BlackBerry lawsuit jitters

Granted, since I’ve been testing out a new BlackBerry 8700 this week, I’m paying a lot more attention to all these stories about the patent infringement suit against RIM, the maker of this awesome little e-mail machine (look for my Detroit Free Press review Monday). Link: Nasty Thorns In The BlackBerry Patch .
But over the past week, back home in Michigan, in Florida and in Georgia, and all along highways and byways in between, I’ve been connected to my office and e-mail and readers and work contacts and friends as if I was home. The new BB, which works on Cingular’s speedy EDGE network, is really much faster than the older models I’ve tested. I haven’t missed a beat staying connected and haven’t once needed to pull out my laptop and find a wi-fi hotspot or Net access.
I’ve read the news, filed blog updates (including this one) and even written a column on the 8700.
While I know the BB will face stiff new competition in a couple of months from the new Treo 700 that will run on Verizon’s network, it’s clearly the dominant device in mobile connectivity right now and this pending lawsuit looms as a major threat to RIM.