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Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry handhelds excel at a lot things. Multimedia is not one of them. New York-based Sona Mobile recently announced plans to partially change all that, with the release of the BlackBerry Media Player later this month.

The application will not only provide synchronized playback of video and audio files, but streaming video and wirelessly updated PodCasts—what Sona Mobile is calling 'BerryCasts'—as well. The software developer's first content partner is CanWest MediaWorks - a Canadian broadcasting network - which will supply daily news and TV content; with additional programming arriving at a later date.

BlackBerry Media Player is a first. "For the very first time, BlackBerry users can receive either BerryCast (PodCasts wirelessly updated) or streaming video on their mobile devices," according to the company's CEO president John Bush. "And being able to announce CanWest MediaWorks as our first customer who will supply news content daily for a Sona Mobile BerryCast, lets RIM customers take advantage of a download-and-play method of delivering multimedia files to BlackBerry devices. We believe that this application will be well-received in the marketplace."

Sona Mobile says the BlackBerry Media Player, which is designed to provide TV quality playback on newer BlackBerrys, will be demonstrated at Wireless Enterprise Symposium from May 16-18 in Orlando, Florida. We expect we'll learn more details at that time.

Multimedia BlackBerry
According to rumors from a couple a months ago, RIM itself has multimedia on the brain for its handhelds as well. The mill says analysts got a sneak peak at a new UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) 3G BlackBerry with more advanced multimedia capabilities, a music player even, designed to compete against the likes of Palm's Treo and other feature-rich - particularly Microsoft-based - smartphones.

The new BlackBerry would presumably enhance business productivity through the ability to download, edit and forward large PowerPoint files as well.

J.Gold Associates analyst Jack Gold, who presumably saw the device, said "It's like a pseudo-Treo" and that "they (RIM) have to do this to stay competitive." Why? Because operators want to support handsets that maximize the sending and receiving of all types of wireless content (from ringtones to music to pictures to e-mail) for revenue purposes.

RIM has been hush hush about the new device, which would be its second 3G handheld after the EV-D0 BlackBerry 7130e—offered by Verizon Wireless in the U.S. for its CDMA network—and its first broadband GSM model. Gold opines a price of about $400 for the UMTS BlackBerry—in line with the Treo—and a possible due date in the third quarter.