AT&T cripple BlackBerry 8820 GPS in bias to iPhone

Take out your felt tip pens, kids, and colour in the faces of AT&T executives bright shame-red.  BlackBerry Cool have been tipped off that the carrier - currently riding a tide of iPhone-inflated success - are so concerned with Apple's cellphone remaining top of the pile that they've intentionally crippled the BlackBerry 8820 in order to make it less of a threat.

Apparently the decision was made by top execs at AT&T who basically told RIM, the people behind the BlackBerry, that if they didn't lock down the handset's GPS the carrier would no longer buy devices from them.  Understandably, RIM are meant to be livid.

The 8820 - complete with full QWERTY keyboard, RIM's admired push-email, GPS, WiFi and more - is set to launch on AT&T's network in mid-September, at which point the navigation capabilities will only work with the TeleNav service.  This will mark a significant difference to the handsets on other networks, for instance T-Mobile, where the 8820 will have far more choice when it comes to sat-nav software.

It's uncertain who pressed for the decision, AT&T or Apple, but I'm tempted to believe it was more the former.  Apple seem determined to let the iPhone stand as it is against competing devices, winning its market share on its own value; anyway, if they really wanted to make the iPhone truly competitive in the Enterprise setting they'd be better to release Exchange compatibility rather than attempt to cripple another firm's handset.  Proper push email and Exchange calendar/contacts synchronisation are undoubtedly the major factor holding back iPhone adoption in business settings.

If anything, this just seems likely to push potential BlackBerry customers away from AT&T and into the welcoming arms of T-Mobile.