BlackBerry Curve 9310 Coming To Verizon On July 12

Verizon has announced a new edition to its BlackBerry lineup this morning in the form of the BlackBerry Curve 9310, an entry-level handset that will be available from Thursday, July 12.

This is the CDMA variant of the BlackBerry Curve 9320, which was announced by Research in Motion back in May, and it ships with the same BlackBerry 7.1 operating system, along with that dedicated BlackBerry Messenger key. It also packs a 2.44-inch QVGA display, 512MB of RAM, and a 3.2-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash.

Internal storage is only 512MB, but that can be expanded by 32GB via a microSD card. As you’d expect, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth are also onboard.

There are a few things that the BlackBerry Curve 9310 has over the 9320, however. VZ Navigator will give Verizon subscribers free turn-by-turn navigation, and the built-in parental controls will allow you to restrict certain features if you’re buying this handset for one of your offspring.

The Curve 9310 is available from $99.99 on Verizon, but that can be reduced to $49.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate. That doesn’t sound too expensive until you take the monthly fee into account.SlashGear notes that for unlimited texts and just 300MB of data, you’ll need to spend $80 a month.

RIM Considering Splitting Business

According to a new report, RIM may be planning to split its handset and messaging divisions up. This rumor originated from U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times. The publication claims that RIM is considering breaking off its device business into a separate company or straight up selling it, with both Amazon and Facebook named as possible buyers. As for the messaging side of things, RIM could decide to open its platform up to competitors like Apple and Google to help raise some income. It's also said that another option for RIM could be to keep the company together but to sell a stake of it to a larger firm, like Microsoft.

This certainly isn't the first time that we've heard that a big change for RIM may be in the works, and there's even been rumors claiming that the company may open up BlackBerry Messenger to iOS and Android, although that's something that we recently heard won't be happening. We do know that the BlackBerry-manufacturer has hired JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets to help explore its strategic options, but so far RIM hasn't shed any light on what it may end up doing. I'm sure that RIM is weighing all of its options, though, and it'll be interesting to see what route it ends up taking. What do you all think RIM should do? Should it sell off its handset business or open up BBM to other platforms? Or should it just keep doing what it's been doing?

RIM's Manufacturing Partner Ends BlackBerry Production

Research In Motion accounted for 19 percent of contract manufacturing partner Celestica’s revenue in its last quarter. By the end of this year, it will account for none at all.

Over the next three to six months, Celestica will cease production of the handsets it has been making for RIM, as the struggling BlackBerry maker streamlines its supply chain. A tough break for Celestica, whose long-running contract with RIM and nearly one-fifth of its revenue is now just another casualty of RIM’s plan to trim roughly $1 billion from its operating costs by the end of fiscal 2013.

And for RIM? A necessity. And an inevitability. Celestica mostly produced BlackBerry components for the North American market, a region where BlackBerry sales have declined dramatically. It doesn’t take an Etruscan haruspex to see that cuts were coming, as RIM’S mound of inventory grew and demand for its handsets fell. Supplier consolidation typically follows declines in volume, and that’s precisely what’s going on here.

“We are making changes to our supply chain as part of wider efforts to improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of RIM’s operations to help meet our strategic objectives and to deliver long-term value to our stakeholders,” RIM said in a statement.