The rumour is that Qwest might be the next major acquisition in the US consolidation sweepstakes. It is ironic that the first Baby Bell (US WEST) to get hooked up with a long haul provider (Qwest) is the last one standing in search of a suiter.
The word on the street is that Verizon, the company that beat out Qwest in bidding for MCI, may be looking at bulking up across the northwest to better prepare to go to battle against the new AT&T.;
At what point will US cable companies tie up with Sprint to offer a competitive triple/quad play? Cable needs the wireless and Sprint needs local access. Sounds like a match to me.
My brother mentioned to me that his office installed a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) recently and he says that it is saving him 20-30 minutes per day. Now that his corporate mail is completely tied into his Blackberry, he only reads a message once – either at his desk or on his mobile, but not both. He files messages once, deletes them once.
The time saving is the big benefit to the user; but the BES represents major handcuffs on users looking at alternative solutions for mobile email. That is a bonus for RIM.
At the end of the day, mobile devices are consumer electronics – subject to fashion and style trends (the “cool” factor) as much as they rely on having raw capabilities. Technology advantages can be transient – creative manufacturers will add features to match or beat their competition. Cool is harder to copy and cool makes it harder to stay on top: look at the current wave that Motorola is riding and ask Nokia about suddenly losing consumer momentum.
It seems to me that BES is an answer to how RIM can insulate themselves, in part, from some of the fickleness of the marketplace. Analysts should look at the percentage of subscribers that use carrier Blackberry Web Clients versus subscribers with Blackberry Exchange Servers. It is a metric that will help understand how secure is the Blackberry client base.
Latest news for The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit is that Industry Minister Maxime Bernier has been confirmed as a Feature Keynote. He is scheduled to speak on June 14, the closing day of the 3-day schmooze fest. The Minister joins 20 other top leaders who will appear as keynote speakers. More than 50 other key personalities will appear on panels.
Yesterday, TELUS announced that it was “taking a byte out of spam” with new technology being added to improve their email services.
TELUS is pleased to introduce this leading edge security technology, a second layer of spam and virus control that will screen out the most obvious problem e-mails before they make their way to customer in-boxes…
I’m all in favour of this kind of filtering by the carriers and ISPs. There is no question that the garbage that infests parts of the internet needs to be cleaned up.
The next stage is to implement network-based blocking of truly illegal content. Strange that ISPs have no trouble blocking the merely annoying, but when it comes to truly illegal content, like child exploitation and hate, they claim that there is nothing they can do.
It doesn’t seem to make sense that the ISP community is telling users that they should have PC-based blocking tools for illegal content, but ISPs boast about their network based anti-spam tools.
Leaving blocking to users is like airlines fixing their on-board food selection, but telling passengers to bring their own parachutes if they are concerned about safety.
This ties in somewhat with the legal case being fought in the US between Google and the Justice Department over access to certain search records.
That case started with the government wanting to study the effectiveness of filtering tools to screen sexually explicit content from children.
Filtering explicit (legal) images is one thing – blocking illegal content is another matter. I am interested in solutions targeting the digital loophole currently enjoyed by smugglers of illegal content.
A variety of Private Member’s bills have been proposed across Canada seeking to ban the use of handheld cel phones while driving. Never mind that no one is also seeking specific legislation to ban cigarette smoking or coffee drinking or car pool fighting or other similar distractions. I’m not convinced the police need another law on the books – Dangerous Driving for any reason should be enough.
But in Australia, a judge took their handsfree-only laws seriously when he found a man guilty of violating Rule 300 of the Australian Road Rules:
The driver of a vehicle must not use a hand held mobile phone while the vehicle is moving, or is stationary but not parked
The man was holding his earpiece in place to keep it from falling out.
I am all in favour of people using handsfree on their cel phones. I love Bluetooth equipped cars where the system is built into the audio system.
But for everyone else, we need better-fitting, cushioned earpieces! And while I am on a rant, how about something like the ‘Clapper’ that lets your $150 Bluetooth earpiece tell you where it is hiding? Am I the only one who has lost more than one?
