25 to 34 Yr. Olds Most Likely to Subscribe to Mobile Internet

comScore Inc. completed a study to determine the demographic that is most likely to access the Internet from their mobile phones. They grouped respondents into three groups. The "cellular generation" represented 18 to 24 year olds. The "transitioners" represented 25 to 34 year olds, and the "adult adopters represented those 35 years old and older.

The results showed that "transitioners", those between the ages of 24 and 35, are most likely to use their wireless phone to access the internet.

"The cellular generation is more apt to view their cellphone as an expression of their individuality and a mobile entertainment device that conveys their social status. But transitioners are close behind in their desire to purchase trendy phones. The cellular generation places the greatest value on features such as text messaging and instant messaging, while their more senior counterparts were found to take a more functional view. And that’s where transitioners outdid the cellular generation, with 29 percent subscribing to Internet services on their cellphones compared to 23 percent among younger users."

Source: www.rcrnews.com

Cingular 4th Quarter Results

Cingular posted record numbers in the last quarter that it will be known by that name. In 2007, Cingular will be re-branded as AT&T.

Wall Street measures wireless carrier by the normal financial data - revenues and net income, but the other measurements that are specific to the industry are ARPU, churn, and net subscriber additions. ARPU stands for average revenue per user and measures the average expenditure of a subscriber per month. Data ARPU is becoming another measurement that wireless carriers are tracking and represents the average expenditure that a subscriber spends on data services per month. Churn represents the number of subscribers that have left a carrier, so a very low churn number is desired. Net subscriber additions measures the number of gross subscriber additions minus the number of subscribers that left, therefore, a low churn number has a positive effect on net subscriber additions. The results for Cingular in the 4th quarter of 2006 are:

Revenue: $9.8 billion - increase of 10.2% over last quarter
Net Income: $782 million - up from $204 million last quarter, a 283% increase!
ARPU: $49.29 - an increase of 1%
Data ARPU: $7.19 - an increase of 53%
Churn: 1.8% - down from 2.1% last year. Postpaid churn is 1.5%
Net Customer Additions: 2.4 million, a Cingular record and an increase over 1.8 million during the same quarter last year. Cingular ended the year with 61 million total subscribers, the most of any wireless carrier.

Agreements that will aid Cingular (now at&t) in 2007 are exclusive agreements with MySpace and Apple, the combination of at&t allowing bundling opportunities, and increased investment in their high-speed wireless network, which currently lags way behind the competition.

Businesses Spend on Wireless

Businesses were open to spending a portion of their 2006 telecommunications budgets on wireless, according to a new Insight Research study that found nearly one-third of business' telecom spending budgets were earmarked for wireless services.

Last year, corporate wireline telecommunications expenditures still accounted for nearly 70% of revenue. Looking ahead, however, not much growth is expected in the wireline segment. Wireless service revenues are expected to increase at a compounded rate of 8% annually from 2006 to 2011.

As a whole, U.S. businesses spent more than $132 billion on telecommunications services last year. Insight predicts that number will increase to nearly $154 billion by 2011.

"The price wars we've seen over the past six years are over, but revenue growth in wireline services is not forecasted to bounce back," said Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight, in a prepared statement. "Wireline revenue growth will be constrained by the growth of wireless spending, though that increase is going to be uneven across the various business sectors," he added.

For its research, Insight studied 14 vertical industries categorized by the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system, according to the research firm.

Source: www.wirelessweek.com

Cisco Sues Apple over use of iPhone Trademark

Due to all of the buzz over the years, it makes sense that the launch of the Apple iPhone would not happen without some form of controversy. Cisco, who owns the iPhone trademark and already sells Voice over IP products using the iPhone name, sued Apple for trademark infringement just one day after Apple announced the iPhone. Cisco acquired the iPhone trademark when it bought Infogear in 2000. Infogear originally filed for the iPhone trademark in 1996.

Apple has been in negotiations with Cisco for several years, first approaching them in 2001 regarding use of the iPhone trademark. Negotiations broke down the night before the announcement from Apple.

