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North American Smartphone Users Await BlackBerry Storm

6:00 am on October 20, 2008 | Category: Cell Phones, Mobile Devices, PDAs, Wireless

Analysts are optimistic that Research In Motion’s long-awaited touchscreen smartphone, the BlackBerry Storm, will receive a warm reception when it goes on sale in North America later this year.

The innovative new smartphone (previously code named the ‘BlackBerry Thunder‘) was unveiled by RIM earlier this month, and will be available through Telus in Canada and Verizon in the U.S., in time for the 2008 Christmas shopping season.

The BlackBerry Storm will be RIM’s first departure from the simple and familiar clickwheel and trackball navigation tools available on its other smartphones. This evolution has been deemed necessary, however, in order to compete with Apple’s popular iPhone device. RIM’s stated goal is to combine the BlackBerry’s original quality and ease-of-use with a new way of using it.

“This is arguably one of the most complex smartphones that has ever been brought to market,” commented the Waterloo, Ontario-based company’s senior director of handheld product management, David Smith. “I can’t think of any area where we haven’t gone above and beyond and tried to push the yardstick.”

The Storm “looks like a risk and a departure, but RIM’s track record is one of guessing right at these big changes,” commented John Jackson, vice president of the Yankee Group, a technology research firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. “Unless something goes drastically wrong, this should go down in history as another instance where RIM has been very thoughtful and innovative with religious adherence to quality.”

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