So, the BlackBerry Bold is now available in Chile, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Ecuador, and Canada. What I can’t figure out for the life of me, however, is why the BlackBerry Bold is not yet available in the United States, the country where, less Canada and maybe even with, it well sell more devices than all the other countries combined.
If the rumors are correct, the AT&T BlackBerry Bold will be available within the next several weeks but one has to wonder how much market share RIM has lost to the iPhone and other devices simply because the BlackBerry Bold is not available in the place where the most people will buy it.
Research in Motion is based in Canada so one really can’t argue with any device debuting in it’s homeland, but, it seems to me like the United States should be a priority for any new BlackBerry launch because that is where most devices will be sold.
I bet there will be more BlackBerry Bolds sold in New York City alone as compared to some of the countries on the list. I agree with you on this and I am not even from the United States.
Let us get it up North first and the U.S. should be a close second. 🙂
The thing that gets me is that RIM has been advertising the BlackBerry Bold all over the place. I’ve never seen them officially advertise a device so far in advance of it’s launch.
Call my a cyncic but I tend to believe that RIM put out all the advertising for the Bold in an effort to try to get people to hold off and not go to the iPhone.
I’m sure RIM would love nothing better than to release it here. My guess is that the problems you are seeing with the iPhone 3g reception are because of att’s network and the Bold is having the exact same problems. So, instead of forcing it on the public as is, att wants RIM to “fix” the Bold to work better on it’s 3g. I can only imagine how screwed up att’s network is. Fortunately I can’t upgrade until next yer anyway, but I really hope this thing gets here soon. I wants me some bold action…!
I don’t think the problem is with RIM. Even if they put out the Bold in the US, who’s going to carry it? If AT&T and the other carriers don’t then that’s it for the Bold.
I can respect holding it off until it works properly. But why can’t the folks up north inform us as to WHY. Is it the 3G, is it AT&T, is it RIM, a combination of all. Say something, instead of all the BLOG rumors.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because of the iPhone and AT&T. Can’t release any competitive RIM phones x time after the release of the iPhone. I can’t think of any other reason.
Because RIM does not have the resources (hardware and software)that Apple does.
Basically even if it was AT&T holding out on releasing the phone, RIM can’t do much about that now. They certainly can’t release it to T-Mobile yet per exclusivity. All RIM can do now is take a lesson learned approach and realize that they need to stay multi-vendor as much as possible.
Who cares? If consumers want an iPhone, they’ll buy one. If they want a Bold, they’ll wait for US availibility. One of the biggest limitations of the iPhone at this point in time is the sole availibility via AT&T. Personally, I won’t sacrifice service quality just because another provider has a nice phone. I’ll wait until Verizon has the Bold availible here in the US.
OR even just a release date.. Give me that!.. thats the reason I bought an iphone.. (of course I regret it already.. )
But seriously.. waiting without an end in sight is so painful..
If they had told me late August, early September.. I would’ve waited..
give us SOMETHING!
I agree with bluehorseshoe…the reason is simple: the iPhone release. ATT wanted to clear the decks for that alone.
All of this talk about technical glitches is just an excuse…it’s amazing how the technical glitches were solved everywhere else.
And even now, if you go into an ATT store, they still are selling more iPhones than anything else…
I think it’s a combo of both at&t and RIM. at&t is famous for screwing up launch dates and such, as well as having problems with there 3G network, same as with there new iphone. And well RIM, they should step in and say something, or do something! I mean after all, at&t is the leading supply source for BlackBerry devices here in the
States. Whatever, just get it together guys, SOON!!!
I dont think the BB Bold has come into India yet atleast not by Airtel Vodafone or Reliance the three largest operators…Been waiting to switch from my 8800 as its taken a lot of thrashing in 2 years…Hoping you have some inside information…
This bodes even worse for the Verizon and Sprint customers here in the U.S., like myself. If it’s taking this long for AT&T to get their version to market, the CDMA/EVDO version will arrive sometime in 2010.
Oh how I hate myself for sticking with Verizon. I’m like a battered spouse who just can’t bring myself to leave.
The issue is with AT&T’s greatest strength being it’s greatest weakness.
They have a massive 3G network, that is a patchwork of various implementations.
Through various acquisitions / mergers with companies of disparate sizes, there isn’t a consistent end-to-end implementation of 3G.
So if they deployed now, there would be many areas of intermittent service, no service, or degraded service. That would cause a lot of hardships for their customers, so they’re trying to determine a solution.
Compared to Canada, where the Rogers 3G network is a unified implementation, so performance / reception / reliability is consistent.
Possibly this is the reason the other countries were able to roll out the Bold with relative ease.
JonInVA,
be envious that at&t gets the new blackberries first but it does come at a price. Our network is not on par with Verizon.
I switched to AT&T for many reasons unfortunately I don’t know what is going on with them but my reception has been steadily getting worse and I still have a Edge blackberry!
RIM is very wisely choosing to go with what is called a “ramp-up” release. They are releasing the device in their smaller networks first to give it a shakedown and to work out any kinks in the system before it gets unloaded in their biggest market. Look at the fiasco with the iPhone 3G – released untried and untested to their biggest audience, and plagued by massive problems on the device and the service side (MobileMe, ha! Try MobileFail).
Of all the people I know and work with across the US (coast to coast), I have yet to speak to someone who is happy with the AT&T service, yet that network gets the good phones first. From what I understand theirs is the largest customer base of the US cell companies, but from what I can gather, they really suck. ‘Everyone’ hates AT&T.
But for the life of me I don’t understand what takes A YEAR for CDMA providers to make a phone work with their towers. It seems like a really poor business model for Verizon and Sprint to wait a year after AT&T gets the Bold. What can be so hard about soldering on a CDMA transmitter and writing some code (they already have the code working for the Curve on CDMA networks.) There is some level of illogic at play in these phone games. I just want my damn Bold on Sprint already.
I believe that the reason RIM hits GSM first is for the obvious reason…it’s a global standard, thus higher distribution and sales. Based on that reason alone, they crank up the engineering team and move forward with the GSM release first. After it hits the market, they analyze the release and conduct their due diligence on how effective the pre-release marketing was initially (any corrections needed?), review actual sales and forecast distribution. Once all the numbers are in (usually a company would want to see 3-6 months of sales before moving forward on any decisions), they determine if a CDMA model would in fact be worth investing in and releasing. If so, then engineering starts it’s engines once again (although it won’t take as long) and release the CDMA model. Thus the usual 6-12 month lag in time before it’s released on CDMA.
Let’s face it, although CDMA has a strong base here in the states, it’s not global. Furthermore, GSM let’s them seek out the interest level across the board if it’s a good model or not. Considering the popularity of the BB, most models eventually make it to CDMA, but there has been one that I never saw on CDMA (Verizon, Sprint)…7130. Made it’s way to TMO, Cingular and Vodafone. Just didn’t sell. It’s unfortunate that CDMA users take a back seat (myself included), but I can’t argue the logic if that’s the case.
WTS New BlackBerry Bold Unlocked $300
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Details
Item :BlackBerry Bold
Price :300$
Currency :USD$
Condition : 10/10
Includes :Full box with all accesories
Package Contents
Blackberry bold
Battery
Mains Charger
Software CD
Data Cable
Carry Case
Selling Details
Location :USA
Willing to Ship :Worldwide
Payment Methods :Wire Transfer
C.Isabel Laman
Sales Dept/Marketing.
Company Name:Aloha Telephone Inc
Email: aloha.tel_inc@rocketmail.com
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SKYPE:Isabel.laman