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There appears to be some confusion as to exactly when Research In Motion (RIM) will launch its BlackBerry service in China, even within the company itself. RIM first signed a letter of understanding with the mainland's largest carrier, China Mobile, two years ago; but red tape, ongoing negations and bureaucratic hassles have delayed the launch.

Canada's Globe and Mail reports just last week co-CEO Jim Balsillie told analysts in a conference call that he expected the company to launch BlackBerry service with China Mobile by the end of May. "We are on the verge of launching BlackBerry service with China Mobile," he said.

Meanwhile, RIM's VP Asia Pacific Norm Lo indicated recently the launch wouldn't occur for another several months. "Our talks with China Mobile are going very well. We are working very tightly with them, and a deal is expected very soon, probably by the middle of this year," Lo explained to Reuters.

As for China Mobile, an official in its business and marketing department told the Globe and Mail, "We haven't been informed of any plan to launch or promote BlackBerry," nor had a spokeswoman in the carrier's Hong Kong office heard of such plans.

BlackBerry service is already available throughout Asia, in places like Hong Kong (a China Special Administrative Region), Singapore, and the Philippines. And BlackBerry owners can use their devices when roaming on China Mobile’s GSM/GPRS network today.

RedBerry Vs. BlackBerry
While there's little doubt RIM will eventually make it onto the Chinese mainland, what it finds when it gets there will be a far more competitive market than when it first looked eastward. Like anywhere else, mobile e-mail is one of the hottest data services on carrier menus.

This week, however, mob-e-mail competition and brand recognition - rip off? - may have hit a little too close to home for RIM.

In China, state-controlled China Unicom, the second largest mobile operator in the country, launched RedBerry, yes RedBerry, a push e-mail service of its own.

Call it stealing, borrowing, whatever you like. The carrier isn't a shrinking a violet when it comes to letting the consumer make the connection between RedBerry and BlackBerry.

It even featured the similarity in the press release.

The release blatantly said, "The RedBerry name extends the vivid name of BlackBerry that people are already familiar with, and it also combines the new red symbol of China Unicom."

Unlike RIM's solutions, however, RedBerry does not use a proprietary handset but rather pushes e-mail - whenever it arrives to user's inbox to the standard CDMA cell phones China Unicom already supports.

It'll also be a lot cheaper: a dollar a month plus a few cents per e-mail compared to $64 per month for unlimited e-mail, which is what BlackBerry service costs in Hong Kong.

Another state-owned outfit, the China Daily, said China Unicom's RedBerry name was "a clear sign that the firm is ready to challenge the BlackBerry push-mail service."

RIM hasn’t indicated whether it’ll challenge China Unicom and RedBerry in court, a process that could take years, and make its five-year patent litigation fight with NTP – where it ended up paying out $612.5 million - look like smooth sailing. First, it's most likely going to concentrate on finally getting into the Chinese market before making any decision on whether it is worth getting entangled in the mainland court system.

And it’s not just RedBerry. In addition, China Mobile is set to offer a cheaper BlackBerry alternative of its own, called PushMail, next month.

Growth Opportunity
China is the world's largest cell phone market, surpassing 400 million users in February, according to the government's official Xinhua News Agency. The most populous country on earth - with a fifth of the population - didn't build its first wireless network until 1987, and it took ten years for China to reach its first 10 million customers. Yet by 2003 the number of mobile subscribers surpassed those with wire-line phones.

Entering that market is seen by many analysts as one way to put the company back on Wall Street's good side after disappointing fourth quarter results fell well below forecasts; although sales grew by 39 percent to $561.2 million from the same quarter a year ago.

RIM today has over five million subscribers, with 70 percent of revenue coming from BlackBerry device sales.

Citigroup analyst Daryl Armstrong said in a note that RIM growth is stabilizing at around 650,000 to 700,000 per quarter, according to Reuters. Perhaps China availability would be one way to increase shipments.

Armstrong cited those numbers in a warning regarding RIM's BlackBerry Connect program, which brings the company’s services to devices other than its own – some of which offer more features than a typical BlackBerry.

He says BlackBerry Connect could hurt BlackBerry handheld sales. Yesterday came news that Singapore's SingTel became the first carrier to BlackBerry-enable Palm's Treo smartphones.

PDAStreet knows RIM has several new BlackBerrys in the works - at various levels of development - some with improved multimedia features.

In the same Reuters report, other analysts indicated Japanese pilot BlackBerry programs may be ahead of schedule. So BlackBerrry service may finally be available on the Island nation before the end of this year rather than next year, as expected.