You might think given that the company posted a financial loss of $485 million due to inventory costs that no one wants its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

But you'd be wrong.

Now that RIM is actively and aggressively getting them into the hands of developers, that demand - at least - is picking up.

Free PlayBook for Android app

Indeed, such is the interest in its offer that developers who submit an Android app for PlayBook will get a free device, RIM is extending it.

The functionality to run Android apps on the device comes as part of the much anticipated PlayBook 2.0 OS update due late February or early March.

As for the extension, it will allow developers to submit the application to BlackBerry App World until 11:59pm EST on 2 March.

So far, 6,600 new developers have signed up and 1,500 apps have been submitted.

You can find out more information about the offer here.