Research in Motion has been hard at work over the past year making sure their next generation BlackBerry device lives up to expectations. After all, the Ontario-based manufacturer has been able to remain competitive using its current line of phones that includes the BlackBerry Curve, Pearl, and the business-oriented 8800, that lack many innovations put forth by the now year-old iPhone and other competing products from Nokia and the likes.

The BlackBerry Bold a.k.a. model 9000 will be the first of a number of devices to use a new platform consisting of a faster 624 Mhz processor, a revamped operating system, and improved memory and wireless connectivity support. This represents an overall step-up from the current BlackBerry device line-up. The Bold will feature a brighter 320x480 screen, which will come handy for reading and editing Word documents using the newly built-in DataViz DocumentsToGo software, commonly used on the Palm platform. An improved web browser should handle sites unoptimized for mobiles better, but if this video is any indication it will still fall short from offering the experience delivered by the iPhone's Safari browser. Even though 3G connectivity has been offered on certain BlackBerry models, it is expected that the Bold will bring wider 3G support across the board.

Along with the BlackBerry Bold introduction, RIM announced a $150 million venture capital fund meant to promote and incentive development of mobile applications and services for the BlackBerry platform and other mobile platforms.