It seems like the whole internet, or, at least the BlackBerry blog reading part of it, is up in arms over a rumor that AT&T will lock down features in the BlackBerry 8820 so that it doesn’t steal any of the iPhone’s thunder. If this rumor turns out to be reality, how do you think that it will affect sales?

AT&T often is the first U.S. based carrier to release the newest BlackBerry devices. Those BlackBerrys, when released, usually have all the features that RIM builds standard into them enabled. How will the market react if new BlackBerrys start coming feature locked and the perception of why they are doing so is because they are more committed to and don’t want to create competition for the iPhone, a device the just about every BlackBerry user would tell you is not a competitor at all of the Blackberry.

I know that most of earth uses GSM, however, 60% of BlackBerry users live in the U.S. and, depending on which report your read, the majority of U.S. based wireless customers use CDMA networks.


How will this affect the RIM AT&T relationship?

Another question that I have is how RIM will react to AT&T locking down their devices? It seems like Verizon has always locked their devices down in some form or fashion but when is the last time we’ve seen a new BlackBerry debut on Verizon.

Will we start to see RIM spread the love to other carriers when it comes to debuting devices in the United States? T-Mobile gets to test new concepts every now and again but will we ever see RIM do something radical like debut a new CDMA BlackBerry before it’s GSM counterpart?