[Opinion]

Have you read this interesting piece about a 78-year-old guy who just started first grade in Bulgaria? It's cute and sentimental, but it doesn't make any sense. Assuming that he goes through all the steps and finishes college, he'll be 94 when he applies for a job as a fresh grad chemical engineer.

Canada-based Research In Motion Ltd. might share the same fate.When PlayBook was released, RIM's best-case scenario was it would be able to sell a tablet version of the BlackBerry. The worst-case scenario, was like the others, RIM's tablet couldn't gain ground against Apple Inc.'s iPad.

Well, we couldn't blame RIM's execs optimism, as pessimists are usually dull and annoying

Like Hewlett-Packard, RIM Co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and James L. Balsillie priced the 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook at $499, same as the entry-level iPad 2. Unlike the iPad, the PlayBook had Adobe Flash support, two 1080p HD cameras, and an operating system based on QNX Neutrino.

But note that happened to Hewlett-Packard -- it couldn't sell the $499 HP TouchPad and decided to call it quits after 30 days. Only when HP made a steep $400 discount to the TouchPad did the demand for the tablet skyrocket. But then, HP is ending its mobile devices business and is only trying to get rid of inventory.

RIM has hopes that its mobile devices business wouldn't end up like HP's. It remains optimistic notwithstanding that latest quarterly revenues were down 10% from the past year.

"We successfully launched a range of BlackBerry 7 smartphones around the world during the latter part of the second quarter and we are seeing strong sell-through and customer interest for these new products. Overall unit shipments in the quarter were slightly below our forecast due to lower than expected demand for older models," said Balsillie in a statement. "We will continue to build on the success of the BlackBerry 7 launch to drive the business as we focus our development efforts on delivering the next generation, QNX-based mobile platform next year.

During the second quarter ended Aug. 27, RIM shipped 10.6 million BlackBerry smartphones and approximately 200,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. In August, RIM had unveiled five new smartphones: the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 (large keyboard + touch display), the new BlackBerry Torch 9810 (large touch display with a convenient slide-out keyboard) and the BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 (all-touch design with 3.7-inch display).

The 10.6 million include those prepped up for the global launch of the five new BlackBerrry phones. But with Samsung Electronics and HTC and other Android device makers gaining ground, and Apple's iPhone continuing to gain following, it remains to be seen whether BlackBerry will be translating shipments into sales. And a total of 200,000 PlayBook tablets shipped? Recall that HP shipped 270,000 tablets to Best Buy, but the retailer only sold 25,000 prior to the price cuts.

RIM is acknowledging that it needs to spur demand for the PlayBook. Lazaridis said in RIM's latest earnings call that RIM would be offering rebates and deals on PlayBooks and an an incentive program for business customers. Finally!

After releasing the PlayBook in early 2011, RIM could have known earlier that it needed to cut prices for the PlayBook. Why would expect users of BlackBerry phones to patronize the PlayBook when they have shifted to the iPhone or Android devices from HTC and Samsung? And for the business users, the PlayBook didn't even have native e-mail, calendar and contacts apps. Moreover, while the Apple App Store has more than 100,000 apps optimized for the iPad, RIM doesn't have a wide array of apps because it still needs to convince developers that they could make money by making apps for the PlayBook.

Does RIM know why analysts are upbeat over Amazon's Kindle tablet? Amazon is a retailer, not a hardware or software maker that is able to produce a professional-grade tablet, with superb web browsing, and advanced security features like the PlayBook. But Amazon is known as willing to sacrifice margins, and focus on volume sales. RIM should cut prices of the PlayBook to gain market share and woo developers before it's too late.

RIM's managers continue to be upbeat. Next year, RIM will be releasing "superphones", i.e. smartphones powered by the QNX platform. But isn't QNX running the PlayBook? And of course RIM is planning a software update that would make the $499 PlayBook more attractive to consumers. The 7-inch PlayBook at $499? Early next year, the PlayBook will have the iPad 3 to contend with and a host of cheaper tablets from Amazon and other smartphone and PC vendors.

Sooner rather than later RIM will wake up with this best-case scenario: a tech giant will make a hostile bid for its assets, given that shareholder discontent has brought down the value to only $15 billion, but will pay a premium given that RIM is still the 3rd or 4th largest smartphone vendor in the U.S. and has a deep patent portfolio. A worst-case scenario is that RIM would end up like Nortel Networks, with all creditors and shareholders lining up for grosses from a liquidation of the assets.

And sooner rather than later we'll wake up with the PlayBook priced at $99 apiece in a GOB sale.