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RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad

By | September 26, 2011, 9:37am PDT

Summary: How low can RIM go on PlayBook pricing? Not low enough to make anyone want to buy the tablet right now.

Research in Motion has started its price cuts on the PlayBook in earnest and how many units move will go a long way to highlighting the lasting damage from HP’s TouchPad fire sale.

If you recall, HP discontinued the TouchPad and liquidated inventory with a 16GB version going for $99. The HP sale started a bit of a frenzy. The biggest lesson from the TouchPad sale is that price matters—a lot.

Enter RIM. The company on its last earnings call said it would cut prices and offer promotions to move PlayBooks. In its most recent quarter, RIM shipped 200,000 PlayBooks or about half of what was expected. The PlayBook is yet another RIM strike-out.

Now RIM is offering a 7-inch 16GB Wi-Fi PlayBook for $299 with a $100 coupon and $100 rebate. My initial reaction: $299 is still too high. Staples, Office Depot and Best Buy are offering the PlayBook price cuts.

Keep in mind that Amazon’s Kindle tablet is coming—perhaps as soon as Wednesday. That device, which is likely to have a better ecosystem around it—could go for $250 tops.

Given those moving parts, I’d need the PlayBook to come in at $199 to get me interested. Even then it’s a stretch.

As 2011 enters its final quarter, the damage from HP’s TouchPad sale will become readily apparent. The army of tablets struggling to upend Apple’s iPad are going have to get cheaper in a hurry. RIM is going to have to go lower if it wants to move units.

Here’s the view from Staples:

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Topics

Research In Motion Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Co., Price Cut, TouchPad, Mobile Security, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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0 Votes
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Can't we end this stupidity that the TouchPad was priced at $99?
toddybottom 26th Sep
The TouchPad's sustainable price was not $99. It never was. It never will be.

This is as ridiculous as going into a clearance warehouse and suggesting that stuff would sell a lot better if it was only priced at below cost.

There are Android tablets for sale at around $160. They aren't selling well at all. Why? Because they probably have about $100 worth of components in them. In other words: they suck.

The TouchPad sold well at $99 because it had $250+ worth of components in it.

Paying $99 for a $250+ tablet is a great deal (if you can ignore the fact that you will never get any support for it).

Paying $160 for a $100 tablet is not a great deal.

It is ridiculous to blame the clearance sale of the TouchPad for the failure of the PlayBook. The PlayBook is failing because of the iPad.

Period.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
levieuxmagicien 26th Sep
@toddybottom, please don't try to make sense on this site. It's reserved for open source nuts who believe all software - and evidently hardware too, should be free.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
dhmccoy 26th Sep
@levieuxmagicien

But if you sell your $250 tablet for $99, then you can have enough sales to spark ads. The revenue from those ads can be used to subsidize both the hardware and software.

Eventually, both SW and HW will be free thanks to this virtuous cycle. Everybody wins!
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Well said
happyharry_z 26th Sep
@levieuxmagicien Gimme gimme gimme!
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
rmacleod@... 26th Sep
You are right!

@levieuxmagicien
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
yu119995 27th Sep
@levieuxmagicien Of course not. Because no one has ever sacrificed hw with the understanding that they would generate revenue through the sale of software or advertising. Or maybe Microsoft and Sony have been doing that with their consoles forever.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
Rama.NET 26th Sep
@toddybottom
I also blame the design team at RIM for it. They made a bad choice of not making it as standalone tablet, for example if I have to work with email, calendar on the playbook, I have to thave BlackBerry. That eliminates the people outside of BlackBerry phones. Even if they make it independant from BlackBerry, it is already late and that screwed the outside market.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
Peter Perry 26th Sep
@toddybottom Not at all, the playbook is failing because it lacks email and calendar support.

I don't know what genius thought it was a brilliant idea to require a Blackberry Smartphone to have any type of email on the tablet.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
jimfrost 26th Sep
@Peter Perry

My understanding is that this is the result of RIM's servers not (yet) being able to tie more than one device to an account. Since they can't do two, and they figured a lot of the tablet buyers would already have blackberry phones, they chose to tie the tablet to the phone to work around this.

There are customers for whom this works just fine; almost anyone in a corporate setting that already uses blackberries is not likely to care very much. But for a general-purpose tablet selling to consumers who are more likely to have a non-blackberry than otherwise it's awful.

