Vodafone Essar and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced that the highly anticipated BlackBerry® Storm™ , the first ever touch-screen BlackBerry® smartphone designed for Vodafone, will be available exclusively for Vodafone customers in India from 15th January, 2009.The BlackBerry Storm delivers the renowned functionality of the BlackBerry solution and provides consumers and business customers with entertainment, information and communications at the tip of their fingers.

Priced at Rs. 27,990/-, the innovative smartphone will be available across select Vodafone Stores nationally from January 15, 2009. Vodafone will create more than 150 ‘experience zones’ across the country in Vodafone Stores and Modern Trade Outlets to encourage customers to experience the revolutionary smartphone.

Speaking at the occasion, Mr. Harit Nagpal, Director – Marketing and New Business, Vodafone Essar said, “The BlackBerry Storm offers our customers easy access to voice and email, a range of social media applications, multimedia content, satellite navigation and many other services on the move in a single device.”

Mr. Ravinder Takkar, Director – Enterprise Business, Corporates and Carriers, Vodafone Essar added, “The BlackBerry Storm also offers our enterprise customers the most secure and reliable email and messaging experience combined with all the desirable smartphone features, thus enabling them to further balance work and personal lives.”

Ms. Frenny Bawa, Vice President, India, Research In Motion, said, “The BlackBerry Storm is a truly unique touch-screen smartphone with its powerful combination of communications and multimedia features. It is a marvel of engineering that meets both the business and personal needs of our customers.”

The BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communication features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry platform with a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world’s first “clickable” touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation. The innovative SurePress™ touch-screen depresses ever so slightly to aid in typing and navigation and to give users an experience they can actually feel. It also features a built-in accelerometer, which automatically switches the display for use in landscape and portrait as the user rotates the handset.

Whether shopping for a gift online, editing important documents or reading a map, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone brings images to life with stunning clarity through its 3.25-inch, high resolution (480×360-pixels at 184 ppi), colour display.

With a variety of powerful applications that were custom-built for the BlackBerry platform, the BlackBerry Storm from Vodafone enables the user to simply and easily keep web community pages current, continue instant message chats or even add pictures directly to Flickr™. These applications include:

• Facebook® for BlackBerry® smartphones
• Windows Live™ Messenger for BlackBerry smartphones
• Google Talk™ for BlackBerry smartphones
• Yahoo® Messenger for BlackBerry smartphones
• Flickr Photo Uploader for BlackBerry smartphones

As an added benefit when using such applications, the BlackBerry Storm supports multitasking so that users are not forced to constantly open and close applications. Other features and functions include:

• BlackBerry® Internet Service, BlackBerry® Professional Software and BlackBerry® Enterprise Server support
• Preloaded DataViz® Documents to Go® allowing users to edit Microsoft® Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
• 3.2 megapixel camera, with variable zoom, auto focus, and a powerful flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video
• 1 GB of on board memory storage and a microSD/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage per card.
• Media player that can play movies smoothly in full screen mode, display pictures and slideshows quickly and manage an entire music collection;

playlists can be created directly on the handset and there’s an equalizer with 11 preset filters – including “Lounge”, “Jazz” and “Hip Hop” – for customized audio ranges when using wired headphones or external speakers

• A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, support for Bluetooth stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) and dedicated volume controls
• Sleek, elegant design with contoured corners, stainless steel back and chromed frame
• Large (3.25″) display with glass lens and capacitive touch-screen; its exceptional 480 x 360 resolution at 184 ppi is crisp and bright with eye

pleasing clarity

• An ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts backlighting for ideal viewing and an accelerometer that allows customers to view applications in either portrait or landscape mode by simply rotating the handset
• Removable and rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery that provides approximately 6 hours of talk time on 3G networks and 15 days of standby time