Blackberry coming to Japan

[bill]

article [nttdocomo.com]
TOKYO, JAPAN and WATERLOO, ON -- June 8, 2006 --- NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (DoCoMo) and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) announced today that DoCoMo will start marketing RIM's BlackBerry® handheld devices to its corporate customers in autumn 2006.

The Japanese carriers have done a good job keeping Blackberry out of this market for several years. I am glad that they will finally be working out their differences and bringing this product to market.

DoCoMo is probably the best partner for RIM for this product. DoCoMo has the business market edge while KDDI and other carriers are picking up steam in the consumer markets.

Finally I hope to see what all the fuss is about. ;)

[bill]

Later reports [news.yahoo.com] are showing that initial models offered in Japan will have the ability to view Japanese, but not the ability to input it. This will severely limit the initial uptake of BlackBerry in Japan. They can only expect a small number of expats to buy this device in the first round. It is assumed that Japanese text input will be added later.

[gibbergibber]

I should add here that for Europeans and Asians, the Blackberry is a bit old hat due to the 3G (and beyond) phone networks which already deliver "always on" internet connections.

Blackberry has had tremendous value in the US where the networks have been slower to advance (due to the lower population density?) and it offered a big advantage over normal phones and PDAs. But it's more difficult to see what it brings to Asia or Europe where instant email delivery is already available in all the latest smartphones.