Telus Buys Black’s, Keeps Pace With Bell

Telus has agreed to purchase Black’s Photos stores in a bid to bolster their retail presence. This move follows Bell Canada’s purchase of the Source retail stores from Circuit City. It would appear that the battleground for mobile subscribers will take place in malls across Canada. While Telus already has kiosks in many malls the additional Black’s Camera stores will help with Telus’ exposure.

Rogers Wireless so far has been mum on adding retail locations but perhaps they are putting something together. The iPhone alone puts enough clout behind Rogers to add subscribers and Bell has the Palm Pre and perhaps even the Pixi. Telus has … cute commercials. All I gotta say is Telus better get some cool phones or risk losing market share to Globalive.

Wipe phone data remotely

How many times have you left your phone somewhere or just plain had it stolen? Ever worry about all your personal data being accessed by prying eyes? Recently a Windows Mobile prototype was stolen from an executive. Nothing special there right? Except that Microsoft technicians were able to wipe the phone remotely once its theft was brought to their attention. Now that’s cool.

It definitely gives me comfort to know that this technology is on the brink of the consumer market. Probably for a fee, but well worth it if you’re walking around with a company’s customer list, contacts, emails, perhaps even a spreadsheet attachment with some financial info. It’s definitely a technology business travellers need to consider. The same principles applied to laptops need to be applied to mobile phones. More now than ever the data we used to store on computers are now showing up on Blackberries and other smart phones. Have a data shredder feature built in would go a long way to protecting mobile data as well.

Android phone by October?

T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.

The high-end phone is expected to match many of the capabilities of Apple’s iPhone and other so-called smartphones that run software from Palm, Research in Motion, Microsoft and Nokia to access the Internet and perform computerlike functions.

The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the “dream,” will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard. A video of the phone has been posted recently on YouTube. A person who has seen the HTC device said it matched the one in the video. (link)

I’ll take 200,000 iPhones please …

The iPhone is not for business. I think HSBC made the switch they would notice a huge drop in productivity. Blackberry is for business power users. You absolutely need a keyboard.

“Global banking giant HSBC is considering ditching the BlackBerry and adopting Apple’s iPhone as its standard staff mobile device, a move that could result in an order for some 200,000 iPhones.

“We are actually reviewing iPhones from a HSBC Group perspective…and when I say that, I mean globally,” Brenton Hush, HSBC’s Australia and New Zealand chief information officer, told ZDNet.com.au this week.

HSBC has some 300,000 staff internationally. A decision to standardize on the iPhone on its corporate networks would likely lead to one of the world’s largest iPhone orders.” (link)

Open source mobile platforms to converge? Don’t bet on it.

The recent emergence of a number of open source mobile platforms has raised some questions about the potential for convergence. These platforms all have much to offer, but the fragmentation will create challenges for third-party software developers. Some industry observers have suggested that there could be advantages in bringing these platforms together, but technical and philosophical differences make unity an unlikely scenario.

During the LinuxWorld expo in San Francisco, Nokia hosted a breakfast discussion panel about the impact of open source on the mobile industry. One of the panelists, Forum Nokia vice president Tom Libretto, denied rumors that Symbian will merge with Android and said that such claims are pure speculation. (link)