"We think Cisco's trademark lawsuit is silly," Apple spokesman Alan Hely said. "There are already several companies using the name iPhone for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) products. We are the first company to ever use the iPhone name for a cell phone, and if Cisco wants to challenge us on it we are very confident we will prevail."

Music Enable Phones Get Much Attention in 2006

The music and entertainment business will be glad to hear that 23.5 million mobile- phone subscribers—one in 10 customers—in the United States now have handsets with integrated music players, up five times from the same period in 2005, according to recently published research from Telephia.

Nearly 20 percent of the new cellphones purchased in the third quarter of 2006 were music capable, and while many of those subscribers report loading music onto their handsets via computer, only 8.5 percent reported they had downloaded music over the air from a wireless carrier music store, according to the study.

Mobile phones with integrated music players have been in the U.S. market for more than two years and over-the-air music purchasing is still not available on all major carriers. Sprint and Verizon Wireless do offer such services. Of the more than $3.5 billion spent on carrier advertising in 2006, $234.3 million was spent to promote music phones and music download services, according to the report.

Sprint Keeps Track of Kids by Monitoring School Buses

Global Positioning System service offered by Sprint will allow school districts to track the locations of their school bus fleets. The service will also show administrators which pupils are aboard the buses and the stops where they get off.

The iX-3 system, designed by Sprint partner Everyday Wireless, uses the carrier’s iDEN network and GPS signals to track a bus’ location. It can also track rider attendance, and can send automatic alerts if a student gets off at the wrong stop. Finally, the service can also generate automated rider reports for school districts that are required to file such reports in order to receive state and federal funding.

The technology “does not delay the boarding and disembarking process,” according to the companies. Other features include integration with Sprint Nextel’s iDEN push-to-talk service, direct dispatch, two-way text messaging and live audio monitoring and recording.

According to Bill Bair, director of transportation for the Colorado Springs School District, the Everyday Wireless system “has significantly reduced the number of complaints that we received from schools and parents.” He said the technology has “eliminated the need to make return phone calls to parents since now we have the ability to address their issues immediately be looking at up-to-date data.”

Source: www.rcrnew.com

Sprint Launches New Pricing Plans

As of January 14th, Sprint will be offering new "Power Pack" individual and family plans. This is a change from the previous "Fair and Flexible" plans. The new plans emphasize Sprint's early nights-and-weekend starting time, no roaming charges, and unlimited mobile to mobile. Customers will also have the opportunity to buy blocks of 50 anytime minutes for $5.

The plans are great when looking at other carriers. For example, Sprint's unlimited nights-and-weekends starts at 7:00 PM, where the competition starts at 9:00 PM. If you add this up, that's 120 free minutes a day or 3600 free minutes over a month. With Verizon or Cingular, those 3600 minutes would be charged at $.45/minute or $540, but with Sprint they are free!! The other benefit is the option to purchase blocks of 50 anytime minutes for $5, or $.10/minute. Without purchasing the block, the minutes would be charged $.45 or $22.5.

Visit www.Sprint.com for more information.

Boost Mobile to Offer Unlimited Calling Plans

Sprint is planning to launch an unlimited local calling plan through the Boost Mobile MVNO. Boost Mobile provides pre-paid service and targets the urban youth market. The unlimited local calling plan will compete with current offerings provided by MetroPCS and Leap Wireless. The pre-paid and sub-prime wireless market is experiencing significant growth.

Boost Mobile, historically, has used Sprint's iDEN network to offer service. This will change with the new local calling service, as the offering will use Sprint's CDMA network. The service will not be launched nationwide. Sprint will look to launch the service in areas where there is extra CDMA network capacity. Sprint will also look to launch the service in markets where MetroPCS and Leap Wireless do not currently operate.

There are still issues that Sprint will need to address internally, such as segmentation and cross structure, so that the new unlimited calling service does not cannibalize other Sprint product offerings. However, the company feels that the service is needed to address a gap in product offerings. Also, a lower-cost service with lower credit requirements will allow Sprint to offer an alternative to potential customers or those who may churn to other wireless carriers.

Source: www.rcrnews.com

Verizon Adds Additional EV-DO Markets

Verizon has expanded it EVDO coverage to include portions of Alabama and Louisiana.
The latest service launch in Alabama covers the Greater Tuscaloosa area as well as the University of Alabama. Tuscaloosa follows other recent launches in the state. The EV-DO network also is up and running in Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile and Montgomery, Ala.

