RIM shipped just 200,000 PlayBook tablets last quarter, lower prices coming

And that’s shipments — no word on actual sales to users. That’s considered way below expectations, but I don’t know why the expectations were so high to begin with. It was obvious that the PlayBook was a dog. (Yet this is the OS that RIM is building its future on.) For comparison, Apple ships about 200,000 iPads every two days.

RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie has long run out of credibility, as far as I’m concerned. This is the guy who said in March that many corporate clients had approached him about wanting “several tens of thousands” of PlayBooks. That’s the kind of thing you say after you sell them, not months before a big flop.

Update: On RIM’s earnings call, co-CEO Mike Lazaridis touted a big new software update coming later this year for the PlayBook, including more content availability, which RIM hopes will increase its popularity. The company also plans an incentive program for enterprise sales and price cuts — in the form of a rebate program — for consumer sales.

RIM also said it would announce more information about QNX development for future BlackBerry phones at its developer conference next month.

Related: RIM’s real problem could be finding someone to buy it