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The iPhone has made mobile phones very cool and has connected with majority of the consumer market. However, Ted Schadler of Forrester Research suggests in his latest report that organizations take a second look at Apple’s device and consider offering it to their employees.

In the report, “Making iPhone Work In The Enterprise: Early Lessons Learned”, Schadler states that the big iPhone lessons are: It’s more than just another device; it drives business culture change; it gives employees freedom to choose their own tools; and it changes the support model to self-service.

Amylin Pharmaceutical, Kraft Foods and Oracle all use the iPhone over BlackBerry or Windows Mobile devices. Some examples of the ese of use for the iPhone are its intuitiveness and using the Safari browser. Shadler said that on other devices using the web is a “chore”. Senior IT director Todd Stewart describes iPhones as being easier to support than “other mobile platforms”.

I find it kind of ironic that he states in his report to consider the iPhone, but in closing he basically states stick with your BlackBerry for your e-mails and calendar: “But the real payoff of iPhone and similar mobile Internet devices is that it is a new platform for delivering content and collaboration applications to an increasingly mobile workforce”… “We find the BlackBerry better for email and calendaring and the iPhone better for everything else”

Via: AppleInsider & IntoMobile

Nokia has released a new beta program called “Easy Meet”. The basis behind this is for easy collaboration from your “mobile device and/or PC to create, conduct, and participate in meetings with your business colleagues as well as your friends and family. The service is about sharing content synchronously and in real-time.”

The video shows a couple examples of this in action, some key features are Slide sharing, Image sharing (JPEG, PNG), Conference chat, Remote content access, Participant awareness, Gestures, File download and Meeting minutes.

TELUS announced today they’ll invest more than $700 million in Alberta, creating more than 2,100 jobs. The focus will be to expand wireless and wireline broadband infrastructure and launch a new anticipated High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network by early 2010.

Darren Entwistle, President and CEO of TELUS said “Our investment of more than $700 million in leading broadband
technology will create employment opportunities, contribute to the province’s future competitiveness, and support the launch of innovative new services for TELUS customers.”

If you remember way back in September, Globalive came in with guns blazing giving us Canadians a place to discuss our frustrations of current wireless carriers and share ideas about how a new wireless carrier could run their business. Even CEO Tony Lacavera himself said wireless companies should do “less telling and a lot more listening”…

Perhaps it’s a cost savings measure or possibly the bigger issue of not having current carriers  share their cellphone towers to build the national network… but the highly touted “Wireless Soapbox” forum from Globalive has been taken offline. The conversations have stopped and ideas are now “forbidden” and hopefully it’s not a sign of things to come.

Globalive is aiming to launch their cellphone network fall of 2009 (national in 2010) in the following cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa offering fixed monthly plans with no contract targeting the 16-60 year olds that don’t have a cell phone yet.

** UPDATE: WirelessSoapbox is now back online. **

Thanks nadim!

Virgin is in full force with their “Screw You Recession” campaign. They even made it on GlobalTV promoting the cost savings website.

If you are looking to save money, give the “Screw-U-Later” calculator a go. It basically gives you a breakdown of the dollar amount you save in a month. Test out how much you would save (or not)  from Solo, Koodo and Fido a month.

Remember a couple months ago the battle between Rogers and Bell over who has the “fastest and most reliable network”?

Rogers claimed Bell was guilty of false advertising, suddenly the Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) followed up with ordering Bell Mobility to remove the advertising as it went against the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards with it campaign “fastest and largest network across North America” claiming that “the general impression communicated by the claim was that the Bell wireless network was faster than its competitors in each of the countries that make up North America, including Canada.”

Well, according to a document we received, Bell is still moving forward with being the fastest and “now has positive, independent and undisputable results that provide sufficient evidence to challenge this claim with a confident statement of our own: “Bell Internet is faster than Rogers. Period.” The results are clear and undisputable: Overall, Bell is faster and reliable. Bell clearly demonstrated a superior advantage when it came to speed. In fact, when comScore compared Bell’s 7MB product to Rogers’ 7MB product, Bell came out on top as both faster and more reliable. Period. The message will be clear: “Faster than Rogers. Period”.”

What are your thoughts? Which carrier are you finding faster? Where does TELUS fit in with all this?

I read this great article written by Jaako Kaidesoja, Director of Games at Nokia. He spoke about concept of ’social location gaming and how Nokia is focused on bringing this to the mainstream. “Social Location” games are “titles which interact with your location and are sensitive to your surroundings, adapting to where you are”.

It was interesting to read how he sees the future of gaming, how GPS will play a major role, how the need for developers to go beyond graphics and make games continually entertaining and how Yamake, a game that allows players to create their own games, puzzles, crosswords and quizzes and then share them with friends, will create a trend in the gaming industry.

Just in case you are the lucky one that’ll win Apple’s contest for the 1 billionth app download, you might want to splurge and bathe in the glory with this iPhone soap.

Creator “twoeggplants” states that it’s one of  his “coolest creations and each feature is meticulously created” making this a perfect gift for iPhone lovers.

The actual bar of soap is about the same size as the actual iPhone and weighs in about 3 oz. Thinking about what you will smell like when finished? Well, you can get this in a Mojito fragrance, Tropical Mango or you can customize the soap upon request.

The prize for this is $7.99 and according to the description “it has the black button at the bottom and the screen icons in its flat screen. The top layer of the soap is dark grayish black and the bottom layer is a slightly lighter shade of gray”.

Check it out here

[Source]

We’re always looking out for good deals for mobile phones in Canada. Even though this is not the greatest deal and a place you would not normally visit to get your next phone, Walmart has put the Koodo Mobile lineup on sale for about a couple dollars cheaper on each device.

So it’s certainly up to you to take advantage of the savings… just remember how horrendous Walmart lineups, parking and crowds are… and weigh out if the 2 bucks is worth your time.

Apple is eagerly waiting for the billionth app to be downloaded from the AppStore. In celebration they are throwing a contest together that gives you a chance to win some great prizes.

According to their website: “As of today, nearly one billion apps have been downloaded around the globe. So we just want to say thanks — a billion. Download an app and you’ll automatically get the chance to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. Just go to the iTunes Store, browse the App Store, and download your best app yet.”

The contest is open to us Canadians, although Apple says The Billion App Countdown Promotion excludes the Province of Quebec… to enter you must be above the age of 13.