RIM now offering PlayBook as a freebie, whatever next?

November 26, 2011 By Trevor Mogg

In a deal that will see people receiving the tablet even if they don't particularly want it, Research In Motion is now giving away a free PlayBook to buyers of the latest version of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server software. It's the latest move by RIM in its attempt to get its troubled tablet into the hands of users.

When we say Research In Motion (RIM) is now giving away its struggling PlayBook tablet for free, we don’t mean that Mike Lazaridis has taken to standing outside his office in Waterloo, Ontario handing out the device to passers-by (no, it hasn’t quite come to that).

The latest offer is aimed at business users, and sees RIM throwing in a free 16GB PlayBook for anyone that upgrades to RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) v5 between now and the end of December. BES is mobile management server software designed to increase mobile worker productivity and reduce the burden on help desks.

The move is the latest in a string of offers and incentives from the Canadian maker of the beleaguered tablet to try to get it off the store shelves and into houses and offices.

Earlier in the week Best Buy slashed the price of the PlayBook to $199 from $399 for the holiday season, while late last month RIM began running a buy-two-get-one-free campaign for business users.

Back in September it started offering the tablet to employees of Canadian cell phone carrier and long-time business partner Rogers with a discount of as much as 50 percent. It’s not known how many took up the offer.

It’s fair to say that as far as the PlayBook is concerned, it looks grim for RIM. On its launch in April, the reviews were largely underwhelming and anyway, consumers couldn’t keep their eyes off Apple’s iPad.

The PlayBook’s lack of native email, messaging and calendar apps mystified many of those who had been looking forward to the tablet’s release. A long-awaited OS update to rectify the issue was supposed to become available recently, but won’t now appear until early next year.

These and other issues have resulted in the company shipping just 200,000 units in its most recent quarter, a drop in the ocean compared to sales of the iPad, which numbered in the region of 11 million in Apple’s most recent quarter.

[Source: BGR]

Showing 4 comments

Josiah O'lad at 1:19am 27th November 2011 the market is down for blackbery company. they are going the extra length in winning potential buyers for themselves. when it comes to tablets, ipad is alwayz no1.
Luis Lauranzon at 12:43am 27th November 2011 They are such a Mess. Amazon or Apple are the only two viable tablets right now (Kindle Fire or iPad). You have got to have a solid ecosystem in place for a tablet and I think those 2 are the only ones who have pulled it off. I also have both devices and I absolutely love them.
Andy Strote at 12:02am 27th November 2011 I guess RIM wants their warehouse space back.
Blake Tibbetts at 11:02pm 26th November 2011 Leave it up to Google and Apple. The Blackberry market is horrible, and I'm sure the playbook is just as bad.