BlackBerry Bold Goes on Sale Today in the U.S. Exclusively at AT&T Stores

[JamesMK]

In addition to selecting the next president of the United States, Americans can make another choice on Election Day -- to buy the sleek and stylish BlackBerry Bold(TM) smartphone, which AT&T Inc. announced is available beginning today in the U.S. only from AT&T.

Operating on the nation's fastest 3G network, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone features a powerful combination of global 3G capabilities in conjunction with the industry's leading international wireless coverage, built-in aGPS, Wi-Fi and a multitude of choices in the form of tens of thousands of services and applications courtesy of AT&T's extensive ecosystem of consumer and business applications developers.

"Election Day is all about choice, and the addition today of the BlackBerry Bold to AT&T's industry-leading roster of smartphones gives AT&T customers yet another fantastic choice through which they can have a superior experience in accessing e-mail, making a phone call, browsing the Web or performing myriad other data functions," said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of Devices for AT&T's wireless operation. "Quite simply, the BlackBerry Bold is the best BlackBerry smartphone ever, and it's available from the world's leading provider of BlackBerry services only to AT&T customers here in the U.S."

The BlackBerry Bold comes pre-loaded with several popular applications including AT&T Navigator, YELLOWPAGES.COM Mobile, selections from AT&T Mobile Music service -- XM Radio Mobile(TM) and MusicID -- and popular video clips from its CV service. AT&T also provides customers with tens of thousands of uses for their BlackBerry Bold smartphone through content available in the AT&T MEdia Mall and from third-party partner sites. Through AT&T MEdia Mall, a one-stop shopping experience for applications, ringtones, games and graphics, BlackBerry Bold customers have access to:

• Popular applications such as eBay, Wikimobile and SpamFilter.
  
• Dozens of games including Scrabble, NCAA Football 09 by EA Sports, World Series of Poker Pro Challenge, Tetris, Bejeweled and Tiger Woods 09 by EA Sports.
  
• Millions of full track songs available from Napster Mobile in addition to tens of thousands of ringtones.

[JamesMK]

Beyond MEdia Mall, AT&T has certified initially 18 solutions from third-party application providers specifically for the launch of the BlackBerry Bold that are targeted to businesses of all sizes. These include:

• Applications covering such areas as health care, financial services, field service, sales, customer relationship management and public safety/government.
  
• Applications from such providers as Antenna Software, DataViz Inc., Diversinet, Igea Care, Pyxis Mobile, Salesforce.com, TeleNav, Inc., Vaultus and Xora.Inc

Additionally, customers can access third-party applications from their BlackBerry Bold, such as Pocket Express from Handmark, a news and information service, and social networking tools like Facebook, MySpace and JuiceCaster.

"The tens of thousands of choices that we give our customers through MEdia Mall and our ecosystem of third-party application providers allow our customers to maximize the value of their smartphone investment," Bradley said. "It's not just about owning a great smartphone that operates on a great network. It's also about what you can do with that smartphone that further enhances and defines an outstanding customer experience."

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone features a lustrous black exterior, satin chrome-finished frame and a stylish, leatherette backplate with a stunning half-VGA (480 x 320 at 217 ppi) color display for eye-popping visuals and a newly designed full QWERTY keyboard for exceptionally fast and easy typing. On the inside, a powerful new 624 megahertz (MHz) mobile processor that provides impressive performance, more storage memory than ever before -- 1 gigabyte (GB) on board and up to 16 GB via its microSD/SDHC expansion slot -- and a rich set of multimedia capabilities, including an advanced media player for music, videos and photos and a 2 megapixel camera with built-in flash, zoom and video recording, as well as an optimized Web-browsing experience with desktop-style depiction.

And of course, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone gives users the industry's leading mobile messaging solution. It works with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which enables advanced security and IT administration within IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novel GroupWise environments, as well as BlackBerry Professional Software for small businesses. It also works with BlackBerry Internet Service, which gives users push-based access to as many as 10 supported work or personal e-mail accounts.

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone operates on AT&T's 3G BroadbandConnect network, which currently is available in more than 320 major metropolitan areas in the U.S. and, by year-end, AT&T expects to offer the service in nearly 350 leading U.S. markets. In addition to 3G connectivity, the BlackBerry Bold is also designed to connect seamlessly with AT&T's nationwide(1) EDGE network, which is available in more than 13,000 cities and towns and along some 40,000 miles of major highways. When abroad, customers can use the Bold to make a phone call in more than 200 countries and access data in more than 150, including more than 60 with 3G networks. AT&T has the broadest international wireless coverage of any U.S. carrier.

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone is available now for as low as $299.99(2) in AT&T retail stores nationwide, through http://www.att.com and select national retailers, as well as through AT&T's business-to-business sales teams. Customers who want personal e-mail access and Web browsing with BlackBerry Internet Service can choose the BlackBerry Personal Unlimited data plan for as low as $30 a month with a qualified voice contract. Unlimited corporate e-mail and data access via BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry Professional Software are available for as low as $45 a month when a qualified voice plan is also chosen. Voice plans start at $39.99 per month.

[bishop]

BlackBerry Bold customers with unlimited data plans also qualify for free AT&T Wi-Fi(SM) service on the nation's largest Wi-Fi network, with more than 17,000 hot spots including Starbucks, Barnes & Noble and thousands of other locations.