If you were thinking of buying more than one BlackBerry PlayBook, then today is your lucky day.
RIM has announced a Buy Two, Get One Free offer on its poorly-selling PlayBook tablets, from now through the end of 2011, so long as you buy through one of RIM's "Valued Added Resellers" like CDW, CompuCom, or PC Mall. The offer also includes one "premium accessory"; buyers have their choice of a leather PlayBook sleeve, charging pad or 6 foot HDMI cable.
The Buy Two/Get One deal comes after a string of bad press for RIM's struggling tablet: First, the company recently announced that the 2.0 update for the PlayBook OS has been pushed back to next year due to quality issues; in late September, there were many rumors that the PlayBook was going to be discontinued altogether, succumbing to the same fate as Hewlett-Packard's Touchpad. Earlier in the month, RIM dropped PlayBook prices $200 across 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models; the 16GB WiFi-only PlayBook, like the comparable iPad model, is currently $499 after a brief $299 sale at Best Buy.
The PlayBook has never sold well, dominated as it is by the iPad. A recent survey by IDC showed the iPad with 68 percent of the market, Android tablets at 27 percent and the PlayBook at 5 percent in the first quarter since its April 2011 release.
Demand for the HP Touchpad exploded once its price dropped to $99; RIM is certainly hoping that by offering free PlayBooks with purchase, consumers will take notice of their own weakly-selling tablet.
To get your own three (or six, or nine) BlackBerry PlayBooks, head over to the RIM website.
