It was not a long time back, we had discussed if BlackBerry would send its PlayBook down the HP TouchPad road. No, no, worry not,
BlackBerry is not scraping the idea of tablet, but it is certainly shaving some dollars off its price tag. PlayBook is now up for grabs with some massive discounts. Earlier this month, BGR had reported that the tablet is being offered at $250 to Rogers employees and now the bounty has been extended to general public as well.
According to some reports, Staples has reduced the slate price by whopping $200, whereas Office Depot is offering instant discount of $100 off the MSRP of each tablet and a further rebate of $100. Similarly Best Buy is also flaunting a reduced price tag of just $399.99 for 16GB tablet, while e2GB and 64GB tablets can be yours for $499.99 and $599.99 respectively. However, unfortunately, all these offers are available only in Canada. But hey, let's take it as the sign of the things to come.
While we may have to wait a little for these discounts to hit our shores, but the price cut epidemic has evidently reached the US too. BGR reported that Walmart is also allegedly offering discounts on at least one model of the tablet. Walmart, however, refused to issue any comments.
The price cut is not entirely unexpected. Speculations about such cuts started when RIM announced dismal shipping figures for the tablet during its first full quarter. The company was expected to sell 700,000 units, but the actual shipping numbers stood at abysmal 200,000. The tablet was mainly targeted at corporate segment, however, it did not receive much patronage from the market.