In Louisiana, the carrier expanded its EV-DO coverage to include Hammond. Verizon Wireless launched wireless broadband coverage in New Orleans in early 2004 and expanded the wireless broadband coverage area to include most of the North Shore in June of 2005.

The service launches give subscribers access to Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess and V CAST services. With regard to the Hammond launch, Verizon says the upgrade will strengthen the carrier during emergencies. Earlier this week, Verizon Wireless extended the reach of its high-speed wireless network into more parts of Ohio. The latest rollout covered Allen, Auglaize and Hardin counties and Sandusky. The carrier calculates that its EV-DO network now covers about 200 million people in the United States.

Source: www.wirelessweek.com

Sprint Provide Exclusive "24" Content

Great news for the fans of the hit TV show "24". Sprint will begin providing exclusive "24" content to its mobile subscribers starting in February. Sprint originally teamed with the TV show during it first season. This season, the exclusive content will give subscribers access to sneak previews, show-related quizzes and games, ringers and images, and the "24" logo. Sprint will also provide a Survival Guide manual that is updated bi-weekly with tips to overcome the direst circumstances that may arise during a "covert op." Subscribers also have the opportunity to win a trip to Spy Camp. The show also provides product placement for Sprint's wireless products.

Source: www.wirelessweek.com

AT&T to Start Re-Branding Cingular

AT&T will begin a campaign to rebrand Cingular starting Monday, January 15. Cingular will eventually be known as AT&T, not AT&T Wireless. The service will be referred to as "Wireless from AT&T". Executives want to use the same brand for all of the telecom services provided by the merged company. AT&T now provides local and long distance, wireless, internet and TV. AT&T will launch national advertising to let customers know that "Cingular is now the new AT&T." That feature products will end with the Cingular "Jack" spinning or swirling to morph into the AT&T globe. Other commercials are being created simply communicate the brand change. They will feature scenes where it looks like the Cingular "bars" are being illustrated and zoom out to show that it was actually the AT&T globe. As Cingular begins to officially change their name, subscribers will be notified about changes on their bills. AT&T will also begin taking advantage of Cingular's retail presence and advertising AT&T wireline service in stores that are located in AT&T service areas.

About 2,000 company-owned retail stores and kiosks will be re-branded over the coming year, and employees will begin wearing AT&T-branded apparel in the coming months. Even sooner, Cingular customers will start hearing the AT&T name on Cingular voice greetings and begin seeing related messages in their bills. AT&T estimated that about 20 percent of the operating expense savings from its acquisition of BellSouth will come from moving the three operations to a single brand.

Source: www.phonescoop.com

Verizon Increases Cost of Text Messages

Verizon has increased the cost to send and receive text messages. The new rate is $.15 per inbound/outbound message, five cents increase from the old rate of $.10. The price increase becomes effective on March 1st and will not apply to those customers who subscribe to a text messaging plan. As Sprint did, Verizon will allow subscribers who are not on a text messaging plan to opt out of their contracts without having to pay an early termination fee.

Verizon joins both Sprint and Cingular, who increased their text messaging prices at the end of last year. T-Mobile is the last of the Big 4 carriers to still charge $.10 per message.

The iPhone is Finally Unveiled

After years of buzz, Apple has finally announced the iPhone, a combination of a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and an Internet communication device with email, web browsing, searching and maps. The phone operates similar to an iPod and a Smartphone. One cool feature is the iPhone's Visual Voicemail, co-developed by Apple and Cingular. This feature allows users to look at a listing of their voicemails, decide which messages to listen to, then go directly to those messages without having to listening to the prior messages. The iPhone has a full QWERTY soft keyboard. The touch keyboard will appear when users need to type and uses predictive text. The phone also includes a 2.0-megapixel camera.

iPhone also features Cover Flow, Apple's way to browse the music library by album cover artwork on an iPod. When navigating the music library, consumers are automatically switched into Cover Flow by rotating iPhone into its landscape position. iPhone's stunning 3.5-inch widescreen plays the same videos purchased from the online iTunes Store that users enjoy watching on their computers and iPods. iPhone is a quad-band GSM phone which also features EDGE and Wi-Fi wireless technologies for data networking. iPhone includes support for quad-band GSM, EDGE, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR wireless technologies.

iPhone will be available in the US in June 2007, Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008, in a 4GB model for $499 (US) and an 8GB model for $599 (US), and will work with either a PC or Mac. iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple's retail and online stores, and through Cingular's retail and online stores.