I disagree that the Playbook is failing because of this, though. I'm sure that is make or break to some people but lack of apps in general is at least as big a problem. If the app environment were rich enough you could just get someone else's e-mail app. But the icing on the cake is that the price is still too high relative to an iPad, which does a lot more no matter how you slice it. If you are really price sensitive a refurb iPad looks pretty darn good.

It's unfortunate that RIM cannot sell them more cheaply, but what can they do? HP's "dump it" approach is a market exit strategy, not a solution. You don't make up for a loss on every unit by selling in more volume. And the idea that they can make the difference up on ads, as has been suggested here, is laughable; are they going to sell home screen ads?

They'd need a lot more revenue than they could ever hope for to make the device that cheap. Look at Amazon; buy the ad-based units and you save circa $50 ... and they have a way better model to sell to advertisers (the only thing you're using that Kindle for is reading stuff into which those ads can be inserted).

General-purpose devices really need to make a profit or it's not worth being in the business. And, right now, no one can undercut Apple much on price because Apple has a supply chain and volumes that are the envy of the industry.

You may not realize it but the high degree of commonality in parts between the iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV means that Apple's parts volumes are huge -- in most cases (batteries, CPUs, flash memory, displays) more than an order of magnitude greater than anyone else. It's not even the same ballpark.

It sucks to be in competition with them. People point at the Android phones and say, "look, it competes just fine," but that was a severely distorted market. Apple was hindered by an inability to sell on more than one carrier in all of the major markets, and rarely even the biggest carrier, for *four years*. That's a heck of a lot of time for the competition that had cross-carrier relationships to build and market new products. On top of that you can hide a lot of pricing evils in the cell contract kickbacks.

Even so, the Android phone guys aren't making much money -- it's like the PC market, working like mad for razor-thin margins.

But once you step away from the cell market everything changes. Apple has shown it can completely dominate. It did it with mp3 players and the iPod touch long before the iPad; the iPad is just more of the same.

I happen to believe that Apple will lose their current advantage in the long term but I really don't have any evidence I can point to as to why. They never did in mp3 players and everyone, including me, expected them to. It could very well be that Apple becomes the next IBM, thoroughly dominating for a generation. I hope that open source helps keep that from happening but realistically there is only so much cost benefit that the vendors can get out of a "free" operating system. If that's not enough to make up for relatively poor hardware volumes and supply chains, and it isn't even close today, then you lose anyway.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
Drentz 26th Sep
@Peter Perry @Rama.net Both of you are incorrect with the capabilities of a playbook. Just like a pc, laptop,or netbook or your computer at work for that matter, there is no built-in client or "app for that" when it comes to email and calander. And you don't need a blackberry smartphone to use one. Google docs, calander and major email clients we all still access via isp is still accessable via playbook's html5 and flash enabled browser.The benefit from having a blackberry smartphone is security for the business sector for instance if a thoughtless corporate dude gets drunk at a bar and leaves his playbook, all of the companies sensitive info is not on the playbook its on his smartphone that can be remotely locked and wiped. The other is Blackberry Bridge, which allows BB smartphone users to use the data plan they already pay for through phone carrieres to access the rich webbrowser the PB has as well as all data required apps like GPS. Making the wifi only device 3G capable via bluetooth (BT 2.0 now 3.0 ready). In short having a BB phone only adds to the cool factor, the PB doesn't depend on it.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased 30th Sep
@Drentz Sorry, but you are wrong. First, why would I want to go backward and use web mail when the standard and far more convenient way to get mail is using a mail app? Second, not sure what systems you have been purchasing but every system I have (Windows and Mac) all came with mail applications. As far as regard to having a BB phone just adds to the cool factor, that's actually pretty funny happy
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
biobat 26th Sep
@toddybottom - the point was that HP showed people who aren't buying an iPad are price sensitive in the tablet market. That's it. And if you think companies don't ever sell hardware at a loss, I guess you've never owned a Playstation or Xbox, which were sold at losses for years (both the PS2 and PS3 as well as the original Xbox and Xbox360). Both Microsoft and Sony did this to gain control of market share. I suspect Amazon will be doing the same thing with their tablet - sell at somewhat of a loss, gain market share and have other ways to drive revenue (such as ads, direct software sales, etc).

