What a deal!

US: When Barack Obama moves into the White House, he’ll have his own cinema, fitness studio and even a bowling alley. What he won’t have is his BlackBerry smartphone, which the new president has to stop using for legal and security reasons.

Obama has said frequently that he doesn’t want to give up the device. “I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” he told The New York Times a week before his inauguration. “They’re going to pry it from my hands.”

"I'm still clinging to my BlackBerry," Barack Obama said a week before his inauguration.

The new president is probably not the only one who’s sorry to see the BlackBerry go. Research in Motion (RIM) , the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry, will miss all the free advertising.

Marketing experts in the US say that Obama’s praise is worth between $25 million and $50 million. “This would be almost the biggest endorsement deal in the history of endorsements,” says Doug Shabelman of Burns Entertainment . Shabelman told Reuters: “Think about how far the company has come if they’re able to say, ‘The president has to have this to keep in touch.’”

Lori Sale of Paradigm Talent Agency says it is even better for RIM that Obama is not being paid to promote the company’s product. “The most powerful man in the country is saying at this moment, basically, 'I can’t live without mine',” Sale comments.