Source: www.mobiledia.com

Sprint's Announces WiMax Plans

Chicago and Washington, D.C. will be the first WiMax markets deployed by Sprint. The WiMax network will cover at least 100 milion people by the end of 2008. The initial WiMAX markets are supposed to be online by the end of this year with additional markets selected based on market-readiness estimates. Sprint is in the midst of building out its EV-DO Rev A network, which currently covers more than 60 million pops. Sprint is the first and only carrier who has commercially announced Rev A service.

Nokia Corp. will provide the network equipment for the WiMAX network, and Motorola Inc. will be developing chip sets for devices. According to Sprint Nextel, Samsung Corp. will develop chip sets and has also committed to producing half a dozen WiMAX-capable devices, including “ultra mobile” PCs and personal media players. LG Electronics Co. Ltd. intends to develop “an infotainment device that would work on the Sprint Nextel WiMAX network.” Intel Corp. has already completed the design of a single-chip, multi-band WiMAX/Wi-Fi chipset that the company says it will “sample in card and module forms in late 2007.” The WiMAX network technology and future applications are being demonstrated this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Verizon Inks Deal with NHL

Verizon Wireless announced a multi-year deal to become the “official wireless service provider” of the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players’ Association in the United States. As part of the deal, Verizon Wireless will have exclusive marketing and promotional rights to NHL events, including the All-Star Game, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Awards Show and Entry Draft.

Through the new partnership, Verizon Wireless will have a significant presence on NBC, enabling new online and in-store advertising and marketing promotions. For its part, the NHL will receive prime positioning on the Verizon Wireless main deck. The carrier will also provide its customers with NHL game video highlights and NHL wallpapers, images and ringtones.

“Verizon Wireless customers can now show their love of hockey, their team and favorite players with their phones, giving the NHL and NHLPA another way to extend their relationship with fans beyond the ice,” said John Harrobin, vice president of digital media and advertising for Verizon Wireless.

Verizon Announces Vcast TV

As expected, Verizon Wireless has officially announced its mobile TV service. V Cast TV uses Qualcomm's MediaFLO technology to provide broadcast TV to US consumers for the first time. The service will launch later in the first quarter, but Verizon has already revealed some specifics.
Content partners include MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, NBC News, NBC Entertainment, CBS and Fox. ESPN is currently under negotiation and showed up on the demo handsets but wasn't in the official anouncement.

Programs are carried "live" but Verizon Wireless is putting an emphasis on the "best of TV" so while the prime time line ups might sync up there might be a replay of CSI on in the morning instead of a game show. The content is long form so it's the entire show, news cast or sports game. There will be commercials in the content just like there is on conventional TV and in many cases you will see the same ads (for national runs) but Verizon is also looking at selling their own more like a cable provider. Qualcomm had previously talked about time shifting content with MediaFLO but this won't be part of the V Cast TV launch.

There will be two handsets available at launch: the Samsung u620 and the LG VX9400. Both phones feature a dedicated TV button and the ability to view video in landscape. More V Cast TV handsets are expected to be announced later in the year. While pricing has not yet been announced there will be an extra fee in addition to the regular V Cast fee. CEO Denny Strigl hinted that the price, "Will be affordable" but offered no more details. One spokesman joked that the handsets will be priced to sell and not to admire.

Cingular Launches Treo 750

Cingular Wireless has officially announced the Palm Treo 750. The long awaited device is the first Treo from Cingular to have either 3G or Windows Mobile. The 750 has been shipping in Europe for quite some time but faced delays getting certified in the US. While the Treo 750 is a 3G device (in both the US and Europe) it does not yet use HSDPA, the most advanced standard. Palm noted to MobileTracker that a software update will make the Treo 750 compatible with HSDPA and that the company hopes to be able to push that update to Cingular customers at a future date.

