Wednesday, March 23, 2011

RIM PlayBook will cost $499: Still not Interested?

On March 22, 2011, R.I.M announced the new price sticker for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet PC. The BlackBerry PlayBook, coming on April 19, 2011, will be priced at $499 similar to the iPad 2 pricing.

Next month, the PlayBook will become available in various retail stores including Walmart, BestBuy and Staples, and Radio Shack. Best Buy will start taking orders from March 22, 2011.

However, RIM is not interested about regular users but targeting large companies where they would sell their tablet devices in bulk at discounted price.

Since its launch, RIM has been carefully building up relationships with enterprises because the PlayBook comes with a wide range of “security and control features” that are very much useful for enterprise people and government officials.

I think this is a good move from RIM because instead of getting into a direct competition with the iPad 2 it is targeting a market where it has strong hold.

Motorola Xoom failed to gain popularity due to its higher price and RIM learned its lesson from Motorola. Now, people will not worry about the price tag. If this trend continues, the Apple iPad will face serious competitions.

Related article:

The New York Times

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