RIM shocked everybody at BlackBerry World by giving all 6,000+ attendees a free BlackBerry PlayBook. It looks like they are making it official with BlackBerry DevCon 2011 this year in San Francisco. Josep pointed out that RIM has updated the special offers page on the BlackBerry DevCon website to point out that:
Attendees at the conference will receive a 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to help kick start the development of their next app! Register now so you don’t miss out on this opportunity.
This BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer is open to those who have registered, paid in full and checked-in onsite at BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 in San Francisco. This offer will not be available for companion pass holders, event staff, or Research In Motion® (RIM®) employees.
Check out the full details on RIM’s website. Here is to hoping these devices are preloaded or immediately provisioned with OS 2.0. 
anon.y.mous ( View Profile) - Posts: 80
Posted: October 3, 2011 at 5:43 AM EST
So envious…. Immersion in BlackBerry everything, plus a PlayBook!
dkonigs ( View Profile) - Posts: 108
Posted: October 3, 2011 at 6:44 AM EST
Its certainly about time. The last DevCon giveways were back at the first DevCon in 2008, and it was a total surprise. The offer back then was for a Bold 9000, Pearl Flip 8200, or a coupon for a Verizon Storm 9500. Of course this was also when those products were new, so its how I got the Bold 9000 before it became available in the US. (Several Canadian attendees seemed to already have them.)
Of course the problem with this promotion is that I already bought a 32GB PlayBook quite a while ago. Then again, having a second device never hurts.
BarracudaBob ( View Profile) - Posts: 1020
Posted: October 3, 2011 at 8:56 AM EST
I wonder if they are getting OS 2.0 pre-loaded on their PlayBooks.
BBA Brian ( View Profile) - Posts: 1219
Posted: October 3, 2011 at 9:22 AM EST
lol between the Rogers sale, all the other sales and this, RIM will unload more Playbook in the 30 days leading up to Devcon than they did the 4 months previous
dkonigs ( View Profile) - Posts: 108
Posted: October 3, 2011 at 9:55 AM EST
I do hope Tablet OS 2.0 fixes a lot of things, though. While I did buy a PlayBook on day #1, I find myself hard pressed to actually recommend it to anyone. Right now its most useful function is as a portable web browser that supports Flash. However, it otherwise lacks most of the features I’ve become quite dependent on when using Firefox on the desktop (plugins, ad blocking, password storage/sync, decent bookmarks management, meaningful preferences, etc).
Jay Harker ( View Profile) - Posts: 1365
Posted: October 3, 2011 at 10:18 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9700 | OS 6.0.0.666
Geez, is “summer” over yet RIM? I thought it was, but apparently OS 2.0 was supposed to be here…over a month ago.
It can’t come soon enough