Pre-Paid BlackBerry In A Box Coming Soon

BGR picked up some internal slides of marketing plans for pre-paid BlackBerries.  As we know RIM has launched their pre-paid server in Indonesia already, but has yet to take advantage of the rest of the world.  BGR had this to give light to:

There’s two concepts RIM is fooling with in regards to how this works. One is purchasing the device with no subsidy (full price) and buying pre-paid cards to fill up their account with. The second is slightly more intriguing, and that’s a BlackBerry in a Box. The user purchases the device and one year of BIS service all in one package at the retailer. After a year is up, they can purchase whatever they’d like. Another year, time-based access, monthly, all that.

I think that eventually this will catch on, but I think in the current climate especially, this would not work our for RIM.  People just don’t want to be paying full price for phones, even if they don’t have to be locked into a contract for 2 years.  The fact of the matter is that customers would rather pay as little for their phone as possible at sign up and then have to worry about the monthly bill later.  Although this may change still due to the frugal spending habits of consumers, people are beginning to worry about the future even more.

If you want to read more about this, check out BGR