PlayBook sell-off costs RIM half a billion dollars

When a company offers consumers an incentive, they sacrifice a little bit of profit in the hopes of increasing sales. That’s what RIM did to the BlackBerry PlayBook recently — and man, did they ever sacrifice. According to RIM’s Q3 financial announcement, they’re writing off $485 million in PlayBook-related losses.

The news sent RIM shares tumbling to $17, the same price they fetched at the opening bell on Monday morning. The sharp drop wiped out week-long gains, and cast an even longer shadow on the Canadian tech poster boys.

It wasn’t all gloom and doom, fortunately. RIM shipped around 14.1 million BlackBerry phones in the third quarter, which is certainly impressive. Based on what we typically read about RIM nowadays, you’d think they were having trouble all the way around. In truth, they’re still selling phones, still providing high-margin enterprise services to companies around the globe, and still moving forward.

And PlayBook fans, take heed: RIM assures that it’s not going to back down the way HP did with the TouchPad. RIM’s cherubic frontman Mike Laziridis says the PlayBook is still a compelling tablet, and he’s convinced that the February update to OS 2.0 will make it even more attractive to consumers.

That update is bringing several important pieces of functionality to the PlayBook. In addition to adding long-absent email, calendar, and contacts apps, Android app support is coming. In fact, when developer Chris Wade recently rooted his PlayBook, he learned that the PlayBook can run the Android Market app and even download and install apps — without any need to use RIM’s repackaging methods.

Dec. 2, 2011 (5:46 pm) By: Lee Mathews

Url :  http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/playbook-sell-off-costs-rim-half-a-billion-dollars-2011122/