Despite a large media campaign and lofty marketing speak that suggested Blackberry’s Torch phone was going to revolutionize the world, deep discounts are already hitting the brand new Blackberry.
The Torch is the first phone to use Research In Motion’s new Blackberry 6 operating system. It was supposed to be RIM’s answer to the sexy and feature-rich phones offered through Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS platforms.
However, the media tore apart RIM after it appeared extremely out of touch with the industry and boasted features of the Torch like they were the second coming of Christ, even though the same kind of technology had already been well established in phones like the Droid and iPhone.
Amazon is already slashing the price of the Torch down to $99 with a new two year contract, down more than 50% from the phone’s launch price of $199. And it was just released five days ago.
RIM stuck its head in the sand when it created Blackberry 6, the new operating system, and expected people to flock to it just because it was something new. It’s not working out, and the Torch will likely fall by the wayside as RIM continues to lose substantial market share.
It’s also unfortunate that the new Blackberry handset happened to come out right around the launch of the Droid 2, and has also been slipping through the headlines as Google pushed out the next-generation Android update to thousands of mobile phone owners.
At $99, the Torch becomes even less expensive than some of the other Blackberries that still run on older versions of the BB software, which just goes to show how unconfident at least Amazon is with regard to the success of the Torch.
If RIM doesn’t get out of this rut, it will become the next Palm and turn into a global giant behemoth-turned bankrupt company in desperate search of a buyer.
