[zipped]

It really does not matter how much money RIM loses on each PlayBook since they have already paid for them in cash for hardware/development. That is why RIM had a non-cash write down of $485 million in Q4. Basically, RIM acknowledged that PB was never going to sell-out at full price so they wrote down the value of the remaining PlayBook inventory. Essentially, the stock has already suffered from this so might as well sell as many at a discounted price as possible.

RIM has likely spent a lot of many on fixed costs like R&D and licensing. Now they have to focus on selling down inventory because everyday they sit in a warehouse, they lose money, due to depreciation. The best that they can hope for is to get the PlayBook into as many hands as possible, which will increase market share and development.

It really does matter as it is not sustainable. Yes, we can be look at as an investment to "seed" the market however you can bet your last dollar RIM did not look at this as a seeding exercise. In fact if you look at their commentary regarding the write off they termed it as an unseen "inventory provision" in Q3. You can't have a tech company taking write downs of $485 million. Upon the disclosure of this the stock dived. You can also bet this was why Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie were shown the door in January. Poor leadership and vison in these product launches. In any regard, if you like PB1 you can bet PB2 will not be priced anywhere near the rock bottom prices right now. Grab 'em up, especially if they will be able to run BB10 later this year.

[lebob23]

The price will stay exactly the same for 2 or 3 months and then it will go down.