Is it just me, or has the Blackberry gone chav? The thought struck me today as the nanny arrived, clutching a spanking new model.

Of course, I don’t mean to imply that she’s a chav. She’s a nice girl from Poland with tidy manners.

But somehow, I couldn’t see how she could afford to own a Blackberry (not that I’m a skinflint employer). Or rather, that she’d prioritize its ownership over a DKNY hoodie or whatever designer frippery you buy when you’re still in your 20s. Unless, of course, the Blackberry has become a real object of desire for this demographic.

It would have been a good question to ask Robin Bienfait, CIO of RIM when I met her recently. After all, here’s a woman who holsters not one but two Blackberries onto her designer handbag. See photo I snapped below: they travel in pairs!

Instead, I asked my Yankee Group colleague Nick Spencer for his take. He confirms that Blackberries have now won the status of consumer bling, although takeup remains small, according to Yankee Group’s global device surveys.

That reveals my bias, since I focus on enterprise-centric issues. And there, Blackberry usage retains a certain exclusivity. Indeed, according to Yankee Group’s 2007 Anywhere Enterprise U.S. Mobile Professional Blended Lifestyle survey, of the 83% of the enterprise workforce that is mobile, only 53% gets to use a smartphone like a Blackberry.

Of course, they’re not suitable for everyone. Yet I can certainly think of employers that I’m familiar with - naming no names - that remain unreasonably stingy in handing Blackberries out to deserving staff. That said, as we’ve noted in our research, the consumer pester factor is increasingly difficult to avoid in enterprise communications.

So why did the nanny get the said Blackberry? Because she could. ‘It was in the renewal package,’ she said. Thrown in with a 1,200-minute deal at £45 ($90) a month, so why not? Well, I thought, score another point for Telefónica subsidiary O2’s assault on the UK mobile market.

But isn’t it amazing what people will get if it’s made terribly easy for them? Even if they have no desire to use the given object. I considered this as I tried to fix whatever she’d done to induce the Blackberry to type only in Arabic.

Mind, that wasn’t to help her compose an email. She just wants to talk and send texts.