The failure of the Playbook was partially due to price but also due to the fact that it was essentially a limited device to anyone not owning a Blackberry, despite RIMs attempt to target everyone. In other words, the company themselves didn't even know who their target audience was and spent all this time developing an expensive paper weight.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
dhmccoy 26th Sep
@biobat

Game consoles make money licensing $60 a pop games. Tablets have no such stream. The Apple App Store is the most successful mobile App store in the world and it breaks even, so what can RIM offer to offset such massive losses?

Amazon, I think, is thinking people will buy more if they are holding a tablet. I don't "buy" that.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
Graham Ellison 26th Sep
@toddybottom You're also missing the point. When stores panicked and offered HP TouchPads at $99 they were all bought up by Amazon traders who are now selling them at their true [current] market value of $275.95 for the 32GB model for instance.

The reality is that no tablets that are trying to compete with the iPad are selling in any real numbers. Here in the UK the stock of all models in Best Buy stores is the same stock they had originally, diminishing at a rate of one or two per day, whereas iPads are being restocked at a steady rate of 50 plus per week.

The only model that's even coming close to looking interesting is the Samsung Galaxy - which staff are putting down to the same reason Apple are suing Samsung - it looks like the iPad!

And you're also missing the real reason why the Playbook isn't selling: the business model was utterly flawed from day one. The requirement to own a Blackberry in order to benefit from the device's full functionality, far from increasing sales of Blackberries as the two fools running RIM arrogantly supposed, has of course only limited Playbook sales.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
tech_ed@... 26th Sep
@toddybottom
Sure, the $99 tablet is not a reasonable expectation given the firesale of the HP TouchPad...*BUT* what HP has shown is that at the $99 pricepoint, the tablet becomes an impulse buy regardless of the usability! At $99 *ANYONE* will buy a tablet that has at least some level of usability. This is the magic price...the closer a major manufacturer can get to this price, the better the assurances they will have of being able to sell the device in great volume! By virtue of the $99 TouchPad, HP has entered as the 3rd most populous tablet at 5% of the tablet market...Imagine if HP had more inventory to sell! It would be easy to see that the HP TouchPad would be able to command 20%, 30% or even 50% of the tablet market! Them's some serious numbers if you think about it!
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased Updated - 30th Sep
@tech_ed@... Was there really anybody out there that was so clueless that they need HP to have a fire sale to realize that a quality tablet at $99 would sell well? You have got to be almost brain dead to not have been able to come to that conclusion without HP. Sub $100 is a hot spot for a lot of electronics to become impulse buys.

Sure if HP had more inventory they could have gotten a larger market sharere with the fire sale, that's also very obvious. The problem with even thinking that way is that it does them nothing what so ever. Sure they get market share but they lose their a$$ and can't afford to continue. So now they have lost a ton of money and can't continue in the market, what now. All they can do at that point is sit back and watch that market share (which is really meaningless) slowly dwindle to zero because they aren't in the market anymore.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
rmacleod@... 26th Sep
The playbook is over prices. The $100.00 drop will not rescue it. HP's cut has not helped but the Playb@toddybottom
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased 30th Sep
@toddybottom OMG, you and I are in agreement for once happy
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
evilcart 26th Sep
Me I will pass I am not about to do a mail ins when Amazon is about to give my kids the same thing but with a better price and with Amazon customer service.
And if we dont like it, amazon will take it back with a smile. ( even if its through their teeth)
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
josmyth 26th Sep
@evilcart Amazon customer service? Please! I couldn't even get them to fix my 99-cent mp3 download that I never got. Amazon has idiots in customer service. That 99-cent rip-off cost them hundreds of dollars in sales that went elsewhere.

Oh yeah, my BlackBerry works just fine.
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False logic
MobileAdmin 26th Sep
I love how Larry thinks. I wish all companies sold their product based what I feel it should be. I'll try that later this week and tell the local BMW dealer I'd like the new X3 for $18k as thats what I'd pay.

Now granted price is a powerful driver for purchase. iPad could likely be $999 and it would still sell as it has a built in Apple market that will purchase it.

