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Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) announced
Wednesday it will soon open its first research facility outside of
Canada in Bochum, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany.
The facility is scheduled to open on the campus of Ruhr-Universitat
Bochum in the coming months with 140 new employees and with plans to
expand to as many as 500 people, the company said in a statement.
It will focus on hardware and software development for its hugely
popular BlackBerry mobile devices that combine telephone, email and
Internet capabilities, with some 45 million dollars to be invested
in its first year of operation.
Coincidentally, cellphone maker Nokia recently announced it is
closing a facility in Bochum on June 30, and cutting 2,300 jobs to
reduce costs.
Until now, all of RIM's research and development has been done in
Canada, a RIM spokeswoman told AFP.
"This new R&D facility will play a pivotal role in
extending RIM's leadership in the smartphone market as we continue
to focus on delivering best-in-class solutions to our
customers," said Mike Lazaridis, RIM founder and president.
Some 14 million people around the world use RIM's Blackberry and the
company has said it aims to sign up another 2.2 million by the end
of the next quarter.
Reliance on BlackBerries is so fierce that they have been jokingly
dubbed "CrackBerries," in a reference to a tendency for
their owners to compulsively check and send email as if it were an
addiction.
-- AFP
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