RIM to introduce newest BlackBerry

NEW YORK - BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. on Monday will unveil a new version of its top-end e-mail phone for business users, replacing the signature side navigation wheel with a front trackball that first appeared last year on the consumer-oriented BlackBerry Pearl.

The BlackBerry 8800 will be offered in the United States by AT&T Inc.'s Cingular Wireless starting Feb. 21, priced at $300 with a two-year contract commitment.

The new device enters a far more crowded market for multifunction "smart" phones than the 8700 did when it was launched in late 2005. Back then, the main competition was Palm Inc.'s Treo, while lower-priced BlackBerry-like entrants from Motorola Inc.,

Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. had not yet arrived.

RIM is billing the 8800 as the thinnest BlackBerry to date, measuring 0.55 inch from front to back. That's just a hair thinner than the Pearl's 0.57-inch thickness, but 0.2 inch thinner than the 8700 model that the 8800 will replace over time. The 8800 is also a shade narrower than the 8700 from right to left, but slightly taller.

Other features include the ability to pick up signals from Global Positioning System, or GPS, satellites for location tracking. The device comes installed with BlackBerry Maps, an application that can use the GPS signal to provide driving directions as well as integrate with other applications to, for example, send a map via e-mail.

The 8800 also comes with a media player and an external storage slot for removable microSD memory cards.

Still missing from the business-oriented device is a digital camera, which RIM says many corporate customers don't want their employees to have for security and other reasons.

"It's not that hard to put one in," RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said in an interview. "But it was unambiguous for a dramatic proportion of the mobile professional segment: No camera."

Balsillie said it wasn't a tough decision to switch to the front trackball and ditch the traditional sidewheel — which has been used to scroll through e-mail on every BlackBerry model except the Pearl since the BlackBerry and its predecessors were introduced in the 1990s. The Pearl, which unlike the 8700 and 8800 does not feature a full typewriter keyboard with one key for each letter, was introduced in August.

"The response to the trackball has been universally positive," said Balsillie, noting that 80 percent of the non-phone usage on the Pearl involves multimedia applications rather than traditional BlackBerry e-mail. "If it's just messaging, it's just up-down, left-right. But if you're going to do multimedia, the navigation aspects become more prominent."

AP

Google Checkout and PayPal Continue Shopping-Rebate Wars

It's hard to keep up with the special offers Google Checkout and PayPal are offering to shoppers. The two companies are continuing to offer rebates to encourage shoppers to sign up for their respective payment services and to encourage retailers to offer the services on their sites.

In November, Google Checkout offered new users $10-off purchases of $30 or more, or $20-off purchases of $50 or more (depending on the merchant) through December 26. The promotion was extended through an offer in which first-time shoppers on Google Checkout receive $10 off a one-time purchase of at least $10 through February 15, 2007.

Similarly, in November PayPal offered a cash rebate of up to $20 for shoppers paying with PayPal on qualifying merchant websites in North America through May 15, 2007. A page at (http://paypal.promotionexpert.com/greatshopping) promotes a $15 rebate to "Jump-Start Your Spring Shopping."

The rebate offers benefit merchants by allowing them to advertise the rebates to their shoppers and to get exposure on the services' lists of participating merchants.

AuctionBytes.com

Windows Mobile 6 unveiled: Mini-Vista

New Windows Mobile 6 to Be Presented at 3GSM in Barcelona.

First details about Microsoft’s new operating system for mobile phones have emerged on the Web, with analysts saying it is a Vista in miniature.

Windows Mobile 6, code-named Crossbow, brings a new Vista-like interface and a lot of improvements concerning interoperability with other services crafted at Redmond. The new mobile OS will be available in the second half of 2007, and its newest features will be presented next week at the 3GSM conference that takes place in Barcelona, Spain.

Suzan DelBene, vice president for the company’s mobile-device marketing, said that she expects the OS to be installed on smartphones all over the world in the next few months.

Among the new features included in Windows Mobile are:

• Email in Rich HTML Format.
• Live links to SharePoint sites.
• Windows Live for Mobile included in Windows Mobile 6.
• New Security features such as remote wiping capabilities if your device is lost or stolen.
• Enhanced Windows Vista Synchronization through Windows Mobile Device Center.
• Calendar ribbon gives you your important appoints quickly.
• Contacts with context – call records now attached to individual contact cards in Windows Mobile 6.
• .NET Compact Framework and SQL Server built in to Windows Mobile 6.
  

According to estimates, Microsoft sold 3 million licenses of Windows Mobile last quarter, up 90 percent from a year earlier, and is now boasting with fruitful partnerships signed with Samsung (for the BlackJack model), T-Mobile (Dash) or Palm’s Treo.

