When you're struggling with sales, cutting prices can help to boost sales. When you're struggling with users, giving away free devices is perhaps an even better way to draw some press to your device when you've already cut prices. This seems to be the concept followed by RIM, as TechRadar reports.
Research in Motion have announced plans to give out free BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to Android developers if they simply submit their apps to the BlackBerry App World (the equivalent of the Android Market). If you're interested in a free tablet you need to submit your app before the 13th of February, so you have ten days to learn how to throw an app together. Once you've uploaded your app you need to email developeroutreachprogram@rim.com, and state the name of the app you've uploaded.
The BlackBerry Devblog states that there are going to be some Terms and Conditions, though these have not yet been published. to Alex K on the Devblog made the following statement:
"the plan is to provide one free 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook to every registered BlackBerry App World vendor who converts their Android app for use on the BlackBerry PlayBook and submits it to BlackBerry App World."
With the price of the PlayBook sitting at £169 in the United Kingdom it seems that RIM are desperate to get people developing apps for the tablet, which launched in April 2011. This might actually be some positive marketing for the tablet, since the easiest way to build up a base of users is to give them things to use on the device you're trying to sell. Certainly, some positive marketing from RIM would be something our own Andy Weir would like to see after he called the #BeBold campaign "awful".
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