ROW Update

BlackBerry tops 3-million subscriber markResearch in Motion Ltd. has announced that the subscriber count to its popular, and seemingly ubiquitous, BlackBerry device has topped the three million mark, with approximately one million new subscribers added in the past six months alone. RIM reached its first million subscribers in February 2004 and then 10 months later had topped the two-million mark. “With over 50,000 retail points of presence, accelerated geographic expansion and the anticipated addition of 100 new carriers in 2005, we are scaling our operations for the five million and 10 million subscriber milestones,” RIM chair and co-CEO Jim Balsillie said in a news release. palmOne creates new product categoryOne of the world’s largest device manufacturers, palmOne Inc. has created another product family that is designed to meet the growing demand for mobile content. The mobile manager category, which will see its first product introduced later this month, is targeted at customers who want to take advantage of “digital everything” – from documents and email to music, images and video. The other two categories are: handhelds and smartphones. “In studying customer trends, we found that some people want to carry dozens of documents and hundreds of songs while others want to carry a thousand-plus photos and enjoy videos,” palmOne Canada president Michael Moskowitz said in a news release. “We listened and will deliver a new category of mobile-computing product that will let customers fuse their own mix of personal and business content in ways never before possible in either handheld computers or smartphones.” Telus Mobility plans EvDO service in Q1 2006Telus Mobility is finally getting on the 3G train and announced that it will begin offering in select markets EvDO service in the first quarter of 2006. The news came as an adjunct in a media release announcing that Sierra Wireless Inc.’s AirCard 580 will be forward compatible with EvDO networks through a software upgrade. The wireless modem card operates on the company’s 1X network. The AirCard 580 retails for $249.99 on a three-year contract and $399.99 without a fixed service contract. Wireless Matrix and Broadbeam partner in salesWireless Matrix and Broadbeam have entered into a strategic agreement that will allow both companies to offer a combined offering to a number of different vertical markets. “Our combined wireless data experience, especially in markets such as utility and transportation, provides a solid foundation upon which we can build and use to explore new markets and opportunities,” Broadbeam’s chair and CEO, Janet Boudris said in a news release. Wavesat and Atmel to develop new WiMAX compatible chipsMontreal-based Wavesat Inc. and Amtel Corp. have announced plans to develop 802.16 compatible baseband and RF chips by as early as the fourth quarter of this year. “our customers will benefit from a low risk, low-cost, fast time to market and high performance solution based on years of baseband and radio expertise. By creating a variant of our WiMAX compliant radio architecture to specifically interface with the Wavesat bandeband solution, we can simplify communications issues in a reference design,” Jeff Leasure, marketing manager for Atmel’s WiMAX radio solutions, said in a news release. SAMSys and SATO get greater exposure in AsiaSAMSys Technologies Inc. and SATO Asia Pacific have entered into a distribution agreement to supply SAMSy RFID readers to end users and resellers in the region. Under terms of the agreement, SATO will stock SAMSys products in Singapore, and provide support and training for the SATO direct sales team as well as the company’s barcode printer resellers throughout Asia. Noting that the two companies already enjoy a relationship, SAMSys, chair, president and CEO Cliff Horwitz said in a news release, “Pursuing a strategy of similar teamwork and commitment to the Asian market will propel the adoption and acceptance of the RFID initiatives in that exciting and demanding environment.” INTERNATIONALWireless dating gets conferenceTiconderoga Ventures Inc. has announced that the Mobile Dating Conference and Expo will be held on July 21-22 in San Francisco as part of the Internet Dating Conference, iDate2005. Topics to be explored include mobile dating business development, future PDA and cell phone generations, mobile browsers, wireless carriers and business models for mobile social networking, content distribution for wireless personals and others. Representatives from companies such as Sprint, Sun Microsystems, Kyocera Wireless, PalmSource, AOL/Love.com, and others will be speaking at the conference. Interest in Wi-Fi/cellular handsets growingNew surveys from In-Stat reveal that consumer interest in using handsets equipped with both voice over wireless local area networks (VoWLAN) and cellular technologies is growing leaps and bounds. “A large percentage, 84.6%, of respondents in a new survey were at least somewhat interested in the prospect of using a VoWLAN/Cellular phone, and exactly half of these respondents were very interested or extremely interested in the prospects of a such a phone,” reads a May 3 news release.

ROW Update

News | 05/09/2005 4:00 am EDT

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Reuse & Permissions

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us