JAKARTA, Indonesia - Research In Motion faces challenges for growth in emerging markets like the Middle East with looming bans on BlackBerry email and messenger services by restrictive governments.

It's part of doing business in these markets, analyst Matt Robison said Wednesday.

"The cure is worse than the disease for RIM," said Robison of U.S.-based Wunderlich Securities Inc.

RIM said it has no intention of compromising security on the device, which has helped drive the company's reputation worldwide.

"There's much more risk in changing the policy than missing out on the growth opportunity," Robison said from San Francisco.

Saudi Arabia plans to shut down BlackBerry services on Friday. The United Arab Emirates has announced it will shut down BlackBerry data and messaging functions in October.

Indonesia is threatening the same. China and India have similar issues with Research In Motion (TSX:RIM).

Analyst Matthew Thornton of Avian Securities said RIM would rather lose the business than compromise the security of its devices.

"I think this is limited to some of the newer relationships in countries where government tactics and government practices may be a little different," Thornton said from Boston.

RIM's computer servers are overseas and these governments don't have local control or access to users' content. In countries such as UAE, websites and some forms of media are monitored for content.

RIM said its enterprise solution, used by governments and businesses, prevents it or any third party from reading encrypted information on the devices. The Waterloo, Ont., company said it doesn't store or have access to the encrypted data.

"Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries are unfounded," RIM said in a statement this week.

All of this comes into the spotlight as competition heats up for RIM in North America with Apple's iPhone and Google-powered Android smartphones. The BlackBerry maker has just introduced a new touchscreen phone with a pullout keyboard and a faster Internet browser to win over more consumers.

"There's going to be some tough negotiations and there's probably a lot of different points that have to be hammered out, but I have a tough time not seeing a resolution," Thornton said.

Robison added that the BlackBerry could be banned by some governments, but RIM will continue to do business in these regions.

Analyst Anil Doradla said the Middle East is about two to three per cent of revenues and subscribers for RIM, but growing very fast.

"Specifically Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Israel are very fast growing segments," said Doradla of William Blair & Co. in Chicago.

"The growth vectors for RIM are coming from many of these geographic regions."

RIM is also looking for growth in Africa, Latin America and Caribbean as the North American market becomes a more saturated market.

RIM shares, which have been beaten down since April from the mid-$70 range, briefly testing a low around $50 a share in early July. They dropped about 4.5 per cent Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange, falling $2.53 to close at $54.24.