[serrano_yejo]

Not surprising today that during an online chat, Globe and Mail technology reporter Simon Avery was asked whether he thought BlackBerry would introduce a camera phone. After all, Research In Motion is part of Simon's beat, and his newspaper is the second-largest in RIM's home nation of Canada.

The question was posed by Matt Zwick from Edmonton.

"I think a lot of people are wondering the same thing, Matt. RIM is pretty coy about its plans for adding cameras, music players and other multi media features to the BlackBerry," Simon says (you knew I was going to say that, right?-Russ). "The idea of a separate 'fun' model for the consumer makes some sense, but I think RIM really wants to fold the new features smartly into existing business models because they don't want executive users moving to other devices on the weekends and after hours."

So in other words, Simon believes that BlackBerry doesn't want to cannibalize sales of their other devices.

"They (RIM) want the BlackBerry to be the single, must-have device," he adds. "The challenge is how to add these rich features without disrupting the efficiency of RIM's model, which uses low bandwidth and power. "

Then, Ken Humphlett from Gainesville, Fla., asked Simon about camera and memory card slots in future BlackBerrys.

"It's going to be hard for RIM to avoid camera and memory slots," said Simon, "when Motorola, Palm and others include them as standard. "