IT News & Technology update

China now allows BlackBerry sales on the Chinese mainland. Research In Motion, the Canadian creators of the BlackBerry, pursued the deal for eight years. Corporate customers in key Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou will lead the list, and over five thousand are pre-sold.

Chinese language mods for BlackBerries have been in place for over two years in Hong Kong and Macao. Neighbor nations India and Japan already buy BlackBerries, so with CDMA 2000 1X data and GSM 900MHz cellular networks already deployed in China, the market should be well primed. That market’s considerable; there are more Chinese cellphone users then there are people in the United States.

However, China is also developing a homegrown digital system, TD-SCMA, likely with an eye to reaping the benefits of CDMA without paying Qualcomm’s significant royalty fees. New Chinese phones commonly ship with dual-network capability, as this iClone demonstrates.

Where the Chinese market goes, Chinese developers quickly follow, so it seem logical to expect Blackberry clones soon. Nokia already licenses BlackBerry Connect capability in its 9300 and 9300i smartphones.