Those of us who have been following BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion for awhile have all noticed how reticent the company is to talk about future devices and future plans.

Given that, it is more than out-of-character for RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie to specifically mention features in the developmental pipeline. Features such as a BlackBerry with music player, and OK, "image capture."

A self-centric view would be a shift in company direction that embraces the online world- including blogs- as a way to spread anticipation excitement about forthcoming features. If so, this would represent a significant departure from RIM's attitude that we are more appropriate for spreading the word after new models with new features are released.

Another view is that for those consumers thinking of upgrading but considering several brands, sending strong signals out that multimedia BlackBerrys will be available in the next four months or so may encourage some potential new BlackBerry customers also interested in multimedia to hang on, rather than buy a Treo or Motorola Q now.

That's my bet.

What's yours?