[tici_88]

I am not sure where the scandal is here. Playbooks were selling for $499 in Q1 and Q2, and that was for the basic model. Now they get marked down to $199, so the $485M writedown represents about 1.5-1.6 million Playbooks written down by $300 a piece.

This is an inventory writedown so probably RIM ordered from the manufacturer way more Playbooks than they actually ended up selling (no news here) and whatever inventory was in the "warehouses" so to speak got written down.

[wmf]

As the article says, Accounting rules say inventories are to be valued at the “lowest of cost or market”, not price.

The scandal is that any company would have over one year of inventory in the modern just-in-time manufacturing age.

[njloof]

I wonder if they had a minimum commitment to the manufacturer.

[jammur]

Part of the "scandal" the article mentions is the possibility that a portions of RIM's recorded revenue does not quality as such, since it could have been for Playbook's that could be returned to RIM.