Dec 4 2004

MTN and Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) have introduced BlackBerry® to mobile subscribers in South Africa. BlackBerry is a wireless communications solution that provides an always-on connection to a wide range of applications including email, phone, intranet, Internet, SMS and personal information. BlackBerry will operate in South Africa on MTN’s GSM / GPRS network.

Santie Botha, executive director at MTN says "MTN’s partnership with RIM is an important one as it enables us to bring the eagerly anticipated BlackBerry to the South African market. MTN is constantly exploring new ways to deliver innovative, industry-leading solutions to its professional customers and BlackBerry is a powerful productivity tool that will help our customers to stay on top of their information, whilst in South Africa or traveling around the world."

"The global popularity of BlackBerry illustrates the importance mobile professionals place on push-based access to information and communications in a single advanced handheld. We are very pleased to expand into South Africa with MTN," said Don Morrison, Chief Operating Officer at Research In Motion.

BlackBerry consists of integrated hardware, software and service. For corporate customers, BlackBerry Enterprise Server™ software tightly integrates with Microsoft® Exchange and IBM Lotus® Domino™ (Novell GroupWise™ support is expected to be available later this year) and works with existing enterprise systems to enable secure, push-based, end-to-end, wireless access to email and other corporate data.

For individuals and smaller businesses, BlackBerry Internet Service™ allows users to access up to ten corporate and/or personal email accounts from a single device.