark product down in price, it is usually to generate sales, and right now, the global economy is on a downward spiral and people are more apt to not spend money, so why not entice the consumer to spend money with lower prices?

This isn't a meltdown for RIM, this is a strategy to move Playbooks and especially right now these days the markets are very volatile and economic uncertainty has grasped a lot of people right now

I could have quoted any number of posts to make this point, so don't feel picked on.

Time to take off the RIM-tinted glasses for just a moment. This is not an ordinary weekend sale. This is not a reaction to general market spending. This is not the natural progression of a premium product in the market for less than a year. Wake up! This is the fact that the PB is not a mass-market product, and never will be. RIM should have never tried to get into the computer business when they have their hands full trying to make premium phones that average people want to buy.

All you need to do to confirm this is to ask yourself where all the discounted iPad 2s are. Economic realities would have hit the market leader first. If people wanted tablets, not just iPads, they would flock to lower-priced offerings. Not happening. iPads are selling faster than ever. Over 10 million sold, not merely shipped, is expected this quarter.

Apple should be forced to discount or offer sales to move inventory if people had a problem paying $500 for what they wanted. Not happening. The only tablets that are suffering are all tablets not made by Apple. The problem is not that people can't afford a PB; it is that people don't want one. I guarantee that there is no price point that would be profitable that RIM can attach to the PB that would make people want to buy it. I suspect that at $299, they are already loosing money. This is the wall that HP ran into. It was either profitless revenue, or sell at a loss for profitless marketshare.

As an aside, would it be proper to say that every sale of the Kindle Fire is a fire sale? Might it also be accurate to describe every price reduction in response to the Kindle Fire as a fire sale?

[FF22]

As an aside, would it be proper to say that every sale of the Kindle Fire is a fire sale? Might it also be accurate to describe every price reduction in response to the Kindle Fire as a fire sale?

It is probably premature to divine what Amazon is doing. They may in fact be willing to sell at no profit or even a minor loss if they believe they can make it up with Amazon Prime subscriptions or just sales/rentals of books, music and videos. It has already been said: the old razor for cheap and sales of blades forever.

[dandbj13]

It is probably premature to divine what Amazon is doing. They may in fact be willing to sell at no profit or even a minor loss if they believe they can make it up with Amazon Prime subscriptions or just sales/rentals of books, music and videos. It has already been said: the old razor for cheap and sales of blades forever.

It was mostly meant as humor. Still... I read that Amazon may be selling each unit at a $50 loss to be made up in content sales. I have no problem with this model for Amazon because the product they are selling is not the tablet or e-reader, but the content. Amazon actually has content, and a lot of users who are used to buying that content from them. RIM does not. HP does not. Samsung does not. Motorola does not, etc. Apple does.

Apple is a hardware company that makes its fortune on selling widgets to individual consumers. The software and content exists to sell the hardware, not the other way around. Apple makes a profit on everything, especially the hardware. No one ever need buy anything else from Apple for them to make a profit from every sale.

Amazon is not in the hardware business. They couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag. For them, the hardware only exists to sell content. If they could, they would give the hardware away. All of the money is in the after sale. The Fire is a big risk, IMO, because one does not buy the Fire to purchase and read books. For that, they just buy a Kindle. They buy the Fire to be a cheap, hackable, Android tablet. They buy it to play free Android games, surf the free internet, and watch free movies and TV shows where they can find them. I think the crowd that buys the Fire is different from the crowd that buys the Kindle. The Android Market is not a money maker.

Everyone else has only the Android ecosystem to fall back on. So far, that has not sold Android tablets. They have to sell at a high price because hardware is all they have to sell. They have no razor blades. Therefore, if a person is looking for a cheap not-iPad, they will look at price, as the ecosystem and experience in Android-land is all the same, and mostly non-existent. The Fire will decimate that market, and the other tablet makers cannot respond by slashing the price because they would lose money if they did. Amazon does not care about money for the hardware.

Loss leaders only work if they lead to something more profitable.

[QuantumFish777]

OMG, I wish people had the facts:

No, they still work on webOS. They don't make hardware anymore (except for printers).

Considering they have laid off a large portion of their staff in the webOS division, they are now only providing "support" as they look to sell webOS to the next sucker.

RIP TouchPad, Pre: HP Confirms WebOS Division Lay-offs

[adamkesher]

does it matter people? really? weather its a price drop or a sale.. blackberry isnt gonna stop working on the playbook... either you like it or you dont... all this speculative stuff needs to stop... everybody on here that has one loves it... or wants features that are comin in the next update... soo can we please start have productive forum discussions pleeeaassee... this is garbage

I'm on here. I have one. I'm in the process of selling mine right now. I think getting accurate information out to the public is productive. Thank you.

[Maiev]

I sold my touchpad for 260 (bought for 160), used that money to buy another 16gb playbook for 230 after tax.

Seriously, I had the touchpad for 3 weeks, it doesn't even come close to the playbook in terms of raw power, productivity, portibability and usability (weight).

Portability ftw. What's the point for it to sit at home to act as your pretty cafeteria tray.

[RCCollins]

$199 seems like a more reasonable price (32 gig) based on the playbooks feature set and capabilities, especially in light of the Amazon Fire.

[shootsscores]

$199 seems like a more reasonable price (32 gig) based on the playbooks feature set and capabilities, especially in light of the Amazon Fire.

Your due diligence is lacking thoroughness as the PB is more capable than the mire and the islab combined.

[Xterra2]

Op yes this is NOT a fiiresale , yes NOT a touchpad

But its on its way to being a firesale

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Litt3]

when the qnx phones come out there will be more qnx users and more apps for qnx in general and the playbook.