BlackBerry To Get AOL, Yahoo, AIM ... WoW

In a long overdue move RIM, the makers of the popular BlackBerry devices have announced that they have signed agreements to put Yahoo Instant messenger preloaded onto their devices. More importantly RIM announced it was in talks with AOL to put AOL's instant messenger services such as AIM and ICQ preloaded onto future devices.

While BlackBerries are the darlings of the corporate world due to their excellent e-mail services they have yet to really move outside of the corporate-business world. Consumer devices of this type (namely the smartphones, Sidekick II and such) live and die by their instant messaging programs and keyboards. While most phones have some limited IMing capabilities, they numberpads do not lend themselves to good typing.

For RIM to annouce this shows they are trying to expand their market outside of just the business world. And with all the bad publicity the Sidekicks have had lately, their timing could not be better.

[cNet.com] has a more detailed story.