Holy mackerel. Just when we thought the clouds were lifting and the much-delayed BlackBerry Bold was about to hit store shelves, another setback appears. This time, according to an internal AT&T e-mail, all the Bold retail training sessions set for the month of October have been canceled indefinitely. Should RIM and AT&T bag the Bold?The story of the BlackBerry Bold continues to unfold in a tumultuous fashion, with the device's launch imminent / not imminent. It seems every day there's a new tale telling a different story about when the 3G smartphone from Research In Motion will see the light of day.

Today's chapter? An AT&T employee was sent an e-mail explaining that the scheduled training sessions for the device have been put on hold. That AT&T employee saw fit to inform The Boy Genius, who posted a copy of the e-mail. It reads:

As you are aware, with the anticipated launch of the 3G AT&T BlackBerry Bold, RIM has committed to hold training sessions in over 40 cities. A large number of these sessions were to take place this and next week. Due to the continued uncertainty of the device launch date, we will work with RIM to reschedule these sessions to a later date.

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Any representatives that have registered will be informed by e-mail of the schedule change. No action is required from your part.

Rescheduling the training to align with a final technical acceptance for BlackBerry Bold launch will ensure that:

a) The training material can cover all the feature functionality that will be on this device at launch (at this time we don't have clarity on the status of all features). b) Handouts can be given to Dealers to reinforce the material covered. c) We will be able to provide attendees with a general availability date. d) The delivery of the material will be within one -- two weeks of launch to ensure content retention and ability to practice what they learn in the field. e) The desired 30-person per session registration/attendance is achieved (training in the last week of a sales month at the end of a sales quarter should be avoided if possible).

Please let me know if any questions.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

The e-mail seems to be legit. A reason cited for the delay of the Bold is the operating system, which hasn't been finalized. The Bold is supposed to contain the next generation of BlackBerry software. I've seen demo units in action, and it's much improved over the current OS. Hopefully, RIM and AT&T can get on the same page with the device and get it to market before Verizon launches the BlackBerry Storm, which will pretty much overwhelm the appeal of the Bold.

For the time being, Bold amounts to:

Botched OS Launch Delayed