Playbook sales derail earnings at RIM

WATERLOO – A write down on its Playbook tablet in combination with October’s global service outage have hit Research In Motion hard, and the BlackBerry maker said Friday that it will most likely miss its full-year earnings target. RIM said that it will record a pre-tax provision in the third quarter of fiscal 2012 of approximately US$485 million, $360 million after tax, related to its inventory valuation of BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. After taking in to account a $50 million charge for its nearly three-day service outage, RIM predicted that adjusted revenue in its third quarter is expected to be slightly...