RIM Playbook. Limited sale... $200

[Flashmonkey]

Just heard from my RIM buddy, a bunch of employees got caught out, having bought their quota of 5 PBs, only to get the email afterwards!!!! That's some people out $500. Holy chumped by your own Company! Man RIM F'ed up AGAIN!!!

What? How is it RIM's fault that your friends are ****ing idiots?

[killerkeith]

Reasons why RIM was stupid to recall the $100 rebate:

1) Crushed moral among their staff already nervous of layoffs and a recession
2) The least they could do as a gift to all their employees coming up on Christmas, considering how Google, and Apple treat their employees
3) When hype is crashing all around, the last place you want to crash the hype is within your own camp...the very people (if you keep them on salary) are going to be required to knuckle down and up productivity and creativity to haul their company out of the dulldrums.
4) When half of Kitchener gets the emails, drops their heads and steps out of line....how can that be good for anyone else in the line?!?! All it looks like is a panic fire sale, that even the own employees don't believe in anymore!!!! Even their own employees wouldn't pay $200 for a PB!!!
5) That email should have been issued last week so BB employees forwarn their contacts and don't embarrass the company publicly. All BB staff should have been instructed to notify their peers, colleagues and networks that "the $100 rebate is open to the public for a limited time, so spread the word that RIM is offering a further price reduction, normally resevred for RIM staff. No cap...simply head over to X retailer and get a PB for $200...no rebate hastle, simple". The fact that they didn't utilize their own employees as word of mouth marketing agents and actually tanked their moral while in the ****ING line is a sign of how lame and behind the curv RIM is!

No disagreement with how RIM is run or how they should have handled this better but RIM sounds just as heartless as Rogers or Bell who regularly bend over their employees in order to save a $1.

Let me be clear, no one stepped out of line once hearing they wouldn't get an additional $100 off. They just complained like my 5 year old does when someone takes his Star Wars light sabre or something.

Sure they are going to be ****** off, but selling 25,000 PBs at $100 would hurt the company and it's not like Apple is going to blow into town and save all their jobs either. That email should have been sent yesterday however perspective was lacking in that line up. Every single one of them bought 2 16gb PB and were allowed to buy an addition 32 or 64GB version on top of that, which some did. 170 units gone in less then an hour.

[awyala]

What? How is it RIM's fault that your friends are ****ing idiots?

Re-read. My buddy didn't by 5. He said he knows of colleauges who bought 5.

[Flashmonkey]

Re-read. My buddy didn't by 5. He said he knows of colleauges who bought 5.

Well then those people are ****ing idiots.

My apologies to your buddy

[awyala]

No disagreement with how RIM is run or how they should have handled this better but RIM sounds just as heartless as Rogers or Bell who regularly bend over their employees in order to save a $1.

Let me be clear, no one stepped out of line once hearing they wouldn't get an additional $100 off. They just complained like my 5 year old does when someone takes his Star Wars light sabre or something.

Sure they are going to be ****** off, but selling 25,000 PBs at $100 would hurt the company and it's not like Apple is going to blow into town and save all their jobs either. That email should have been sent yesterday however perspective was lacking in that line up. Every single one of them bought 2 16gb PB and were allowed to buy an addition 32 or 64GB version on top of that, which some did. 170 units gone in less then an hour.

I misread that line up part. Sorry. But that offer was on back in September. PBs were on sale for $300 - $100 (RIM customer rebate), putting PBs at $200 for RIM employees. The 5 unit cap is annual. So those employees you mention, buying multiple units, really seems odd, given that this was already available to them 2 months ago and they don't get an extended unit cap beyond 5.



I wonder if they will be trying to hock them at a higher price once the sale ends on the 24th and PBs either sell out or go back up to $400.


Let's also be realistic here. RIM not selling units hurts more than unloading them to cut their losses. Unless of course RIM have already made a certain amount of capital back in shipping (to the big retailers) alone, and would hate to hand back $100. It's likely that the big box retailers are sitting on mountains of prepaid stock and need to clear shelves, if even by selling at cost to the public. RIM sending out an email this late, means they were caught off guard (in the best of circumstances), and didn't know the big boxes were selling off at cost. The $100 rebate must have meant it would come right out of RIM accounts!

