Monday, May 4th, Research in Motion (RIM) announced the future production of the “Storm 2″. Although confirmation could not be made that the device will, in fact, be called the Storm, RIM’s CEO Jim Balsillie assured Reuters that it will be coming. He also told the media that the current generation of the Storm has been a success in terms of “sales and adoption” in the eyes of RIM, making it a worthwhile investment to continue producing devices. Being that the Storm was RIM’s first touch screen device, it was quickly deemed Blackberry and Verizon’s competition for the iPhone. In my opinion, the Storm did not live up to its hype by any means. The touchscreen is a bit awkward when clicking and the accelerometer rotates the screen orientation very slowly. Also, the full Qwerty keyboard in landscape mode is very cramped, even for those who do not have large hands. Hopefully the Storm 2 will fill the shoes that the original was predicted to.

In other recent Blackberry news, the Blackberry Curve 8300 has overtaken the iPhone 3G as the top selling consumer smartphone in the United States. The Storm rang up in third place, and the Pearl in fourth, proving RIM to be very successful in the smartphone market.