The BlackBerry Storm, which has been hyped for months, went on sale on Friday morning, being available in Verizon Wireless stores and online for $199.99. The Storm is RIM’s first touchscreen phone and it’s the only one the company is introducing before the busy holiday season. Last year, Verizon launched four new phones before the holidays. More than 200 people lined up outside a Verizon Wireless store in midtown Manhattan, and the new phone was sold out within an hour of opening at 8 a.m. Other stores, in Washington and New Jersey also had lines of 100 people or more. The phone’s main task is to outsell its Apple rival, the iPhone.

There are a few reasons for which the Storm is a serious opponent for the iPhone. The phone features a 3.2 megapixel camera with video capabilities, variable zoom, auto focus and a flash that has the ability to provide continuous lighting while recording video. The iPhone has a 2 megapixel camera that does not offer video capture. BlackBerry Storm also continues BlackBerry’s 10-year legacy of mobile e-mail, working with BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise. Another advantage that the phone will have over its Apple competitor is the fact that is comes preloaded with DataViz Documents to Go suite for editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from the handset, while iPhone only offers its users the chance of viewing a document, not editing it.

Initial reviews of the phone have been fairly good. The device is seen as a strong alternative to the iPhone, but critics also point out the phone’s shortcomings in comparison to the iPhone, like the click-ability of the touchscreen and the lack of Wi-Fi, which is supported in the iPhone. All in all, it will be a fairly interesting battle between the two companies and gadgets.