When the bog box's sale was $300, I wonder if the rebate was handed back to the retailers to refund the employee, so effectively the retailer would be selling off at cost to RIM employees but make $100 on the public consumer. But to sell at $200 per unit, and have RIM recall their rebate indicates PBs are dead weight to the bog box retailers.

Still a bad sign all around!

[Red_Liner740]

^^ No way were they "got caught off guard". They way every single merchant who has the playbook in stock simultaneously dropped the price and by the same price drop across the board tells me this came from RIM itself.

What probably happened is that some knucklehead totally forgot that the employees get additional 100 bucks off until ppl started to buy them....hence the mass email haphazardly thrown out there.

[BLUE_KAWI]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe...rticle2241405/

"Since the PlayBook launched in April, when analysts and critics said the device had been rushed to market prematurely,"

In RIMS defense, the stock market/shareholders looked like they would bail on RIM if they took their time on this thing. What was RIM to do? Having the shareholders decide on a company kills a company. One thing about APPLE is that they focused more on the product then their shareholders.

[awyala]

^^ No way were they "got caught off guard". They way every single merchant who has the playbook in stock simultaneously dropped the price and by the same price drop across the board tells me this came from RIM itself.

What probably happened is that some knucklehead totally forgot that the employees get additional 100 bucks off until ppl started to buy them....hence the mass email haphazardly thrown out there.

I'm with this guy.

[STARSHIP]

RIM is losing their shirt on this deal, as stated, they should have offered it to employees first and they may have been able to get more in the market , however to expect to double dip on a deal like this is just greed.

Yes, just asked my wife to pick up a 32G if she can find one.

[Dresden]

Reasons why RIM was stupid to recall the $100 rebate:

1) Crushed moral among their staff already nervous of layoffs and a recession
2) The least they could do as a gift to all their employees coming up on Christmas, considering how Google, and Apple treat their employees
3) When hype is crashing all around, the last place you want to crash the hype is within your own camp...the very people (if you keep them on salary) are going to be required to knuckle down and up productivity and creativity to haul their company out of the dulldrums.
4) When half of Kitchener gets the emails, drops their heads and steps out of line....how can that be good for anyone else in the line?!?! All it looks like is a panic fire sale, that even the own employees don't believe in anymore!!!! Even their own employees wouldn't pay $200 for a PB!!!
5) That email should have been issued last week so BB employees forwarn their contacts and don't embarrass the company publicly. All BB staff should have been instructed to notify their peers, colleagues and networks that "the $100 rebate is open to the public for a limited time, so spread the word that RIM is offering a further price reduction, normally resevred for RIM staff. No cap...simply head over to X retailer and get a PB for $200...no rebate hastle, simple". The fact that they didn't utilize their own employees as word of mouth marketing agents and actually tanked their moral while in the ****ING line is a sign of how lame and behind the curv RIM is!

Just heard from my RIM buddy, a bunch of employees got caught out, having bought their quota of 5 PBs, only to get the email afterwards!!!! That's some people out $500. Holy chumped by your own Company! Man RIM F'ed up AGAIN!!!

I would hate to have you as an employee.

The company is going down faster than the 94 Blue Jays and here you are complaining about not getting a heavily discounted for an even further discount?? Give me a break.

You also state that some of the employees got "caught buying their quota of 5"???? I wonder what they planned to do with the other 4? A quick search on Kijiji will show how many went up for sale for a siginificant asking price over 200...

Stay Classy Kitchener.

[Red_Liner740]

problem with the playbook is marketing....they dont stand out...what makes the playbook better than any other table out there? forget about "on paper". i mean, what makes it stick in peoples minds? nothing...

you know that comercial with the song from "flash" trying to signify that that tablet can run flash unlike the Ipad?? I remember the commercial but for the love of me i cant remember for what product it was, and thats the issue...

[Roasted]

they were rushed to market with this device, it had a few short comings...no 3G support other than tethering it to another blackberry, so you would need to spend another $300-$500 for a phone to tether it to to get 3G access from device...yeah, weak when it came out, and they ain't done much to improve it either...with a tablet, you have to do it right, and cover all the angles...i know of one person that owns one that doesn't work for rim...$200 i think is a fair price for that device, smaller screen than competitor, fewer apps available, the list goes on...

