Despite being something of a soft launch considering the amount of features it's not shipping with - notably native BlackBerry email, Android and Java players, and games other than the two EA embeds Tetris and Need for Speed - RIM's PlayBook seems to be off to a reasonable start.

That's the conclusion of RBC Capital Markets. It reckons 11 percent of retailers sold out of stock.

Empty shelves

Analyst Peter Misek of Jeffries & Co agrees, although he places North American day 1 sales at 45,000 units; of which 25,000 had been pre-ordered.

Of course, this doesn't match to iPad's 300,000 first day total, but compared to the estimated 100,000 Motorola Xooms sold over two months, it's positively impressive.

PlayBooks start at $499 for the entry level 16 GB model.

[source: Economic Times of India]