BlackBerry Bold coming to Japan early 2009

While it might feel like it’s taking awhile for the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) 9000 to hit American shores, Japan isn’t slated to get the Bold until early 2009 through NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM). The orient has proven to be a tricky market for RIM, with language, cultural and competitive barriers to overcome, but the BlackBerry Bold is a big player, and RIM VP Don Morrison seems to think the Japanese enterprise space is “an essentially still wide open market” ripe for the picking once localization is completed. The Bold is packing Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G, a HVGA screen, full QWERTY keypad in a candybar format, and could potentially set the foundation for RIM’s other upcoming models (like the Flip Pearl, the new Curve, and the Storm) in Japan.

[via Reuters]