Brightpoint Up on RIM Deal; Is the Apple iPhone Next?

Shares of Brightpoint Inc. (CELL) were up 3.5% in pre-market trading Friday after getting a lift on Thursday when the company said it reached a deal with Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) to distribute the BlackBerry-maker’s products directly.

The agreement could give RIM further reach into areas such as Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific.

While Apple Inc. (AAPL) is still formulating its market reach strategy, its iPhone is another potential product for Brightpoint, Octagon Capital analyst Marianne Godwin told clients.

Brightpoint will support a wide range of BlackBerry smartphones as part of RIM’s global expansion and penetration efforts. Brightpoint has a customer base of more than 25,000 business-to-business channels globally, the companies said in a statement.

Comments

[Partners in Grime]

Sounds like a great idea for the iPhone. More business customers.

[InvestorsLive.com]

I just replaced my iPhone this weekend... free. They have incredible customer service but .... its still just a play phone. It needs more as for the business user... if the new iPhone doesn't have Wifi like I've heard rumors... that's going to be awful, at times when I don't have service.. I can still get on a wireless connection

Looking at the following for Monday, all the big boys will take a break and consolidate (GOOG, AAPL, BIDU, RIMM, V, MA) its only healthy... now we have the MSFT YHOO saga...

www.investorslive.com/blog/2008/05/sunda... /

[Zoltan L. Kovacs]

Apple can find channels on its own and businesses can find Apple if they have a need to. It's more interesting however, what model AAPL will use for business customers generally. I.e. software partners, providers of business services, and eventually hardware supplyers like accessories. Ease of use is getting a more and more important aspect of selling to businesses, implementation periods of 6 months to several years aren't an option for them.