Although some thieves aren’t particularly interested in RIM’s smartphones, the BlackBerry PlayBook is a different story altogether. A shipment of 22 pallets of BlackBerry PlayBooks heading from Plainfield, Indianapolis to Ontario was stolen after its driver took an hour-long pit stop in Madison County, only to find his truck had disappeared. 5,200 devices were stolen, valued at between $1.7 and $5 million, depending on which memory denominations of the device were loaded up. The clincher? Brightpoint, RIM’s supply partner, didn’t have any tracking mechanism on the truck whatsoever, so police and the FBI are now on the hunt.
It seems pretty bizarre that a truck full of GPS-enabled devices can’t be tracked down, but there you have it. RIM’s financials have already taken a hefty hit thanks to the de-valuation of their massive stockpile of unsold PlayBooks, and no doubt losing a big shipment like this won’t do RIM any favours for the last quarter of the year. Lots of folks have been enjoying the ongoing $200 PlayBook promo and no doubt employees have been picking up theirs for $100 pretty quickly too. Hopefully they’ll still get their tablets in the mail in time for the holidays, but it’s cutting it pretty close at this point.
[via Herald Bulletin, WIBC]