This is a brilliant move on AT&Tâs part. They just announced a two year pilot with Indiana University Kelley School of Business to offer cheaper BlackBerry options to graduate students, faculty, & staff. My mother in law is a Professor of Library Science and she is absolutely loving the BlackBerry I gave her. By giving the professors and grad students a deal on their BlackBerrys they will entice students to start also having BlackBerrys.
I find this move is kind of like how software companies offer discounts to faculty and students so that they are trained and hooked on their software when they graduate. Microsoft does this to get students stuck on Office and Windows. I know AutoCAD also does this for architecture students and Adobe does it for Photoshop.
I think RIM should really make a strong push into business schools because those users will be their future customers. By catching them early in the line they can get them addicted before their future job offers them a device.
I am curious to see how this goes. So what do you think?