RIM following up Japanese BlackBerry with Japanese support

Call it a case of putting the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse. After releasing the 8707h, a 3G-enabled cut of RIM's venerable 8700 series for NTT DoCoMo, it seems the company had a moment of clarity and realized that folks occasionally like typing in their native language. We haven't figured out whether RIM has actually committed to producing a BlackBerry specific to the Japanese market -- our gut says no -- but we do know they'll be releasing some manner of "solution for entering Japanese fonts" in the first half of 2007. The best part? Existing BlackBerrys will be upgradeable, which bodes well for the 1,400-odd orders RIM's received for their little bundles of email goodness since crossing the Pacific; not surprisingly, most of those orders so far have come from foreign companies with operations in Japan, but hopefully a little native Japanese input will warm up the icy reception.