What is a fair price for any tablet? Is $249 not worth it for what the Playbook provides (hardware). Yes they have some software gaps and OS 2.0 should address many. It's double the hardware of the Nook/Kindle which is likely the next best selling tablet device.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
dhmccoy 26th Sep
@MobileAdmin

Built in? Come on? Apple has clearly crossed into the mainstream. By that reason, all tablets, except the Touchpad, should be selling well for they have a built in market. Have you seen the Android ********? Quite passionate. They all have built in markets to some extent.

Apple's advantages lie in creating new markets and now, doing it cheaply.

1. OS X : $30
2. iTunes music : $1
3. iPhone : $200
4. iPad :$500
6. Macbook Air(ultrabook) : $1000
7. Thousands of apps : $10

Apple is taking the high ground, but with prices others can barely match or not match at all.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
terry flores Updated - 26th Sep
@MobileAdmin You seem to be intentionally missing the point. It has nothing to do with "wishes". If a company cannot meet the price point that the customer is willing to pay, then it will not succeed, period. How they meet that price point is up to them. Selling at a loss, reducing build costs, subsidizing with ads; these are all potential options. But there is no such thing as "fair price", a price is "fair" if it is acceptable to the customer. If you price yourself out of the market, your losses will be total.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
dhmccoy 26th Sep
@terry flores

Then the product will not succeed. This is why, I think, that the iPad will rule tablets like iPod ruled mp3 players.

There just aren't enough subsidies to get that price down and few companies will be able to eat the losses necessary to prime the pump.

When you look at the razor thin margins of PC vendors, how many of them could afford losses? And the faster they sell, the more the losses would add up. And to what end? What does Acer, Samsung or Asus get out of these losses? Market share? How does this benefit Samsung, Acer or Asus? Unsustainable.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased 30th Sep
@MobileAdmin I'll try that later this week and tell the local BMW dealer I'd like the new X3 for $18k as thats what I'd pay.
I've tried, it doesn't work wink

Over the years I have had more than a couple of dealers ask what the price would have to be to close the deal right then and there. I always give them low ballll figure. I know they won't take it but if they do I am more than happy to buy the car for that price even if it's not exactly what I wanted.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
haddles2000 26th Sep
They don't need to cut the price so much as fully enable the device.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
neilpost 26th Sep
@haddles2000
Seconded.

@ $199 a pop, the rush to bankrupcy will be a 3 horse race with the 3 deadbeat companies without a clue.

RIM
Nokia
HP
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
bhgreenellc 26th Sep
Worst part is what happens to those early adopters who already bought a playbook at close to full price?!?!
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
lorax1284@... 27th Sep
@bhgreenellc As one of those early adopters, I'm happy to see the PlayBook stirring up some excitement. Most of the criticism of the PlayBook is unfair, and most of it comes from people who haven't used the device at all, but only repeat the criticism they've read or heard from others who haven't used the device at all.

The ex-VP of Marketing of RIM made a mistake in NOT marketing the PlayBook DIRECTLY and ONLY to RIM device owners... for RIM handheld device owners, the PlayBook is the ultimate tablet companion (you can't even tether an iPad to a non-iPhone device, so to heck with the iPad).
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased Updated - 30th Sep
@lorax1284@... What excitement is it stirring up? Sure, we are discussing it here but we are discussing pricing and how low it has to go before they can move units. I played around with one the other day for a few minutes and didn't like it. I will admit that a few minutes isn't enough time to make a full judgment on a device which is why I have not done so. When I have been critical about the Playbook it has been about issues I see with it which I don't have to have used it to know. Overall, doesn't matter the device, most that knock them have not actually used them.

They did not ONLY market the Paybook DIRECTLY to RIM device owners, they marketed it to the masses but the masses didn't want it in it's current form. What the heck does tethering the iPad have to do with anything? BTW, you can tether the iPad to any phone that had WiFi tethering. Talk abou criticizing something you don't know anything about.
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hmm like paying a good price for a betamax
beingsneaky@... 26th Sep
why pay for some thing that the compan is not going to make anymore?
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
rfoxworthy 26th Sep
First off I know I am going to get bashed for this, but I have said it before and I will say it again. Apple products sell regardless of price for 2 reasons 1) they are consumed by the Apple Kool-Ade drinkers and the lable alone is enough to prompt these people to buy. 2) because I have to be honest, they are indeed good products (not worth the price of admission but still well built.)

