In what was termed Big News for Research in Motion, maker of the ubiquitous Blackberry series of devices, the company announced plans to team up with Alcatel-Lucent to sell the Blackberry 8700 in China.

Alca-Lu will distribute the devices through China Mobile, the country's largest wireless service provider with a giganto number of customers - 350 million, to be exact. Even a small percentage of that number could mean huge profits and growth for RIM.

Meanwhile, investors in RIM are making out like bandits: shares of the company rose almost 10% on the news, and have almost tripled since January.

RIM Moves To Put Firm's BlackBerry In China's Many Hands