WHo the hell owns a tablet but doesn't own a smart phone with data? DO you know ANYONE? Cause I sure don't.

[awyala]

I would hate to have you as an employee.

The company is going down faster than the 94 Blue Jays and here you are complaining about not getting a heavily discounted for an even further discount?? Give me a break.

You also state that some of the employees got "caught buying their quota of 5"???? I wonder what they planned to do with the other 4? A quick search on Kijiji will show how many went up for sale for a siginificant asking price over 200...

Stay Classy Kitchener.

Have a review of my suggestions...I myself know very well what it is like to be an employee in a SUNKEN ship...not just sinking. I am also very familiar with multiple recession cycles and their effects on employees.

You really have 2 options when you are sinking...energize your staff to be more productive and dynamic (like RIM's competition), or scare the absolute **** out of them into cranking out better work. That means cutting all perks and running a paranoid skeleton crew to recover your stock market faith based on sheer cost cutting alone. Hopefully you can either consolidate on what works, rather than running a bloated asset / property rich compound taking heavy losses with a weak marteting division, or sex up that stock to entice a take-over.

My more subtle and preferred advice, if you re-examine was to have notified all employees waaaay in advance and actually sought their participation in a grass roots mini campaign to flog these units by tapping into their social and peer networks, to pre-hype this sale, and pitch it as a RIM company incentive for all of their "honourary employees" the consumers of Canada...blah blah blah. As a friend of several RIM employees, who I am seeing rather deflated and upset lately, I personally feel for them and knowing full well the feeling of helplessness of watching a sinking ship due to poor management and the momentum of negative social and economic hype. I don't want to see my friends fired, nor do I want to see RIM fold, as they were almost a Canadian institution, but when we see what is clearly yet another marketing blunder what would you have me do....polish the brass or shuffle some deck chairs?

By the way...with the other 4 PBs they should have been instructed to sell them at cost to friends and family to get those damn PBs out their into public hands, into public view, so everytime you ride a ****en bus, you at least see 2 PBs to every 5 iPads. Just get them in use damn it!!! So at least when they go for PB2 they have some degree of loyal consumer base looking to buy the next one on sheer pride / saving face alone! But the more they lose loyal customers, and now possibly employees, they lose interest in PB2. FFS go after the Kobo reader market or the damn youth market....just get it in the hands of somebody on the street. The PB1 can only be useful as a pre-hype for an expected RIM rebound....dump the PB like a gift on everybody to improve the image of RIM and their awful lack of redemption for the global network collapse and their 4 day late apology and lack of compensation.

[killerkeith]

ok, the playbook is awesome if you own a bb. totally worth $200. it's only been a couple hours of playing on it but i love it.

[CruisnGrrl]

WHo the hell owns a tablet but doesn't own a smart phone with data? DO you know ANYONE? Cause I sure don't.

my aunt has an iPad (dunno which one). no smart phone. uses it with wifi around the house, doesn't tether it to anything.

[[evo]]

my aunt has an iPad (dunno which one). no smart phone. uses it with wifi around the house, doesn't tether it to anything.

I went to get one this morning, and with it in my hand, decided it just wasnt worth $200. I'd rather wait for some xmas sales and get a galaxy or sony tablet for $400.

[Splash]

WHo the hell owns a tablet but doesn't own a smart phone with data? DO you know ANYONE? Cause I sure don't.

I don't and I know a few people that don't. I'm not going to spend $100 a month for a smart phone.

[toshison]

They should of priced the Playbook closer to these prices to begin with rather the pricing them similar to iPads and going head to head. I think more people would be interested in an affordable tablet. Make money through volume, get them hooked into your company and then start selling higher end models for these customers to upgrade to.

[STARSHIP]

They are sold out already, looking for a 32G the Best Buy near me had a 64G customer return but I passed, More should be shipped next week.

[STARSHIP]

I only have a smart phone (BlackBerry) because I get one from work. But I can see why some people have them especially if they do not have a land line or internet at home. Then it is good value.

I don't and I know a few people that don't. I'm not going to spend $100 a month for a smart phone.