What the rest of the tablet makers don't seem to get (except the Chinese can you say $150 and under tablets) is that we do live in a price/consumer driven economy and yes Mobileadmin, if enough people stopped buying BMWs at the inflated prices they charge the price would drop.

So if or when the producers of tablets (quality tablets not the cheap imports coming from China) decide to drop their prices to $150 and under they will see their product fly off the shelves. Perhaps they should redefine their partnerships with the cellular phone companies so that bundling their tablets with say a 1 or 2 year subscription to their wifi services would drop the pricing down to that range. Remember the days when you paid $500 and $600 for cell phones? Gone now that they bundle them with cellular services.

Thats my take on it, and as one of a legion of consumers who would love to have a tablet but won't fork out $299 or more for one I think I am on pretty solid ground here.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased 30th Sep
@rfoxworthy You are correct that a certain segment is going to buy just about anything that has the Apple logo on it simply because it does but that really only adds up to a very small percentage of the iOS device sales. It's a great talking point for haters but really a pretty meaningless one.
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Correction to the article
Rabid Howler Monkey 26th Sep
From the article:
"Now RIM is offering a 7-inch 16GB Wi-Fi PlayBook for $299 with a $100 coupon and $100 rebate. My initial reaction: $299 is still too high. Staples, Office Depot and Best Buy are offering the PlayBook price cuts.

At Staples, it is $249 with both the coupon and rebate. I checked.

Think about it. The same price as the Nook Color and, possibly, cheaper than the forthcoming Amazon 7-inch form factor tablet. Sorry, but $249 is a *great* price for the RIM PlayBook.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
siulm2-24071985535714025623346106601135 26th Sep
Has RIM say anything about what they will do for those people who already bought the device? I don't think it is right for us the early adopters.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
Home Grown IT 28th Sep
@siulm2-24071985535714025623346106601135

Yes despite the retards that write here for a "living" the october update will add the missing apps & allow you to run Android apps. Then ofc the same losers will have another excuse why a really great tablet isn't good enough.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased 30th Sep
@siulm2-24071985535714025623346106601135
Not sure what you expect them to do? Are you expecting a rebate check? Off the top of my head I can only think of one company and one instance when they have given back to earlier adopters that paid more, that was Apple with the original iPhone after the price drop.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
Mosblest 26th Sep
Non Apple tablets need to be $100 less period. If they are less than the 10" standard they have to drop even lower because they are closer to a smartphone than a notebook. Apple won't create anything smaller than 10" because it devalues the functionality of iPad. We are more likely to see a 12" iPad in the future with the power of a Macbook Air that can run iOS and emulate Mac software. Blackberry, Android tablets will be niche products with Amazon and Nook as high end e-readers. So the market looks like $200 - $800 with an iPad HD at the top.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
Home Grown IT 28th Sep
@Mosblest

