PDAStreet: News: Japan, Taiwan Go BlackBerry

As promised, Japan's largest mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo, has become the first carrier to introduce BlackBerry service in that country. It'll offer Research In Motion's wireless devices to corporate customers initially, in addition to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, the company's behind the firewall push e-mail and data access solution.

The operator announced this week it will roll out Research In Motion's (RIM) addictive handhelds and push e-mail/data access service to its 51 million subscribers on its GSM/GPRS and W-CDMA - also known as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) - networks on September 26th.

The BlackBerry in question is called the 8707h. Not only is the new cellular-wireless handheld 3G enabled, it is a world phone through its quad-band GSM support. In case you don't know what that means, RIM slaps Global Edition right onto the device.

Otherwise, the QWERTY thumb-keyboard with Japanese text support (of course) 8707h is very similar to the other variations on the 8707 series, including the 8707g offered by T-Mobile in the U.S. - without 3G - or the 8707v, which delivers UTMS and quad-band GSM support as well for Vodafone in Europe.

RIM's has greatly expanded its footprint in Asia over the last few months.

Later this month, Taiwan Mobile, which has 6.13 million subscribers and is Taiwan's third largest operator, said it would become the first operator to start offering BlackBerry service in its home country.

The first devices it will introduce are the 8700g and 7290. At a press conference, the company said over 160 companies are already interested in using the BlackBerry service.

"We expect to have between 20,000 and 30,000 subscribers within 12 months of launch," said Benny Chen, chief business officer of Taiwan Mobile.

RIM started rolling out BlackBerry service to multinational corporations with operations in mainland China in late May, after which its partner China Mobile, the largest operator in the country, began delivering SIM cards to support BlackBerry service. The BlackBerry handhelds themselves and BlackBerry Enterprise Server still haven't arrived for most home-grown companies in China.

Once RIM meets this challenge though, the potential reward's could be great, RIM Chairman & co-CEO Jim Balsillie said in a speech back in August. "China has a lot of unique challenges, [But] it's a long-term, very important strategic thing."

There are currently 6 million BlackBerry subscribers around the world. RIM expects to hit about 10 million by next summer.