J.D. Power Ranks BlackBerry #1

It's not like BlackBerry users need any 3rd party affirmation to tell us what we already know to be the truth, but J.D. Power and Associates has ranked BlackBerry #1 in its Inaugural Business Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study!

The inaugural study measures business customer satisfaction with their wireless smartphone, which is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with personal computer-like functionality such as a BlackBerry or Treo. Overall satisfaction is examined across six key factors. In order of importance, they are: ease of operation (22%); operating system (21%); physical design (20%); audio (14%); battery aspects (13%); and utility features (10%).

RIM ranks highest in overall smartphone customer satisfaction with a score of 702 points on a 1,000-point scale, performing particularly well in the operating system factor, which includes the speed of moving between applications and speed of sending/receiving e-mails. RIM also performs particularly well in battery aspects, including the length of battery life. Treo manufacturer Palm (698) and Samsung (698) tie to closely follow RIM in the ranking.

I can't believe Palm and Samsung was that close behind. And I didn't see the word Apple or iPhone mentioned anywhere in their announcement. I'll be curious to see the results 12 months from now when they do this a second time around.