Yes and you'll still pay a premuim price for Apples crippled ipad. Have any of you used a Playbook? HD, Flash, soon email & pim, plus android player. Apple better pull up their pants and the bloggers ( the don't deserve to be called tech writers) better get it right.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
non-biased 30th Sep
@Home Grown IT You think the price is premium and that the iPad is crippled but guess what, the vast majority of the people buying tablets apparently don't agree with you. Yes I have for a few minutes. Granted not enough time to pass judgment but I have used one. Getting email and PIM will be a big help and was a mistake to release it without them but having Flash is just a talking point that hasn't really helped anybody in regard to competing against Apple. You post sounds more like a whiny fanboy than anything.
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Playbook Failed / Is failing for Multiple reasons
RichHalvor 26th Sep
1. Price (A 7" wifi tablet for $499, they were insane, $249 nook color while not as powerfull is half price. Upcomming Lenovo A1 will be $199-249$ depending on where you live.
2. It's 7", I had a nook color, 7" is OK, but ~10 is better.
3. Playbook who? Anyone outside of Blackberry users don't have knowledge, don't care.
4. Lack of apps, including the native email calendar ones.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
rograham1 26th Sep
RIM just didn't execute well. The Playbook should have been simply larger screen real-estate and an auxilliary battery source for the Blackberry smartphones. The price should have been under $150. No Blackberry user will give up carrying their BB at all times. However, the Playbook tablet appendage would be optionally stowed. RIM did NOT need to address the entire market, they just needed to lock in their Blackberry market to fend off the iPad incursion.
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I might be a good playbook user
mmeade@... 26th Sep
I use a blackberry, and would absolutely consider purchasing a playbook at the right price. But I have yet to be convinced that a tablet is right for me at all, and to spend 5 or 6 hundred dollars to find out I don't use it. If I had purchased one at 200 dollars and found that it was a useful tool, then I would consider upgrading to something more expensive, but I really REALLY need convincing to spend 3 times that much. I keep reading things about tablets, I keep looking at them in the stores (if they are working) and all I see is an expensive toy with no real uses. I think a lot of people are in that same boat which is why when people had an opportunity to try one for a while, spending only 99 bucks they jumped at it. Even though it wouldn't be supported on the long term, at least it gave them the opportunity to really find out if a tablet was really something that they could use.
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wake up
HabsSuck 26th Sep
your ignorance towards the Playbook is disturbing you should do some research first prior to opining on a device you obviously know nothing about.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
dbsteele@... 26th Sep
The idea that the $99 Touchpad sale is somehow going to set a mark for tablet prices is just ridiculous. The original Touchpad sold for around $600, so $99 is one sixth of the price. How many Priuses would Toyota sell if they reduced the price from $24,000 to $4,000? Would it set a target for other car prices? I don't think so. What would that prove, other than that Toyota would be bankrupt after a year? The other car manufacturers would benefit, not lose, from craziness like this. In the same way, now that HP is out of the tablet market with a loss of hundreds of millions, the other tablet manufacturers have one less competitor to worry about.
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I thin HP is not good enough
luminary911 26th Sep
I thin HP is not good enough,always some problems appear.like
designer ******** somehow.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
NandhiniS 27th Sep
Every brand that slashes the price of its tablets would not get the same response HP's Touchpad got. When people are clearly insisting on the mail, calendar and other apps, Playbook might not have succeeded even if they had released the tablet at a lower price. At SocialNuggets, we found that after iPad, it's HP's TouchPad that has high purchase intentions. Would Playbook give a tough fight to appear behind TouchPad in purchase intentions? http://socialnuggets.net/tablets/at-$99-hp-touchpad-becomes-a-hot-commodity-though-ipad-still-rules-intent-to-purchase-in-social-media
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
NandhiniS Updated - 27th Sep
.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
joe.cribbett 27th Sep
correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the Playbook has access to the Android marketplace through emulation, while it is not as robust as the apple marketplace it still allows for plenty of apps. And I agree at 250-300 the playbook is a good purchase. If the starting price was this low and coupled with the Android market then RIM would have had a chance at gaining market share from the beginning rather than playing catch up.
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RE: RIM's PlayBook price cuts: Still not enough thanks to HP's TouchPad
lorax1284@... Updated - 27th Sep
Is this "let's oversimplify why the PlayBook didn't succeed as hoped" day?

The PlayBook hardware is excellent... and for the tens of millions of BlackBerry device owners / enthusiasts, it's the best tablet to own, period. So, there are a lot of customers there.

I think it's safe to say that when something is sold TOO inexpensively i.e. "leaving money on the table", you get the kind of frenzy the HP TouchPad had.

I'm sure that HP could have sold them quite quickly at $200 instead of $100, but their idiot CEO (who was fired) went to $99. Talk about leaving money on the table: the TouchPad was a much more powerful and higher-quality device than those "brand x china manufacturing concern" tablets coming out of containers in white boxes by the thousands... and only people who absolutely don't know better are buying them, because as a previous poster said, any tablet built with $100 worth of components will suck.

If the "editor in chief of ZDNet" was a journalist, he might have visited some of the 'dealz' discussion forum sites that cover the continent and see there is SIGNIFICANT CHATTER about the PlayBook price reduction, mostly for (as in "Great. I'm getting one!") and some con ("PlayBook is the SUX! iPad ROOLZ! Dude!") and maybe wouldn't have even BOTHERED writing this article at all... but that doesn't get clicks, does it?

Now, Amazon will put out a quality device at a low price subsidized by future book purchase revenue... so like the XBox and Playstation pricing, below cost, their business model will allow for a quality device to be sold at a price-point closer to the magical $199 that will make lots of holdouts come on board with the tablet experience.
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wvbceej 02 kjm
bdsfwrryd74-24378986457153749220756500907857 25th Nov
nyeuia,auaccnhe76, gxueq.

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