BlackBerry PlayBook in US price plummet
Everything must go - for $299 each
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RIM's frenzied attempts to offload bags of its unpopular PlayBook tablets continues, with prices on all models in the US slashed to $299.
Lucky Americans can now buy a 16GB, 32GB or 64GB version of the fondleslab from the US BlackBerry shop website at the reduced price (obviously there's no point opting for less memory when you can get one with the most memory for the same price - until stock starts running out, of course).
On the 64GB model, that gives a saving of a massive $400 off the original retail price of $699.
However, in the UK, prices remain at the same reduced rate from RIM as they had in October, putting a British 16GB tablet at £249 direct from the BlackBerry shop, 32GB at £329 and 64GB at £409 ($637).
While RIM isn't giving Brits any great savings, other retailers in the country are still knocking down the prices.
That US price slash in full
Dixons has the 64GB fondleslab at the same price as RIM's, but the 16GB is down to £169 (there's no 32GB on offer). Meanwhile, Amazon UK is offering the 16GB at £197.99, the 32GB at £244.99 and the 64GB at £339.90, and warning that stocks of all three are running out.
The price-cutting in the US is the latest attempt by RIM to clear massive stockpiles of the PlayBook, which has failed to spark much interest in the slab-fondling community.
The Canadian firm took a $485m charge at the end of last year on the tablets, money it said it needed to increase promotional activity in order to "drive sell-through to end customers".
HP managed to ignite some interest in its beleaguered Touchpad when it dropped prices to rock bottom and introduced various promotional gimmicks to shift the tablets.
So far, RIM has tried dropping prices and offering its PlayBooks on a buy-one-get-one-free basis, but it looks as though the firm hasn't managed to encourage enough people to pull out their wallets.
RIM had not returned a request for comment at the time of publication. ®
COMMENTS
Maybe
they should spend some of the money deploying a BB email client on the damn thing.
then they wouldnt need the discounts so much.
Im wondering if they plan to drop any attempt to upgrade these versions of the playbook to OS 10.
The old days
Back in the days of yore it was very common for companies introducing a new product to have an introductory offer. A cheap price. The purpose of this was to gain market share.
Any losses were written off to marketing as a part of the introductory budget.
If and when market penetration reached a reasonable level, those companies would revoke the introductory offer and go for profit.
Now it appears that the greedy buggers want to make big money immediately, they introduce products at top dollar price, no market penetration, no developer support, just 'trust us' pay top dollar and all will be well with the world later.
If HP and later BB had started the sales at the rock bottom prices that they later posted, many, many more units would have sold. This is proven by how quickly HP flogged off it's stock of the tablet at the cheap price.
What's the matter with these companies these days? Are they all run by bean counters who havn't a clue about marketing? If that is so, then bring back merchandisers to oversee sales and leave bean counters to only balance the books at the end of the year.
yep
WebOS is yet another technology that will go to the graveyard of superior technologies that were poorly marketed. HP is almost as adapt at destroying any remaining value in companies they buy as M$. WebOS does own iOS and Android but it took an admission of failure for the common man to start using the OS and by then it was too late.
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