Another promotion for the BlackBerry PlayBook has just gone live, this time targeting businesses. For every two BlackBerry PlayBooks that are bought through select corporate vendors, RIM will throw in a third for free. To sweeten the deal, they’ll toss in a free leather sleeve, charging pod, or HDMI cable for free. This follows up on retail promotions which brought the price of the 16 GB model down to $250 after rebates. RIM had announced during their quarterly conference call that they would be implementing a bunch of promotions to get PlayBooks into peoples’ hands.
While RIM has been pitching the PlayBook as the first enterprise-grade tablet, it still relies on Bridging to a BlackBerry smartphone for secure e-mail, contact, and calendar access. The software update which would enable the PlayBook to do that stuff on its own untethered and be subject to usual enterprise management tools won’t land until February, at which point it’s hard to say how many businesses will still be interested in supporting BlackBerry. For example, Purdue University recently announced that they’re cutting BES due to drastically reduced usage and ongoing licensing costs. Hopefully RIM has a new tablet next year to go along with the software update to reinvigorate interest, otherwise the future of BBX will rely solely on RIM’s dated smartphone sensibilities.
To get in on this buy two, get one free promo, hit up RIM’s minisite.
[via CB]