RIM Plans China Rollout Soon

InternetNews writes that Research in Motion (RIM) said China Mobile will soon introduce the Blackberry service in the world's largest market. According to RIM, "it will initially focus on multinational corporations operating in China and offer the BlackBerry devices "at a later date."

Ken Dulaney at Gartner noted that "although China opens a huge market for mobile services, RIM must deal with multiple cultural and technical challenges." Currently text messaging is big. Dulaney said, "Chinese really don't accept e-mail."

A bigger challenge is whether "RIM, can sell its service without offering a native Chinese product." According to the article, "China Mobile plans to offer PushMail, its own mobile e-mail service. Credit Suisse, in a March research note, said PushMail will cost $12 per month compared to $50 for RIM."

In addition, "China Unicom, the country's second-largest mobile provider, introduced RedBerry, a service costing $1 per month with a small additional charge per e-mail."

Dulaney commented that "RedBerry is a bad rumor," and pointed out the "while BlackBerry users are mostly professional IT workers, the RedBerry is marketed to consumers."

Gartner analyst Todd Kort, added, RIM is, "mostly upset because these guys have so brazenly leveraged the BlackBerry brand and the Chinese government (which owns China Mobile) has not seen fit to ask them to choose a different name."