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RIM Playbook price slashed by $300

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Prices of the RIM PlayBook slashed just ahead of the holiday season by about $300, which might be an effort to increase the sales

According to Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley, the release of the iPhone 4S and reduction of the price of a few other models has affected the Research In Motion’s refreshed BlackBerry lineup. This might be also another reason for slashing the price of the RIM tablets in Best Buy, Future Shop, Sears, the source and Wall.

Now with the slashed price of RIM tablets the cheapest 16GB model is about $200, while the 32GB PlayBook model is $300 and the 64GB model is $400. They also mentioned in a statement that these prices are temporary.

A spokesman of RIM also said that they have a lot of different promotional plans in place and are intended to help driving the sale of the Playbook further. He also pointed out that a lot of other holiday promotions will also arrive by the holiday season in the form of instant rebates as well as gift cards.

Walkley said that the iPhone 4S as the momentum killer for other tablets as it sold about four million units in the first weekend of the sale itself. He also believes that the launch of the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet ans the improving Windows phones are going to provide a good competition to the RIM products in 2012.

He also added that international checks indicate the lower-tier Blackberry sales have also slowed with the release of the Nokia Asha series launching and also receiving strong orders in key BlackBerry markets such as in India and Indonesia.

New phones from Waterloo-based RIM  have already started banking, in advance of the launch of the devices on the BBX operating system to revive sales. Some images of the first BBX phone, the BlackBerry London have already popped up on the internet, which seems to have similarities to the PlayBook. But this new Operating system might not be launched until the third quarter of 2012 according to web posts. 

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Pallab Jyotee Hazarika, 2011-11-20 (Update: 2012-05-26)