Research in Motion released the BlackBerry Pearl a couple of weeks ago and by all accounts it is doing incredibly well. So well, in fact, that a recurring them in several of the BlackBerry message boards is that all new BlackBerrys should come with camera.

I, for one, have no intention of buying a BlackBerry without a camera ever again. If I were to break or lose my 7130e before Verizon comes out with a CameraBerry I might have to take that statement back, however, the bigger question is now that CameraBerrys are here to stay, do cameraless BlackBerrys just seem like old school devices that only researchers at Area 51 would use?

I know that there are many die-hard BlackBerry traditionalist that are still upset over the addition of the color display to the BlackBerry that will never buy a CameraBerry, however, my guess is that most BlackBerry users, if given the choice, would overwhelmingly choose a BlackBerry with a camera as compared to one that doesn’t have one.

Why then, would RIM continue to develop next-generation BlackBerrys that don’t have cameras? Thought, in his column over on BlackBerry Cool, has an interesting take on this and I agree with it completely. Simply put, if RIM sells a next-gen cameraless BlackBerry this year, a lot of people will buy it. If they sell a next-gen CameraBerry next year, a lot of people, including many of the ones who bought the cameraless device, will buy the camera bearing device as well.

What does this mean for Research in Motion, who still makes most of its money off of device sales? (We will get the exact percentage tomorrow) They will sell a hell of a lot of new BlackBerrys over the next year or so.

So, to answer our initial question. Do CameraBerrys make cameraless BlackBerrys seem “Ho Hum”? In a word. Yes… And that is exactly why RIM will first come out with a cameraless 8800.

BlackBerry 8800, CameraBerry, BlackBerry Indigo