Features of the Treo 750 include:
- Quad-band GSM/EDGE plus UMTS 850/1900/2100
- Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC phone edition
- 240×240 pixel touch screen
- 1.3 megapixel camera
- 60MB of user-available storage plus a miniSD card slot
- Bluetooth with A2DP support

Cingular will begin selling the Palm Treo 750 tomorrow. It will retail for $399.99 after a 2-year service contract. Cingular also carries the Treo 680 which is a paired down version that is being marketed more towards consumers.

Cingular Plans Live Video Sharing

Cingular plans to make video service commercially available in 2007, allowing users to send a live video stream to a recipient during a standard voice call. Beginning with a normal phone call, customers can hit one button to add a live video stream, allowing the called party to see what the caller is seeing while they're talking. The service also allows customers to switch the direction of the video stream during the same phone call.

For example, a couple in San Antonio would place a regular voice call to their parents in Miami, and once the call is connected, hit the camera button on the phone to start the video session. The parents receive an invitation asking if they want to view the live video stream, and once accepted, they begin seeing the video shot by the kids in San Antonio. The speakerphone turns on and the proud new grandparents in Miami can see a live video of their granddaughter taking her first steps or saying her first words.

Cingular is showcasing its 3G UMTS / HSDPA (Universal Mobile Telephone System / High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) network and recently deployed IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) platform to provide the video service. Other companies participating in the demo are Alcatel / Lucent (Las Vegas 3G network and IMS platform) and LG Electronics (LG CU500v phone).

AT&T…The New Cingular

Wireless is expected to be the heart of the newly merged AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp., bundling multiple services with cellular and allowing advertisers to reach multiple media platforms through one company. And that wireless heart will be the nation’s largest carrier, Cingular Wireless L.L.C., under the AT&T brand.

The new AT&T eventually will mean the demise of the successful Cingular brand. The re-branding of Cingular will begin shortly, according to AT&T, and will take place over a period of months. AT&T offered few details about the transition, but indicated that it will do a co-branded campaign that is scheduled to start early this year and use the phrase “Cingular is now AT&T.” The company noted that it has already begun extensive new advertising that will transition the BellSouth brand name to AT&T.

Sprint Looking for New Advertising

Citing a need for "fresh thinking," Sprint, which spends $1.6 billion in marketing, has placed the creative portion of its advertising account into review. Sprint said it is seeking an ad agency that can provide it with a 'differentiated message.' Company spokeswoman Mary Nell Westbrook said Sprint informed its long-term agencies, TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, which handles consumer advertising, and Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco, its agency for business-to-business advertising, that it is "open to any options to bring us back to a competitive position" in the wireless marketplace.

After Sprint acquired Nextel in the summer of 2005, the merged company kept both incumbent shops and divided duties between them. A spokeswoman for Publicis & Hal Riney said the agency was assessing whether it would participate in the review. The agency developed the black trenchcoat-wearing "Sprint guy" (played by actor Brian Baker) who espoused the virtues of the wireless service in more than 150 ads from 1999 to 2005. He was dropped after TBWA won the consumer account following a pitch. In the fall, TBWA developed ads featuring actor Ron Livingston discussing the Sprint network in a straightfoward, plain-talking manner as part of a "Power Up" branding strategy.

Westbrook said the wireless service provider is looking for a "differentiated message" as "one element of many when we look at regaining our momentum in the marketplace." She said the company would release a shortlist within a few weeks. The goal is to have an agency by the end of the first quarter, possibly in March or April.

Sprint Releases Sanyo M1

Sprint today announced the full-channel availability of the Sanyo M1, Sprint's first phone with 1GB of internal memory. Able to offer storage for up to 16 hours of music and other multimedia files including pictures, video clips and voice recording, the M1 also provides quick and easy access to Sprint-exclusive content, including Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV, NFL Mobile, Sprint Movies, and Sprint Power View.

