More good news for struggling smartphone vendor Research In Motion (RIMM) as excitement mounts ahead of its big next-generation platform launch: North American businesses are showing interest in BlackBerry 10. RIM recently launched a “BlackBerry 10 Ready Program” that offers companies free BlackBerry 10 training and a simplified BES license upgrade process, a wise move made in an effort to attract crucial enterprise interest to RIM’s new platform. According to RIM, its program has already drawn a crowd in the U.S. and Canada.

With the company’s BlackBerry 10 launch less than two weeks away, RIM confirmed to Reuters that more than 1,600 U.S. companies in North America have signed up for the BlackBerry 10 Ready Program so far.

“We are very enthused by the engagement and response of our customer base,” RIM’s senior enterprise accounts director, Bryan Lee, told Reuters. “In terms of verticals and segments, we are seeing good activity levels across all of our segments from small- and mid-market to large enterprises.”

RIM will unveil BlackBerry 10 along with its first two next-generation smartphones — the BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry X10 — during a press conference on January 30th, and BGR will be on hand reporting live.