RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook seems in the middle of a pricing and availability flux, after reports of canceled orders and reported price cuts for RIM employees.
Research In
Motion's PlayBook is due to receive a major software update in February.
However, many other details surrounding the tablet-including its price and
retail availability-seem in flux at the moment.
Early on Nov.
27, tech publications such as
Electronista began reporting that Best Buy
was canceling PlayBook orders, quoting users on the retailer's
message boards as the source. Meanwhile, Best
Buy's
online storefront listed the PlayBook's 16GB and
32GB models as "Sold Out Online," with no mention of the 64GB version (although
the latter is available as a factory-refurbished unit). As pointed out by the
various publications, Best Buy's order cancelations and Website statuses could
reflect a sales run on the device in the wake of fairly substantial price cuts.
The PlayBook remains for sale on
RIM's Website.
Nonetheless,
the events were enough for certain Websites to declare the PlayBook dead, so
far as Best Buy is concerned. "Best Buy Decides It's Done With the PlayBook,"
read the headline on
Business Insider, while
Gizmodo reframed that sentiment as a
rhetorical: "Has Best Buy Abandoned the PlayBook?"
The Verge,
referencing "multiple" unnamed sources, suggested Nov. 28 that RIM is selling
the PlayBook to employees for $99 via a "special corporate portal." Whether
that price is a harbinger of further price-cuts, or an employee-only perk,
remains an open question.
Neither RIM
nor Best Buy responded to
eWEEK's
request for comment.
Certainly RIM
faces challenges from analysts and pundits who see the company as beleaguered
in the face of significant competition from Apple's iOS and Google Android.
"Looking in retrospect, we should have downgraded in mid-October," read a Nov.
28 research note from Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu, "when the stock was $24 and
our supply chain checks indicated that while its new flagship BlackBerry Bold
9900 was doing decently, the rest of its product line was lagging."
In a Nov. 17
research note, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley suggested that
Apple's launch of the iPhone 4S had affected sales of BlackBerry devices:
"While our September/October checks indicated solid sales of new BlackBerry OS
7 models, especially the Bold 9000 series as an upgrade enterprise sale, our
recent checks indicate slowing sales trends post the launch of the iPhone 4S
and price reductions of the iPhone 4 and 3GS."
In addition to
reports of sagging product sales, RIM faced an additional predicament in
October when its network temporarily went down. That proved something of a
black eye for the BlackBerry franchise, which banked heavily on its
reliability, especially for corporate users.
RIM is betting
an upcoming line of "superphones," loaded with a QNX-derived operating system
named BBX, will help it regain traction in the smartphone arena. Those devices
are expected sometime in the next few quarters. The February PlayBook update
will include integrated email and other much-requested features. Along with the
new hardware and software, though, RIM will also need to formulate a marketing
strategy capable of drawing users back into the fold.
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