Windows Mobile 6 is built using the same core as the WM5-the Window CE 5- so all applications which run on WM5 should work fine with the new edition. "We hope to be 100 percent compatible," said John O'Rourke, a general manager in Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded devices unit. "If an application works in Windows Mobile 5, it should work on Windows Mobile 6."

Windows CE (sometimes abbreviated WinCE) is a variation of Microsoft's Windows operating system for minimalist computers and embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinctly different kernel, rather than a "trimmed down" version of desktop Windows. Windows CE kernel is built to run even with less than a megabyte of memory. Windows CE 5.0 is the most open Microsoft Operating System to date, though not all of the system is available under shared source agreements.

Since the kernels are similar, users of WM5 will be able to upgrade their OS just like an XP user upgrades for Windows Vista.

All Windows Mobile 6-powered phones will include the previously introduced Direct Push Technology for always up-to-date E-Mail delivery and automatic synchronization of Outlook calendars and contacts through Microsoft Exchange Server.

Windows Mobile 6 will also offer a set of important device security and management features including the ability to remotely wipe all data from a device should it be lost or stolen, ensuring that confidential information remains that way.

Users of Microsoft Office on the PC – of which there are nearly 400 million worldwide – will feel right at home with the new mobile versions of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint built for all Windows Mobile 6 smartphones. Windows Mobile 6 addresses extensive user feedback and incorporates enhancements from the new Microsoft Office Mobile, making information management easier and more convenient.

The software also offers a new Windows Live search engine that combines Internet search with the ability to find and map nearby locations, DelBene said.

Thus, the Redmond behemoth is trying to surge into Google’s market share, which is about 5 times bigger than Microsoft’s in search engines domain.

The Windows Mobile 6 platform will offer a variety of other security options, giving IT departments the choice of how best to secure a device, from new Exchange Server policies and certificate options, storage card encryption, and continued support for remote and local device wipe.

Organizations using Information Rights Management (IRM) technology to control the viewing, storing and printing of confidential information on PCs will be able to extend those same rights to Windows Mobile 6 devices, a feature not available on any other mobile phone platform.

Powerful, new mobile versions of the .NET Compact Framework and SQL Server are built into Windows Mobile 6 make it even easier to create and access sales tools, inventory tracking, and many other applications from a smartphone.

With another WM6 built-in application users will be able to easily transform their smartphone into a high-speed modem for their laptop ("one-click easy") with either a Bluetooth wireless or cable connection.

Windows Mobile 6 also makes it easier for operators and device makers to integrate a VoIP solution into a device they're building.

playfuls.com

Cell phone offerings set to boom: report

The market for content and services on cell phones is expected to grow to $150 billion by 2011, as access to the web while on the move becomes easier and faster, research from Informa Telecoms & Media showed.

The research firm said on Thursday that applications such as messaging led by traditional SMS messaging would still account for a lion's share of this market, generating over half of this revenue in 2011.

Informa predicted messaging services comprising SMS, multimedia messaging and instant messaging on cell phones will generate revenues worth $93 billion globally by 2011 from $60 billion last year and an expected $67.4 billion in 2007.

Entertainment services comprising games, music, TV, adult content and gambling would grow to $38 billion by 2011 from around $18.8 billion in 2006, it said.

"Mobile music will be a major contributor to the revenues achieved in the mobile entertainment market in the next five years, although its overall share of the market will fall from 40 percent in 2006 to 36 percent in 2011 as new forms of entertainment such as mobile TV and video services begin to gain consumer interest," Informa said in its report.

Not all of the explosion in new services, although helped by the availability of broadband speeds on cell phones, would go to cell phone operators.

"The introduction of a whole host of new players into the value chain presents new opportunities for growth in the mobile content and services market, whilst simultaneously posing a threat to mobile operators who face losing control of the billing relationship with their customers," Informa said.

It also forecast areas such as user-generated content, the rage of the Internet world in 2006, to come into the cell phone world in the years ahead. Informa forecast user-generated content and communities to be worth $13.2 billion by 2011.

Reuters

Bill Gates Introducing Windows Vista

From Times Square in New York City, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates hosted the worldwide launch of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System. The celebration paid tribute to the millions of Microsoft customers, partners and product testers around the world who provided input and feedback on these products -- helping Microsoft transform the way people communicate, create and share content, and access information and entertainment in the new digital age.

On-Demand Webcast

Microsto

New eBay Feature Allows Store "Markdowns"

eBay has introduced a new feature in its Stores product called Markdown Manager. The tool allows sellers to offer discounted pricing on Fixed Price and Store Inventory items. Sale items will display special strike-through pricing on the item page, along with a "Sale" logo, so buyers can easily see the discount offered.

PowerSellers Unite