The much-anticipated Blackberry Bold — Research in Motion’s (RIM) response to iPhone popularity and its foray into the 3G market — has faltered a bit, at least in the U.K.

Orange UK, a British seller of the units, has stopped selling the handsets, after concerns were raised over potential software problem.

From what we can tell, this is a UK-only issue, and the devices are still being sold by Orange throughout Europe. The problem: a source told Techworld that it is a 2G to 3G handover issue that is giving Orange the problem.

In the race to dominate the 3G market, RIM could ill-afford this latest glitch. It’s not the first that’s hit their devices. Back in July, the manufacturer patched bugs in its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which could have allowed hackers to trick users into opening rigged PDFs.

RIM’s big advantage, despite these problems: It’s got plenty of devoted users of earlier Blackberry devices who’d probably like to move up to 3G — if they can get dependable service.

While it looks like the U.K. difficulties are isolated and country-specific, only time will tell,

Source: Techworld.com

Tags: 3G, Blackberry, mobile, Orange, service, Software