BlackBerry vs. RedBerry

Just days before the release of Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry in China, a local chinese service provider (China Unicom) has deployed a service provokingly called 'RedBerry'. The RedBerry service is similar to the BlackBerry service in that it provides email sending/receiving on mobile phones. However, the mails are sent and received using SMS which allows the service to be accessed by any existing mobile phone. BlackBerry requires a proprietary handset. Further, the cost of the RedBerry service is a small fraction of the cost of the BlackBerry service.

Though RIM cannot stop the RedBerry service based on technical grounds (the implementations of the services are quite different even though the end objective is same), RIM will probably go after China Unicom with a case of trademark infringement. China, as we all know, is quite famous for such infringements.

More commentary and examples can be found in this article.