Verizon Wireless, Vodafone (News - Alert) Group and Research In Motion reportedly have announced exclusive availability of RIM’s BlackBerry (News - Alert) Storm to Verizon Wireless customers in the United States and Vodafone customers in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand.

 

BlackBerry Storm – while retaining the communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry platform – introduces a touch-screen technology which responds like a physical keyboard, and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation for precise typing.

 

The touch-screen depresses slightly when the screen is pressed and is released with a gentle “click,” to give the user a feel similar to that of typing on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse.

 

“We are proud to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone together with Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless and Vodafone,” said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer at RIM. “The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touch-screen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens. Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface.”

 

According to Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless, the BlackBerry Storm offers our customers more ways to stay connected to both their personal and professional lives – whether in their communities or around the globe.

 

“The BlackBerry Storm combines the reliability of our 3G network with the dependability and network efficiency of the BlackBerry platform to deliver our customers the ultimate wireless experience,” Lanman said, “all in one of the coolest smartphones available on the market today.”

 

Frank H. Rovekamp, global chief marketing officer of the Vodafone Group, said his company was delighted to bring the power of the purpose built BlackBerry Storm, directly into the hands of consumer and business customers.

 

“With its unique clickable touch-screen, giving access to all the desirable multi-media features and services such as browsing, music and video, turn-by-turn satellite navigation, messaging and social networking, and BlackBerry’s mobile heritage and strong business reputation, the BlackBerry Storm is being brought by Vodafone into the consumer world,” Rovekamp said. “With Vodafone’s ultra high-speed, reliable mobile network and this exclusive and exciting new smartphone, there has never been a better time to be with Vodafone.”

 

Other features of the BlackBerry Storm include a built-in accelerometer for automatic switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset, RIM’s SureType keyboard layout in portrait mode and a full QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode.