Leila Abboud and Marie Mawad

PARIS. FRANCE: Research In Motion's current spat with governments over the lack of access to its networks has not unnerved its key corporate clients, a senior company executive told Reuters on Tuesday.

Tom Goguen, RIM's vice-president for enterprise software, said that big corporate customers, which account for about half of the Canadian firm's subscribers and most of its profits, had not been deterred by the data security row with India, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

"I've not had a lot of questions from customers about this," he said. "Some businesses have asked us to clarify how our systems work and have urged us to work through the issues we have with certain governments."

RIM has been in dispute this year with a number of countries in the Gulf and elsewhere over its encrypted email and messaging services, which they want to monitor.

Also read: BlackBerry and national security

It has already reached a deal with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia over access, though RIM hasn't given any details of what it has done to resolve the dispute. It remains in talks with India.

The BlackBerry maker says its system is designed so that only the sponsoring business or organization has the technical capability to grant access to encrypted email.

"Our customers understand that there is no magic switch we can turn on to make their private data available," said Goguen. "We don't have the keys, literally, they do. It's not like there is a mysterious backdoor."

NEW LAUNCH GOING WELL

Goguen said the launch of Blackberry's Torch, a high-end smartphone with a touchscreen and a new browser considered key to RIM's efforts to keep up with Apple and Google, was going well.

"The response has been very enthusiastic from companies I have met with, to the point where I am lucky if I can get out of the room and get to keep it," he said of the Torch.

No sales numbers have been released yet for the Torch, which was launched in mid-August in the United States, where it is being sold exclusively by AT&T. The Torch is now being rolled out to 75 other carriers worldwide this quarter.

The Torch is playing catch-up with the U.S. launches of the iPhone 4, new Motorola Droid devices, Samsung's Galaxy, and HTC's Evo.

"People are really excited to see us have a full and proper browser on the device," said Goguen. "It's been the one thing that has been lacking on our platform for the last couple of years."

RIM's dominance of the corporate sector, where its secure email once reigned supreme, is weakening as employers increasingly allow use of Apple's iPhone and a slew of devices running Google's Android operating system.

"Elements of enterprise business are absolutely becoming more competitive," he said. "But if you look at the pure corporate segment--where the company has to be responsible for the device--then we are still the leading solution."

(Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)