April 2006

The two state controlled mobile carriers in China are China Unicom Ltd. (NYSE:CHU) and China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE:CHL), who happens to be Research in Motion's Partner (RIM) in China. It looks from an outside observer point of view that China Unicom Ltd. was desperate to jump the gun on the BlackBerry launch in a few months and launched (the very original name) the RedBerry mobile device with partner Facio Software Inc.

China Unicom Ltd. is state controlled, marketing prowess may not be one of their strong points. At least they did not call it the Strawberry.

The even stranger aspect to this whole story, is that China announced this week it would be cracking down on copyright infringements. This policy must not have been communicated to the state controlled enterprises. The fact that China Unicom Ltd. is listed on the NYSE but is state controlled adds to the vagueness that is China. Are they for shareholder value or for promoting the Chinese government policies and objectives?

RIM's approach looks to be non-confrontational and Jim Ballsillie's comments about the trademark infringement we think is a great PR strategy --call it as it is "a strange marketing plan". In Asia being the "fool" or being "shamed" is the greatest loss of face and we think their will be an about face on the trademark infringement in the near future. RIM must have scared China Unicom Ltd. silly.