Blackberry Bold Smartphone In Reliance Over Next Two To Three Weeks At Rs 34,990

[lavi4u 0]

19 Sep, 2008, 0908 hrs IST

IndiaTimes Network

Canadian company Research In Motion on Thursday said it will be launching its latest Blackberry smartphone in India over next two to three weeks at Rs 34,990 with three operators of the five it has a tie-up with.

The launch of the latest and supposedly the Boldest Blackberry was announced by RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie in Mumbai on Thursday, thus indicating that the company is set to join the fight for the marketshare of top smartphone sales along with the likes of Nokia, Apple, Samsung and HTC.

The latest Blackberry was globally launched barely three weeks ago. On paper, it has the features and chutzpah that can make it take on the Apple iPhone (priced at Rs 31,100 for a 8GB and Rs 36,100 for a 16GB model) and Nokia N96 (priced at Rs 35,000) in the Indian market.

Blackberry Bold would be sold at an identical price by Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance and will be made commercially available to prospective customers from September end. While Airtel and Vodafone will be launching Bold towards September end, Reliance Communications will launch it a month later in October.

No immediate plans were announced to retail the set through BPL Mobile and Tata Tele-services, which has become the fifth operator to start Blackberry services in India from Thursday.

The presence of Jim Balsillie -- on his first visit to India -- indicates the high stakes the company has in the Indian market where it seems to be taking up the gauntlet thrown by Nokia and Apple.

Balsillie is in India to take stock of the company’s virtually non-existent Indian setup, besides scouting for opportunities that could see RIM setting up a much larger research and development, manufacturing, logistics as well as support centre in the country.

On Thursday, he said the company was keenly looking at starting manufacturing and logistics operations in the country, besides introducing some country-specific phones .

"We plan to increase resources to manage Indian operations. We are developing a new India strategy that includes starting manufacturing and logistics operations in India. We are committed to some of the very special plans and programmes, and are working with our carrier partners," he said.

In almost similar comments made during an interview with Indiatimes Infotech in March 2007, Balsillie had said RIM would soon set up its R&D and support operations in India. But the company developed cold feet thereafter.

[Honest 836]

^^^

My dear friend, we are already discussing about the same in the below mentioned thread. Always search the forum before posting a new thread to avoid multiple threads on the same topic.

http://www.rimweb.in/forums/index.php?show...erry+bold\

Regards.