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BlackBerry Bold Creating Sour Grapes Between AT&T And RIM?

Here's an interesting tidbit for you. According to informed sources, AT&T demanded that BlackBerry maker RIM cough up a 3G smartphone. RIM conceded, and developed the Bold. But the constant delays of the device are fraying the nerves of AT&T and RIM alike.

I can't say whether or not this is true, but The Boy Genius believes it. People he's spoken to inside the organizations involved gave him quite an interesting tale concerning the Bold's legacy.

Here is what he says:

First and foremost, according to what we have been told, AT&T approached RIM to build the BlackBerry Bold for them. RIM had zero plans of manufacturing a 3G device at the time. They reluctantly gave in to AT&T and started to manufacture the Bold. You can see their non-3G stance with the upcoming KickStart, Javelin, etc. As it was put to us, "AT&T will not be accepting any non-3G phones on it's network." ... The problem with the delays of the Bold is that RIM has the Thunder/Storm up their sleeves.

To be fair, the delay with the BlackBerry Bold wasn't really AT&T's fault. Sure, they might have wanted to give Apple a little more shine or they might even have wanted to let their 90-day exclusive run out through the holidays to capture all those extra sales, but there were, and still are software issues. That's evidenced by people that have bought the Bold already. Are they world-ending? No. But no one can oppose the fact that the Bold is the most un-BlackBerry-like device to come out of RIM in terms of stability and the OS. AT&T knew this. But why the strained relationship with AT&T?

[RIM] had the BlackBerry Thunder/Storm on the burner, but they held that way too close to the chest so AT&T didn't find out about it. Why didn't they want AT&T to find out about it? They were afraid AT&T would drop the Bold, the device they begged them to make, and want to run with the Thunder/Storm instead. You've got practically the entire world launching the Bold, except for the #1 BlackBerry carrier on the planet. Something doesn't sit right with that.

That's the crux of the story. The Boy Genius adds more detail in the full write up on his site. As I said at the top, I have not been able to confirm this, but the BGR knows his BlackBerry stuff, and is rarely that far off-base with the stuff he publishes.

But in this case, I'd take the entire thing with a grain of salt.

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