[mulciber]

Hello:

I do not yet own a Blackberry but would like to purchase two, one for my wife (we work together). My problem is that a good deal of our e-mail is in Japanese. In addition, many of the web sites that we need are also in Japanese.

I've been banging my head against a wall researching this for days now. I am very discouraged about the fact that RIM does not offer any clear information on their site either.

Now, I know that there is at least one gentleman promoting his third party Japanese IME on these forums. It may work well, I can't comment. However, doesn't RIM have any sort of official position on this? I find the whole topic extremely frustrating, as you can see.

Surely we can't be the only persons living outside Japan who wish to communicate in Japanese. In contrast, the iPhone makes absolutely clear in its feature description that it's fully capable of working in either character set. In 2008 this is no longer rocket science, as they say.

I hope that someone here can steer me in the right direction. I'm not a huge Apple fan, frankly, and I can save money by sticking with my current carrier (Sprint). But at the moment that seems to our only choice in a smart/net-capable handheld device. At least Apple seems to be the only company with the awareness that communication in a language other than English is important to many people in the world.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

DGI

[iamjoel5]

Blackberrys come equiped with a vast variety of languages, including japanese

[iamjoel5]

Japanese language support expands | BlackBerry Cool

Japan to get Japanese-language BlackBerry on July 23rd

[iamjoel5]

As far as input goes, I am not sure

If you search google.com "blackberry languages japanese" you will find exactly what you are looking for

[iamjoel5]

If not please reply and I will be more than happy to research with you

[mulciber]

As far as input goes, I am not sure

If you search google.com "blackberry languages japanese" you will find exactly what you are looking for

Thank you very much for your replies. I saw the article you cited about Japan getting its first BB this month. To be honest, when I've mentioned the BB to my friends in Japan who are tech savvy they disparaged it greatly. It was considered something of an affront to have begun offering the device in Japan without Japanese capability ("something of an affront" is of course putting it politely).

As to researching it, I'm a researcher by profession, and I've done quite a lot of searching. That's what led to my frustrated post. While there is some information on Japanese IME applications out there, it is by no means clear, and it doesn't come from RIM.

Before I'll sign a typical two-year contract, which is what I'll have to do to commit to the BB, I want to have assurances from the company itself that they support what I'm trying to do. Goodness knows Sprint was totally clueless.

I'm afraid this is one area where Blackberry will not stand a chance next to the the advent of the second-generation iPhone, if for no other reason than the fact that Apple recognizes bilingual computer users.

Thanks again for your kind help.

DGI