O2 has announced the availability of the new BlackBerry 7230 for enterprise customers in the UK and Germany, with availability in Ireland scheduled a little later.
A number of major corporations have ordered “substantial” quantities of the new device, the operator claimed. O2 also announced that its BlackBerry solution for SME and professional consumer customers will be available from November.
The triband BlackBerry 7230 is the first colour BlackBerry device, and includes access to corporate email, company intranet, Internet browsing and phone capability.
O2 said it has sold around 32,000 BlackBerry devices to more than 1200 organisation to date.
Kent Thexton, chief marketing and data officer, mmO2 commented, “We are the leading provider of BlackBerry in Europe and are very happy to extend our BlackBerry portfolio further. We believe that we hold a strong position in this market, and have learnt a great deal from selling the original BlackBerry handhelds.”
l Blackberry developer, Research In Motion (RIM), has said that adding nearly 100,000 new Blackberry subscribers will enable it to beat revenue forecasts for the second quarter 2003.
RIM said that it expects revenue for the second quarter to be in the range of $123-$126 million, exceeding the previously forecasted revenue range of $105-$115 million. Net income for the second quarter is also expected to exceed initial forecasts.
RIM also said the provision for its ongoing patent litigation in the US courts is expected to be lower than the prior quarter, resulting from adjustments to previous estimates for professional fees and interest.
RIM expects the number of net new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter to be between 94,000-97,000, which exceeds the previously forecasted range of 80,000-90,000 for the quarter. The BlackBerry subscriber base will now exceed 700,000 subscribers.
Dennis Kavelman, chief financial officer at RIM, said, “Global demand for BlackBerry accelerated in both enterprise and prosumer market segments as RIM fulfilled orders to its carrier partners to satisfy new subscriber growth, hardware upgrade sales and retail channel expansion requirements.”