First BlackBerry comes to China
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Chinese businessmen will soon be able to get their hands on Research In Motion&#39;s BlackBerry handset, following long months of delays getting approval to bring the devices to China.RIM is showing off the first BlackBerry handset to be available in China, the BlackBerry 8700, at the PT/Expo Comm China 2007 exhibition this week in Beijing. But getting the device into the world&#39;s largest mobile-phone market wasn&#39;t easy.In May 2006,&#160;RIM secured an agreement with China Mobile Communications, the country&#39;s largest mobile operator, to offer the BlackBerry push e-mail service starting from May of that year. But Chinese regulators did not&#160;approve the BlackBerry handsets for sale in China&#160;until the first quarter of this year, meaning BlackBerry users had to bring in handsets from outside China, said Norm Lo, RIM&#39;s vice president of Asia-Pacific, in a telephone interview.Lo declined to say exactly how many BlackBerry subscribers there currently are in China, but said the number was in the &quot;many thousands.&quot;Getting approval to sell handsets in China required RIM to team up with telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent&#160;in a distribution agreement, RIM. Alcatel-Lucent in turn tapped a handset joint venture it has with TCL Communications Holdings Co., a Chinese handset maker, to secure the necessary approvals for the 8700 to be sold in China starting later this year.Clearing this regulatory hurdle opens up more of the Chinese market, with more than 500 million mobile subscribers, and the availability of BlackBerry handsets should help attract more customers to the push e-mail service, Lo said.&#160;
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Research In Motion Ltd. RIM.TO is seeing rising demand for its BlackBerry wireless e-mail device in Europe and expects Asia to be its next major market, the company&#39;s chief financial officer said on Monday.
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(InfoWorld) - Palm announced Wednesday that it would launch its Treo 680 handheld in China, and increase its presence in the Chinese market by opening a research and development (R&D) center there. The company said the smartphone will be sold in cooperation with CEC Telecom Science and Technology Co. , and distributed by Beijing Riverwill Communication Technology Co. The 680, designed to be a lower-cost alternative to other Treo models, runs the Palm operating system. It is a candybar-style quad-band GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) phone that supports GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), which allow for mobile Internet access. PDAs have not yet made their mark in China, although they are growing in popularity, mostly thanks to aggressive pushes by manufacturers such as Lenovo Group, Dopod International, and Motorola, all of which have tailored their devices to the local market. One key design factor is recognition of handwritten Chinese characters. Palm said it is opening its first Asia R&D center in Shanghai for Asian language localization, to maintain better relations with its manufacturers in the region, and to accelerate time to market for its products in Asia. Â
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Research In Motion has obtained the approvals to begin selling BlackBerry handsets in China.
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Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. unveiled in Beijing on Tuesday its first WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) cell phone for the international market, the company said in Tokyo.
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China Mobile Communications has, for now, broken off talks about serving as Apple's iPhone partner in launching the popular smart phone in China later this year.
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(InfoWorld) - China Mobile Communications, the country's largest mobile operator, will soon offer Microsoft's push e-mail service to its subscribers, the two companies said Monday. The Push Mail service will start operation in mid-December, giving subscribers who use mobile devices running Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 software the ability to send and receive e-mail, the companies said on the opening day of the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU's) Telecom World 2006 exhibition and conference in Hong Kong. Pricing for the service was not announced. In addition to Microsoft's push e-mail service, China Mobile alreadyÂ offers Research In Motion's rival BlackBerryÂ push e-mail service. China Mobile offers two service plans for Research In Motion's BlackBerry in China. One plan includes 50MB of data transfer over China Mobile's GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) network for 398 renminbi ($51.76) per month. The other plan, priced at 598 renminbi per month, offers 400MB of data transfer for e-mail, including 2MB of international roaming for data access. Telecom World runs through Friday, December 8.
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Latest statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry show that China exported more than four million Chinese-brand mobile phones from January to September, far exceeding last year&#39;s total of 2.06 million.
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Research In Motion Ltd.  RIM.TO, which popularized wireless e-mailing with its  thumb-operated BlackBerry, launched a new version of the device  on Wednesday with a smaller, revamped keyboard.
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Virgin Mobile is in talks with several Chinese mobile operators about starting operations in the country. Richard Branson&#39;s mobile arm works with carriers as a Virtual Mobile Operator - it provides the marketing
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Research In Motion Ltd  , the maker of Blackberry e-mail devices popular among  executives, said on Thursday it is pushing into a wider  consumer market with the Pearl, its first phone with a camera  and music player.
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BlackBerry maker Research In Motion    will target multinational corporations in the  first phase of its new push into the huge Chinese market, its  co-chief executive said on Wednesday.
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Research In Motion, which popularized wireless e-mailing with its thumb-operated BlackBerry, launched a new version of the device Wednesday with a smaller, revamped keyboard.
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With more than 400 million mobile device subscribers, the fast-growing China market is an attractive one for RIM.
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Research In Motion on Thursday introduced its latest BlackBerry phone called "Pearl," which takes a more stylish approach to handset design in attempt to appeal to both business users and consumers alike. Photos: View images of the BlackBerry Pearl
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ZTE Corporation, the second largest telecoms equipment provider in China, made a strong debut in Hong Kong yesterday, showing a positive signal for big future debutants.
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(InfoWorld) - China launched the first trials of a home-grown 4G (fourth-generation) mobile communications network in a district of Shanghai on Sunday, despite the fact it hasn't even decided on standards for 3G (third-generation) services, the Web site of the state-run China Daily reported. The field test in Shanghai's Changning District will cost about 150 million Chinese renminbi ($19.3 million) by the time it's completed and marks an important step for China. It will be the final trial of a system made in China and fulfills a goal ofÂ developing technology at homeÂ to meet the needs of Chinese users. The group of 10 Chinese institutions involved in the 4G project have obtained more than 200 patents for the system since starting research in 2001, and some of its fundamental technologies have been adopted by international standards organizations, the China Daily said, without naming the organizations. The goal has been to put the 4G system into trial commercial use between 2006 and 2010. The 4G system was designed to transmit data and images wirelessly at speeds as fast as landline optical fiber, the China Daily said. Research on the 4G system, called the FuTURE Project, short for Future Technology for Universal Radio Environment, was started as part of China's national high-tech initiative. China hasn't yet released aÂ timetable for the rollout of 3GÂ mobile networks, nor said how many licenses it will issue. Chinese officials have said they want 3G services up and running in time for the 2008 Olympic Games, to be held in Beijing. One issue surrounding the opening of 3G services in China has been the selection of the technology or technologies to be used. Many Chinese officials favor a home-grown standard, TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), but a TD-SDCMA rollout could prove slow because of a lack of support from equipment and handset manufacturers. Â