You can't say I didn't call it, because I did. Not even a week ago, I wrote about how the Torch was such a departure from what RIM normally produces that it would suffer in the marketplace. Here is your evidence.

Sales are so disappointing for the BlackBerry Torch 9800 that Research In Motion has decided to halve its price from $199 to $99 only one week after its launch. You can find the deal in many online retailers.

This huge price cut follows disappointing sales, perhaps caused by generalized bad reviews in the press... or the simple fact that the Torch is just a bad phone compared to the competition. While this could be RIM's best BlackBerry phone, the 9800 has a ridiculous 480x360-pixel 3.2-inch screen—which pales in comparison with the iPhone 4 and the top Android phones—and a messy operating system which "fixes none of the major problems with BlackBerry."

A 50% price cut one week into the product's life is definitely not good news for Research In Motion, who was hoping this was going to be the great savior against ferocious competition from Apple and Google.

The discounted Torch is available from Amazon and many other online resellers with a two-year AT&T contract. AT&T's page hasn't been updated yet.

What does this mean for RIM and the BalckBerry? Not a whole lot when it somes to their core corporate business. But it does tell us that they may not have what it takes to eek out a small percentage of the consumer smartphone market. They better be working on ways to lock in their corporate customers before Windows mobile 7 hits, because Microsoft is coming after their clients, and they have already made in-roads with many companies with their exchange services and administration tools.