Phones Review Quickie: Poor old Research In Motion just don’t seem to get a break lately as the BlackBerry maker has been falling behind other smartphone makers and isn’t doing too well in the tablet space with their BlackBerry PlayBook, and as a result the word is RIM intends reducing the price of the BlackBerry slate to hopefully garner more interest in the BlackBerry PlayBook.
According to the guys over at Slash Gear, by way of the Boy Genius Report, as research In Motion’s stock has tumbled after a dismal second quarter financial performance, the Canadian firm intends to cut pricing of the BlackBerry tablet to “motivate sales.”
Apparently it was expected that the BlackBerry maker would announce 700,000 shipments of the BlackBerry PlayBook in the second quarter after shipping 500,000 in the first quarter, however the figures came in as just 200, 000 shipped in the latest quarter.
Thus the word is that Jim Balsillie, RIM CEO has stated they plan on cutting the price of the slate in the form of rebates along with an incentive program for enterprise sales, although just how much the BlackBerry PlayBook price will be slashed by hasn’t been confirmed.
Well there is one way that Research In Motion could shift a bundle of PlayBook tablets of course, and that is by drastically chopping down that price tag to $99 just like what happened with the HP TouchPad, of course RIM would lose a bundle, but 99 bucks per slate is better than nothing right?