[MBW]

I got this from a pal who buys a ton of cell phones for a very large company, which puts him in touch with insiders at all the carriers.

He told me that AT&T will be releasing the BlackBerry Bold 9000 in the third week of August, and possibly a couple of days earlier.

As a reporter, I can add the following to that:

RIM is silent on the subject, saying only it ships this summer; this is reasonable, since it is AT&T at this point, not RIM, with control over when it ships.

AT&T (their PR operations and their customer support operations) is silent on the subject; PR says only that they will be offering it but that there is no announcement of availability; customer service says that they don't know anything about it, but that's not unusual, their iPhone training was very last-minute, too.

I (as a reporter) and you (as individual buyers) don't have the contacts or the clout of a major buyer, and reports from such sources tend to be highly credible.

You may believe this or not, or the bloggers or not, but I for one sent word ahead to Zagg to be ready for a very fast turnaround on a new Invisible Shield - and I don't get my bold until a week or so after you guys can get one.