The M1's advanced power management offers up to 18 hours of continuous music-playing time to support extended use of the multimedia capabilities. Additional key features include stereo Bluetooth wireless technology, a 2.0-megapixel camera with auto-focus, nine equalizer settings for fine-tuning the listening experience, and background music mode for listening to music while checking email, surfing the Web or sending text messages. The M1 also has external controls and large external LCD for optimal usability. The Sanyo M1 is available through all Sprint retail channels for a suggested retail price of $349.99 or $199.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement.

Sprint Announces Motorola Q

Sprint announced the planned availability of the Motorola Q in mid-February. Slim and stylish, the Q operates on the Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Platform with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack and gives customers easy access to mobile email, Web, calendar, music, video and phone functionality in one pocket-sized device. Exclusive features available only from Sprint include:
- Sprint Mobile Broadband Service
- Customized Sprint Powerdeck
- NFL Mobile
- On Demand Content

Sprint is enabling the Motorola Q with flexible connectivity options including phone-as-modem functionality to allow customers to use the device with a laptop for high-speed data access via the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network.

Mobile Phones without Keypads

The keypad on the mobile handset is due for an extreme makeover. Between innovative keypad technologies, dedicated music player buttons and other innovations already on the market, this change is upon us. Check out Nokia Corp.’s so-called “lipstick” phone, model 7380, for a glance at the future. Ironically, according to a recent ARCchart Ltd. study that explores the topic, the technology for this extreme makeover is proven and available today. Consumer acceptance, rather than technological barriers, poses the main hurdle to adoption of a new paradigm.

Creeping incrementalism, rather than radical, rapid change, will likely be the theme of this shift, according to Bill Ray, analyst with ARCchart and lead author of the study, “Handset Input Interface Methods and Technologies: 2007-2011.” In its five-year forecast, ARCchart sees keypads—on 94 percent of devices shipped last year—dropping to 80 percent of devices by 2011. The even more ubiquitous, five-way navigation device—typically, joysticks or joypads with left, right, up, down and enter modes—will give way more rapidly, ARCchart contends, replaced by capacitance detection and fingerprint sensors. (Where current buttons react to pressure, “capacitance detection” refers to a device’s sensitivity to the conductivity of a human finger.)

Pharos Launches GPS Smartphone

GPS firm Pharos launched its first hybrid GPS/cell phone, a Windows Mobile smartphone called the Pharos GPS Phone. The GPS Phone is a pull-out-all-the-stops Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC, with a top-notch SirfStar III GPS chip and a range of high-end features. It's a quad-band GSM world phone, with high-speed Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, and an EDGE cellular modem. You can take pictures with a 2-megapixel camera, or listen to a built-in FM radio. The device has a 2.8-inch, 320-by-240 touch screen, but no built-in QWERTY keyboard.

Pharos has made the unusual choice of selling the GPS Phone unlocked, letting users pop in an existing Cingular or T-Mobile SIM card. While this keeps the price high, at $699.95, it lets Pharos bring the phone to market without the drag of carrier approval processes—so it will be on sale next month.

There are a bunch of other GPS/PDA/phone combinations available, but the Pharos model is unusually high-spec. The HP iPAQ hw6925, sold by Cingular for $359.99 with contract, has an even smaller screen and a lower-res camera. Several Blackberry models on Sprint, Nextel and Alltel (but not Verizon Wireless), most notably the 8703e, have built-in GPS and work with the Telenav driving-directions service. You can also get Bluetooth GPS receivers for most Palm and Windows Mobile PDAs, and Sprint offers GPS and driving directions on many of their non-smartphones. None of those other options matches the Pharos' full set of features, setting the Pharos at the high end of the market right now. The Pharos GPS Phone will sell for $699.95.

RIM and Kodiak Partner for Push-to-Talk

Kodiak Networks, a leading mobile solutions innovator, announced that it has signed a global licensing agreement with Research In Motion (RIM) to feature a series of integrated mobile applications including Push-to-Talk (PTT) on BlackBerry® handsets. Kodiak's applications target business and leisure users and are featured on the BlackBerry® Pearl™ available from Cingular Wireless. The licensing agreement allows RIM to integrate a Java version of the Kodiak handset client with BlackBerry handsets and enables joint development and marketing efforts. The Kodiak mobile applications capability appeals broadly to all users who need instant communications for personal and professional use.