[DJ Dale]

I've been travelling around all the major cities in China for a week for work. As we all know, they are pretty technologically advanced, and I can pretty much buy any type of electronic here for a fraction of the cost as in the states. Much to my surprise......no one has even heard of RIM or Blackberry before. I was hoping to get some cheap acceessories.

Anyone have a good explanation as to why Blackberry is unknown in China?

Another thing that has me surprised.....is that all the phones I have seen people use, are very basic cell phones....almost like what we had in the US a few years ago. I certainly didn't expect the U.S. to be more advanced than China.

[jeff.parent]

I wonder if there is an issue with the encryption algorithms being used in the BB. I deal with communication hardware that we sell all over the world and there are many cointries who say "if out government can not decrypt your communication easily then we will not let your hardware in the country." I know that BB is one of the only phones the US gov allows due to the Triple DES encryption used making it very secure. I know that China is one of those "don't encrypt" countries so that could be the reason.

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[DJ Dale]

Interesting. Could be a possible reason.

They keep pushing the I-Phone at me. I've had to restrain myself as I am an avid apple hater....lol.

BTW.....my Storm works as good here as it does at home.

[jeff.parent]

From reading online it seems that BB are available in china. So it may just be that the BB isn't manufacured there which would cause things to be super cheap. They seem to be new to the BB which may also be the issue. I'm sure the iPhone is made near there so the price is super cheap for everything iPhone related.

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[jasonhoo]

one reason might be people here don't rely on Emails as much as ppl in the us.
instead, we heavily use SMS text message.
acturally, it is a culture thing.

[lawrence]

I've been travelling around all the major cities in China for a week for work. As we all know, they are pretty technologically advanced, and I can pretty much buy any type of electronic here for a fraction of the cost as in the states. Much to my surprise......no one has even heard of RIM or Blackberry before. I was hoping to get some cheap acceessories.

Anyone have a good explanation as to why Blackberry is unknown in China?

Another thing that has me surprised.....is that all the phones I have seen people use, are very basic cell phones....almost like what we had in the US a few years ago. I certainly didn't expect the U.S. to be more advanced than China.

there's no BIS service agreement in China between RIM and China Mobile. the only people you'll see toting BBs are corporate types with BES. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think China only recently started getting 3G service. Even their home broadband speeds suck compared to ours here in the States.

Most people still use dumbphones in China. Sending SMS using pinyin --> chinese characters on a T9 keyboard sounds impossibly slow and difficult, but they manage!

[Jvaf]

China has the Redberry which is a blackberry copycat/clone.. maybe thats why..

[shaper2005]

I live in China and just bought a Blackberry the problem is a money thing there is no agreement with China Telecom or any other carrier. I bought mine for the translation software but I can not istall it. I guess I need desktop manager and it is illegal to download from the blackberry site anyone have any ideas on that

[IceTrace]

China Mobile do have Blackberry 8700 officially, but it's too damn expensive. That's it. No other series..
China Mobile doesn't have BIS but only BES..
Lots of Chinese do have Blackberry but the majority is refurbished, because it's much cheaper....
China Mobile is too damn *****, I've no idea why they doesn't have agreement with RIM..