
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 was developed at RIM's research and development facility in Bochum, Germany, where the handset was launched.
The Bochum facility was established at the Ruhr University a year ago. It employs around 200 staff, and on Wednesday RIM chief executive Mike Lazaridis said, "The hope is to get that up to around 500 people, over time".
"They put their first product out in under a year," Lazaridis said in a briefing session. "The two teams shifted their hours so they could work together." The other research team is based at RIM's facilities in Waterloo, Ontario.
Lazaridis added that the styling of the Bold 9700 was "very heavily influenced by European design".








