Research in Motion's (RIM) President and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said in a recent interview that the company plans to add Bluetooth and WiFi to future versions of its BlackBerry handheld device. If there ever was a better example by a company to boost sales of its flagship product, this is it.

The popular handsets have featured cellular capabilities for a couple of years now, in addition to RIM's famous push email and personal information management capabilities, essentially making the most recent BlackBerry generations smartphones. Their box-like nature makes them difficult for some to use as mobile handsets, however. Though headsets make them more usable as phones, the devices are still tethered to the user by wires.

The addition of Bluetooth would free users, allowing them to use their BlackBerries with wireless headsets, and therefore making the handhelds more suitable for voice communications. In addition, with Bluetooth, BlackBerry owners would be able to use there devices with other Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as printers for wireless printing and desktops for wireless syncing.

Lazaridis also mentioned in the interview the possibility of bringing Wi-Fi to the BlackBerry platform. The aim is to allow the device to roam between 802.11 and cellular networks for data and possibly voice communications. With this ability, users would be able to seamlessly switch from one type of network to the other depending on what is available, cheaper and more optimal at the time.