Blackberry Bold - Rogers is First to Market

Just wanted to briefly share some news that will be of interest to any RIM watcher.

The much-hyped Blackberry Bold was launched yesterday here in Toronto by Rogers, and is worth citing for a few reasons. I'm not much of gadget guy, but the Bold is a big deal, and I'll just wave the flag a bit here to say that Rogers is the first operator in North America to offer it. We're not winning a lot of medals in Beijing (although it's been a very good week!), and it's nice to talk about being first in something.

I wasn't at the launch, but local colleague Jim Courtney was, so I'll leave it to him to tell you about it first-hand. Jim knows RIM very well and had a great writeup about the launch that was posted last night.

Aside from the fact that Jim's post is a good read on the launch event and what the Bold means for Rogers (more than you might think), it was published as a guest post on GigaOm. That was really great to see in terms of giving Jim's post tremendous visibility and letting the world know that Canada does get its share of firsts.

An interesting subtext to this launch is the ever-evolving battle between Rogers and Bell for supremacy in Ontario, as well as nationally on the wireless front. Rogers has a killer one-two punch with the iPhone and now the Bold that keeps them top of mind in both the consumer and business markets.

Bell, of course, is trying to re-invent itself in the wake of privatization, and a big part of that has been their very new and very different branding campaign that's re-positioning them as a leading edge provider. And if you're local, you'll know why I said "providER". Lots to talk about there, but another time - this post is about steering you to Jim's review. Enjoy.


Technorati tags: RIM, Blackberry Bold, Jon Arnold, Jim Courtney, Rogers, GigaOm