[Sonic77]

Seems the $299 price sold a good percentage of the existing stock retailers had
but with Staples offering them even lower at $199 this Black Friday,
is RIM building new ones just to sell at a loss,
or have they stopped making them and just clearing out inventory?

[anindoc]

Seems the $299 price sold a good percentage of the existing stock retailers had
but with Staples offering them even lower at $199 this Black Friday,
is RIM building new ones just to sell at a loss,
or have they stopped making them and just clearing out inventory?

Thats a question only people at RIM can answer for you....... anyone else can merely speculate..

[Sonic77]

Are retailers restocking?

The local Bestbuy sold almost all new ones during the $299 sale,
but it does not appear they restocked new ones since then.

The visible stock now is a high number open box models,
I assume returns from the sale.

[peter9477]

The story from a couple of months ago was that they had anticipated selling so many more than they did, that there was a huge stockpile already built. At current rates, they could probably be selling from that stockpile for another few months before we'd hear clear signs that they were increasing production (or restarting production, depending on what actually happened).

[Spinal]

Are retailers restocking?

The local Bestbuy sold almost all new ones during the $299 sale,
but it does not appear they restocked new ones since then.

The visible stock now is a high number open box models,
I assume returns from the sale.

we got a handful in last week so they're shipping just not much.

[gregerator]

My .02. RIM recouped some PB cost by selling their overage of parts to Amazon for the Fire. RIM will obviously continue to work on BBX/PBOS and will launch a PB2 in both 7 and a larger version.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[peter9477]

It's pretty unlikely the Fire and PlayBook share almost any components, so this theory's a bit of a reach at best.

[Economist101]

It's pretty unlikely the Fire and PlayBook share almost any components, so this theory's a bit of a reach at best.

Not really. While the devices are not identical (clearly), their similarities go beyond their similar sizes.

[shootsscores]

RIM has the product with which to compete. Do they have the resources to weather the tempest*?

*

[shootsscores]

Not really. While the devices are not identical (clearly), their similarities go beyond their similar sizes.

The factory does have some excess inventory in the parts bin.

[cbvinh]

What doesn't add up is that if Quanta is indeed building the Fire for Amazon, then why did they layoff 1000 employees "due to the lack of sales of the Playbook"? Amazon surely would have taken up any excess capacity Quanta would have had. It's projected that Amazon will sell 5 million Fires by the end of this year.

BlackBerry PlayBook orders crash, make Quanta lay off staff | Electronista

Amazon to produce 5 million Kindle Fire tablets this year, report says - latimes.com

[peter9477]

Not really. While the devices are not identical (clearly), their similarities go beyond their similar sizes.

I do see they have the same CPU, so I'll give you that. I thought it was running at a slower clock rate but it seems they're the same (1Gz) after all.

Same size screen, but that doesn't mean anything. I've designed products with a particular size/resolution of LCD and had a dozen variants and manufacturers to choose from... no reason (yet) to believe these screens are from the same manufacturer, is there?

Beyond that, I'm hard pressed to figure out what else they'd share. Again, maybe I'm wrong... but if so maybe someone can post some facts rather than what appears to be speculation.

[mandony]

The answer may will soon come at the next quarter report.

For ALL RIM products:
Go to accounting: Compare the last inventory with the then current inventory.
If the inventory $ went down then they sold off some inventory and likely did not replace.
If the inventory went up then the are making stock
if they did not sell an adequate number of older PB's then they will likely announce another 'sale'

[shootsscores]

I do see they have the same CPU, so I'll give you that. I thought it was running at a slower clock rate but it seems they're the same (1Gz) after all.

Same size screen, but that doesn't mean anything. I've designed products with a particular size/resolution of LCD and had a dozen variants and manufacturers to choose from... no reason (yet) to believe these screens are from the same manufacturer, is there?

Beyond that, I'm hard pressed to figure out what else they'd share. Again, maybe I'm wrong... but if so maybe someone can post some facts rather than what appears to be speculation.

Same cpu so there will be bits and pieces in common.

[TheSaltyLime]

well i have no idea about inventory but my employer is letting employees buy them at $199 through the 19th and they are back in stock at the warehouse.

[kbz1960]

I'd like to know how many are just sitting yet. Bah

[peter9477]

Same cpu so there will be bits and pieces in common.

Even if that's true (that same CPU has any real affect on the other bits), and it really isn't in systems like this, "bits and pieces" wouldn't be enough for a company in RIM's decent financial situation to help out a competitor for a few bucks. If it's the same screen (totally unrelated to CPU, by the way) maybe but, assuming those are a bit hard to come by, I'm certain RIM would hang on to every one they have, for later.

Also, aside from possibly the big-ticket items or those with shortages, RIM wouldn't even hold the inventory themselves so they'd have no bits and pieces to dump.

[gregerator]

To my knowledge, which is certainly quite limited, they use the same proc and mem. OMAP 4430 dual-core 1Ghz and 1GB mem. Now the mem could come from anyone, I know that. And there are a few MotherBoards the chip could be used in. But I'll be interested to see a side-by-side tear down.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[peter9477]

The Fire apparently has only 512MB, not 1GB.

Also, motherboards in devices like these are nothing like what you may be used to in a PC. They are completely proprietary, designed specially in all respects for a given tablet from a given manufacturer. RIM's motherboard has no relationship whatsoever to the motherboard used in the Fire or in any other product from another manufacturer.

I just discovered a page with the PlayBook parts list from an iSuppli teardown, for whatever that's worth to people.