Research in Motion seems to be trying everything to entice people to buy its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. In hopes of driving sales, BlackBerry business customers who buy two PlayBooks from an authorized reseller will get one free from now until December 31, BGR first reported.
RIM will also give customers who purchase two PlayBooks one free accessory for each device. They can choose from a black leather sleeve, a charging pad, or an six-foot HDMI cable if they join in the promotion.
The company has struggled to sell the PlayBook, and the floundering tablet took another hit this week when RIM announced that it will delay the launch of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 until February 2012. Until then, the tablet still lacks a native BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app and BlackBerry smartphone users must employ BlackBerry Bridge to use BBM on their PlayBooks.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), tablets are expected to be the most popular gadgets in the coming holiday shopping season. However, it’s not the PlayBook that consumers are eyeing. The CEA said the majority of sales will be shared by Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
RIM shipped half a million PlayBooks in the first quarter it was available, but that number fell below 200,000 units in the second quarter, which RIM closed at the end of August.
There have been rumors that RIM was planning to abandon the tablet market, but RIM called those claims “pure fiction,” asserting that it is “highly committed to the tablet market.”
That said, several retailers including Best Buy, Staples, and Office Depot have tried to lure in PlayBook buyers by knocking as much as $200 off the price.
RIM has not changed the official price of the PlayBook, but the latest promotion could suggest that discounts are not outside the realm of possibility.