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Remember that politics move quickly, and people and their opinions evolve.
Saudi Arabia Reaches Compromise With BlackBerry. Don’t Hold Your Breath For Lebanon
August 9, 2010 · Mustapha Hamoui
From Canada’s The Globe And Mail:
The Associated Press reported over the weekend that RIM reached an agreement with the Saudi government. Under the reported terms, which have not been confirmed by the company, RIM would place one or more local servers within Saudi Arabia.
The fact that there was an agreement however does not mean that the same will apply to all countries with objections to BB services. Saudi Arabia has 700,000 BlackBerry users, and was in a strong position of leverage with RIM.
The Lebanese market of Blackberry users is tiny and expendable from RIM’s perspective. In other words, unless there was some sort of pan-Arab “we’re all in this together” negotiation with RIM, don’t expect any RIM servers to be set up in Beirut soon.