Going Global with BlackBerrys

By Wilson Rothman

People who are addicted to their BlackBerry wireless PDAs have been known to suffer withdrawal symptoms when they go abroad and lose their signal. But BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is ready to offer them a fix: the 7200 series color-screen world phones, offered by AT&T Wireless, Cingular and T-Mobile, the three largest GSM carriers. The term world phone describes one that can operate on several different frequency bands worldwide. The three carriers' 7200 BlackBerrys differ slightly in the frequencies they can access; to determine your own needs, consult your service provider or gsmworld.com These new phones also feature mail forwarding.

PDAs of the past were locked up by IT departments, so they could handle only corporate e-mail and schedules. Now users are safely adding personal e-mail accounts from ISPs including Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL. --By Wilson Rothman