After more than three years of courtship, Research in Motion (RIM) has finally announced a deal with China Mobile to sell its popular Blackberry smartphones in China. More than 5.4 million smartphones were sold in China during the first half of 2007; if RIM can grab even a fraction of this market it should provide a big boost to the company's fortunes. Unfortunately, the first blackberries to go on sale later this year will be from the two-year-old 8700 line. We're not sure whose great idea this was but one day multinationals will figure out that if you want to convince Chinese consumers to buy your high end product it has to be your latest and greatest, not an outdated phone from two years ago.

With blackberries soon to be available in the mainland, we are waiting for Apple to jump into the fray. News from Apple on Monday suggests this may not be far off.

Just in time for the 2008 Olympics, Apple will be opening an Apple store in Beijing. One can only hope by then they will have signed up China Unicom or China Mobile to distribute their iphones. And for all those Mac junkies who have been complaining for so long about the lack of support for their Apple products in China maybe this finally signals an end to Apple’s neglect of the Chinese market. Or maybe they just want to have an excuse to come out and party for the Olympics.