In a short statement, Verizon Wireless today announced the release date and price tag of the upcoming BlackBerry Storm. The first touchscreen BlackBerry smartphone with the world's first "clickable" touchscreen - will be available beginning November 21 in Verizon Wireless stores and online for $250 with a two-year contract. A $50 mail-in rebate will be given when signing up for a qualifying plan.
The BlackBerry Storm is currently the most anticipated upcoming smartphone around, but will it become a best-seller? We think it will, but what remains to be seen is whether the BlackBerry Storm will mainly be purchased by what used to be potential BlackBerry Curve customers, or if it'll actually be able to compete with multimedia smartphones such as Apple's iPhone 3G.
What sets the BlackBerry Storm apart from the all-touch competition is obviously the ClickThrough solution based on Synaptics technology, which makes it easier to market the smartphone to messaging users. On the other hand, while RIM offers a well of features for messaging and productivity, the company relies on Verizon Wireless when it comes to most consumer features.
Recently, RIM also held a developer conference, aiming to increase the popularity of BlackBerry OS among developers. Of course, if you're a developer, you'll need potential customers of your product like everyone else. And we're not sure whether an app store would solve that for BlackBerry developers. You've got to have a significant audience that is actually interested in tweaking their BlackBerry smartphones too (and we don't count Facebook as an application, as it's a service everybody uses because it's free).
There's one thing for sure though, the BlackBerry Storm will be the most interesting introduction in the market since the original Apple iPhone. Nobody could say for sure how the first-generation capacitive touchscreen smartphone (Apple iPhone) would fare, and nobody can today say for sure how the second-generation capacitive touchscreen smartphone (BlackBerry Storm) will fare.
Click here to compare the BlackBerry Storm and iPhone 3G.
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