Research In Motion and its U.S. carrier, AT&T, are being careful to avoid the problems Apple had with its launch of the iPhone 3G.
In May, the Ontario, Canada-based company said the BlackBerry Bold 9000 would go on sale in the summer. What it didn’t mention was that the phone would be available only outside the United States.
Since August, RIM has announced the availability of the Bold 9000 in a slew of countries, including Taiwan, Bahrain, Japan, Indonesia, India and Serbia, but release in the U.S. is being delayed to complete further testing, according to the company.
“The BlackBerry Bold has been launched by 60 carriers in 29 countries, and RIM is looking forward to continued rollout of the BlackBerry Bold around the world, including a U.S. launch in the near future,” said Rachel Colley, a spokesperson for RIM. “The device is currently undergoing certification with AT&T.”
An Eye on iPhone Woes
The Bold 9000 features a large HVGA color LCD, GPS and support for Wi-Fi 802.11 a, b and g. The smartphone includes a media player for music, videos and photos, and a two-megapixel camera with video recording.
“We have said consistently that we will offer the Bold this year,” Mark Siegel, AT&T Mobility’s spokesperson, told us. He would not comment on whether the delay had anything to do with the problems involving the iPhone 3G.
RIM CEO Michael Lazaridis, however, told the Associated Press that the phone is still undergoing certification by AT&T and implied that it’s because of the number of complaints received by AT&T and Apple about the iPhone 3G.
“RIM is taking an extremely cautious approach to launching the device on AT&T’s network until AT&T can guarantee that the Bold won’t suffer from the same problems as the 3G iPhone,” said analyst Stuart Robinson of Strategy Analytics. “What may…