Latest News

We have news about the long delayed and anticipated release of the Sony Ericsson Z780. Our source has said the “Sony Ericsson Z780 has definitely been officially cut and will no longer be available in Canada”. No reason was given as it was just a carrier choice to pull the product from its upcoming launches.

Bell Independent retailers, who represent 80% of Bell stores, have officially sued Bell Canada alleging “abusive, arbitrary” business practices.

Doris Ronca, President of ICDAC, and owner of two Bell World stores said ” Years of Bell’s mismanagement has resulted in losing customer and investor brand loyalty and falling from first to third place in the wireless marketplace. Now, Bell is punishing its own, exclusive dealer channel by not honouring agreements and systematically destroying our competitiveness, reputations and the value of our businesses that we have built, some of us for over 20 years.” More info here

Bell has a new contest called “Win a Blackberry Storm”. This officially started October 9th and will go until December 31st, 2008 at 11:59:59 p.m. (ET).

All you have to do to be entered into the contest to potentially win a BlackBerry Storm (the approximate value is $650). is give them your personal info… this will most likely be used for marketing purposes later. The contest is open to everybody in Canada except those who work or have family or friends at Bell.

The actual draw will take place on January 9th at 1:00 pm and the winner will be reached by mail(?) and will have five days to respond as the winner. However, it will take “four to six weeks for delivery”.

Pretty basic but a stellar phone by RIM. More here

Toronto-based QuickPlay Media has been named a finalist in the “Best Mobile Video” category in the first annual Mobile Excellence Awards. Winners will be announced on October 27th

CRTC says it will review 3 requirements associated with the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules. First, certain exempt telemarketing calls and faxes. Second, the current registration period for the National DNCL. Third, rules to govern the use of Automatic Dialing and Announcing Devices. More here

As we reported last week – This one is for the ladies in the house! Samsung Electronics Canada has announced the “stylish” CLEO to its line-up. To make this popular they have become the official sponsor of the Desperately Different Spring/Summer 2009 fashion line.

This will be available through Bell and looks awkward but the “CLEO can easily be mistaken for a make-up compact”. It will come in pink, champagne and blue, has a full QWERTY keyboard, 1.3 megapixel camera and colour LCD screen.

Paul Brannen, General Manager, Wireless Terminal Division, Samsung Electronics Canada said “Samsung believes in blurring the lines between haute couture and high tech, and with the upcoming launch of CLEO we wanted to partner with a Canadian fashion designer who embodied Samsung’s key characteristics: innovation, design and experience, Katya Revenko fits this description perfectly and her Desperately Different fashion line complements the sophisticated design of the Samsung CLEO.”

More info here

We can expect to see the HTC Touch Diamond from Rogers soon – this scanned image by HoFo member “blackdogs377” was sent in to us. The “UR Magazine” magazine is available to all Rogers customers to inform them of upcoming phones and features and prizes.

From the scans it looks like the HTC Touch Diamond will be the one over in Europe with the cut back and camera on the front. In addition, you’ll be able to pick this up for $599.99 outright or $249 on a new 3 year with voice and data. There is a targeted release date of November 4th for this gem.

The BlackBerry Partners Fund is set to announce the winners today of their Developer Challenge (2 winners will walk away with a cool $150k each to bring the product to life). In the meantime, they have launched “Jump Start Financing Initiative”.

The new program will provide “entrepreneurs with capital infusions of up to $250,000. The funding initiative is designed to bring new and innovative ideas into the development process faster allowing entrepreneurs to focus on building great smartphone applications instead of raising seed capital”.

It’s great to see they are continuing to find way to promote and inspire people to create new applications. This is just the initial drop in the bucket to what will be offered. This quote states their firm plans to dominate this business:

Rick Segal, Partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund: “At the BlackBerry Partners Fund we believe it is important to encourage the development of an industry that is predicted to become the fastest growing application market the world has ever seen. We are eager to review pioneering ideas and assist entrepreneurs with the advancement of their concept into a viable product faster and more cost effectively than ever before.”

More here

If you’re with Fido and have yet to play the “Pile-O-Rewards” Game, you can give it a go over at the dedicated website here. The will be weekly draws every Monday until December 7th. This is open to current Fido customers and non Fido customers.

You have a chance to win 1 of 10 Samsung Jack smartphones (includes a 2-year plan with activation), and there is also 426 weekly prizes from 10 to 500 FidoDollars.

The object of the game it “line up 4 dollars or more of the same colour, either horizontally or diagonally to make it disappear. Reach the target score to get to the next level. The game is kind of addictive, I only played for a couple minutes and cleared 3 rounds got a couple thousand points.

Check it out here

What do some of Canada’s mobile companies look like from above? After the Future Shop BlackBerry Pearl 8220 story was posted yesterday I jumped into the Cessna and took a flight around Toronto. No real point to these pics but to feed more fuel to my obsession… pics of Rogers, Bell and Motorola office. This is good to view if you really have nothing better to do. See them here