Cingular Wireless announced Research In Motion's BlackBerry Pearl will be on the shelves of select retail stores tomorrow, just in time for the holiday season. T-Mobile was the first to launch the Pearl in September, and sales boosted the company's results in the third quarter [1]. Back in September, Cingular said it was testing the Pearl for release in time of the shopping season [2]. Cingular's key differentiators: push-to-talk capability and TeleNav's GPS-based navigation service. Cingular is selling the device for $200 with a mail-in rebate and two-year contract plus the appropriate voice and data plans. BlackBerry personal plans are as low as $30 per month for unlimited use with a voice plan. One thing T-Mobile has done, however, is allow folks to buy just a data plan for $30 a month for unlimited use and pay for voice on a per-minute basis. That attracts folks who already have a voice contract with someone else. It attracted me, anyway.
To read more about Cingular's introduction of the Pearl:
- take a look at this release [3]
Links:
[1] http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/t-mobile-usa-makes-a-q3-comeback/2006-11-09
[2] http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/cingular-launches-150-productivity-multimedia-device/2006-09-14
[3] http://cingular.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=1783