R.I.M.'s Blackberry handheld is going international through a deal with Nokia. (Image from USA Today.)

Most papers spun this the other way, as Nokia wooing the business market, and that may be true. But it's far more important to note here that the Blackberry, a U.S. technology, is now going to spread into Europe and Asia, which have far more mature mobile markets, thanks to Nokia.

OPINION: Unless R.I.M. uses this money wisely, to vastly upgrade the software's capabilities, there will be less here than meets the eye. In the U.S. Blackberry has essentially become an interface, not a technology, and its services are easily replicated by others.

There are many obvious directions for Blackberry to move in. It could do store-and-forward IM, it could add support for sound and video files, it could even provide better interfaces to PC applications. Whatever it does, it needs to work fast.

But at least now it has a chance to do that work, and make something happen, before the growing sophistication of mobile phones and their networks overwhelms it.