RIM PlayBook Prices Drop at Best Buy, Maybe Because of Kindle Fire

From eWeek: At a high-profile Sept. 28 event in New York City, Amazon unveiled its $199.99 Kindle Fire tablet, a 7-inch device with streamlined access to the online retailer’s multimedia and cloud content.

Within a day, it seems, prominent retailer Best Buy started slashing the price of another 7-inch tablet, the BlackBerry-branded PlayBook, by $200. Nor is that price cut tied to any sort of promotional deal or mail-in rebate.

Coincidence? Certainly the Kindle Fire is expected to have a sizable impact on the tablet market, given Amazon’s significant promotional muscle. And it’s no secret that Research In Motion wanted the PlayBook to perform better in the open market. During the company’s Sept. 15 earnings call, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis told media and analysts that sales of the tablet were “below where we’d like it to be,” but that the device would “ultimately be successful in a market that's in its infancy.”

Whether Best Buy’s price cuts become the norm for the PlayBook remains to be seen, although retailers generally aren’t slow when it comes to slashing prices to match the competition. On Amazon, the 16GB PlayBook is yours for $350.

View: Article @ Source Site