Blackberry will soon be coming to China, tightening the electronic leash around many an executive’s neck.  But Canada’s Research in Motion may have competition on the ground before they launch with domestic knock-off Redberry.:

Blackberry announced today that it will be launching its service in China by the middle of this year, through China Mobile.  Not to be upstaged, state owned China Unicom announced it will be launching its own mobile e-mail service in China, called, Redberry.  With China putting on a grand show this week (before President Hu Jintao’s upcoming United States trip) regarding its increased efforts to protect intellectual property rights in China, this China Unicom announcement seems rather untimely. I put the chances at 50-50 that "Redberry" will have a new name by the time China’s President’s plane lands in the United States.

AsiaPundit doesn’t think the Redberry issue will be too high on the agenda during the Bush-Hu summit, given that RIM is a Canadian firm and that it hasn’t had the best of luck with issues of intellectual property rights.

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