BlackBerry maker will offer 4G phone in UAE

RIM unveils electronic tag sharing facility to swap content. In his first exclusive interview in the Middle East, Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research in Motion — makers of the BlackBerry smartphone — said his company is working on bringing a new 4G phone to the UAE by 2012.He didn't elaborate on which model would be introduced, but any new higher-speed phone from RIM would be warmly received by UAE mobile users, especially Emiratis, who have through the years become loyal BlackBerry fans thanks to the private bulletin board service."We are fully committed. If you don't have 4G phones in the market in 2012, you're not competitive," Balsillie told Gulf News at Gitex Technology Week. "The handsets need to be here next year."Etisalat has spent Dh6 billion to upgrade its new network to fourth generation (4G) and said yesterday it will roll out live faster broadband services through dongle USBs within the next two months for laptop users.No date has been set by etisalat for mobile phones but the date is academic for now, given that no phone manufacturer has released new 4G-enabled phones in the UAE. Balsillie, meanwhile, used Gitex as the global launchpad for RIM's new BlackBerry Tag, a new way for dedicated BlackBerry users to simply tap their phones together for the instant exchange of data using what's called Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.At the RIM Gitex stall, Balsillie noted that BlackBerry users can simply "touch the device and you can exchange information."The electronic tag sharing instantly swaps documents, photos, messages and other multi-media content by tapping two BlackBerry phones together.The process works "seamlessly and magically," Balsillie said.While the latest BlackBerry Bold 9900 that arrived in the UAE in August is already NFC-enabled, the new BlackBerry Tag won't be made available in the Emirates until later this year.The new tagging technology will also be available on the new BlackBerry Curve 9360 to be released in the Emirates next week.Balsillie said the launch of BlackBerry Tag is only the first of an entire NFC ecosystem that will likely expand into all areas of life for loyal BlackBerry users in the UAE from health and e-commerce to social networking. "This is getting an ecosystem going," Balsillie said.Etisalat, meanwhile, is in full testing swing of its pilot NFC programme and has been working with Emirates-NBD to usher in NFC services this year.In an earlier interview with Gulf News, Rashed Majed Al Abbar, director of mobile commerce at etisalat, said as many as 110 merchandisers and shops had installed NFC technology called Visa payWave software at 400 outlets across the UAE.Using the NFC handheld Samsung Star phone, employees from Emirates-NBD have been selected to use the test-market phones and shop at the NFC stores, Al Abbar said.E-commerce is expected to reach $1 trillion in global sales by 2014.