by Jason Wilk on February 4, 2009
- According to BGR, this is an internal document from Sprint outlining all their product release dates for 2009. Just as we thought, the Pre will not be getting any delays from Apple patent pressure. The phone is set to jump onto shelves March. 15th. There hasn’t been a phone coming out of Sprint with this much Hype since….never. I’m expecting big lines for the new phone. Here is the memo below:
Device Name – Projected Warehouse EOL – Replacement (if available)
* Sierra Compass 597 USB – Early February – Sierra 598 USB
* Motorola ic602 – Early February
* LG 160 – Mid-February – Samsung M220
* LG Rumor (blue) – Mid February – LG 265 Rumor II (target in-stock 2/15)
* Motorola i325IS – Mid February – Motorola i365IS
* LG Rumor (green) – Mid March – LG 265 Rumor II (target in-stock 2/15)
* Franklin Wireless U680 USB – Early April
* Palm 800W – April – Palm Treo Pro (target in-stock 2/15)
* LG Rumor (black) – Mid April – LG 265 Rumor II (target in-stock 2/15)
* Motorola i615 – Mid April
* Samsung M520 Lumina – Mid April – LG LX370 (slider)
* RIM BlackBerry Pearl (red) – May
* LG LX400 – Late May
* Palm 755P (blue) – Late May – Palm Pre (target in-stock 3/15)
* Sanyo 6750 Eclipse (pink) – June
* Palm Centro (berry) – June
* Motorola Q9C – Mid June
* Sierra 597E – July – Sierra 2-in-1 Aircard
* Palm Centro (green) – July
* Palm Centro refresh (black) – July
* Motorola VE20 – July
* HTC Touch Diamond – July
* RIM BlackBerry 7100i – August – RIM BlackBerry 8350i
Other must read Sprint/Palm articles:
For Palm And Sprint, It’s All About Pricing
Palm Goes All In With The Pre
Telecom Oligapoly Over Text Message Pricing
The Mobile Platform War Heats Up
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by Jason Wilk on January 12, 2009
- A year after Sling Media’s was sold to EchoStar, co-founders and the top team at Sling Entertainment are leaving the company. Aside from co-founders Blake and Jason Krikorian, Jason Hirschhorn (President), Ben White (Chief Creative) and Greg Wilkes (VP-Sales) are exiting the company as well. Under the terms of the sale, each of the senior executives agreed to stay for one year. Sling Media, popular for it’s DVR that can record shows and stream them to your phone, computers elsewhere, was purchased for $380 million. EchoStar may or may not be in trouble here. After winning back-to-back ‘Best of Show’ at CES and Macworld, the company may be able to move on without the senior team allowing them to cut costs.
- Current COO, John Gilmore will take over for now. As for the team leaving, President Jason Hirschhorn promised EchoStar he would get the programming and integration through QA on new products and present them at one more CES conference. Now that CES is through, the team is ready to move on. Serial entrepreneur Blake Kirkorian must have something in the works, so keep an eye out for yet another groundbreaking product in the digital media space.
by Jason Wilk on January 2, 2009
- UK Mobile phone operator Orange is believed to be removing the BlackBerry Bold from its smartphone lineup due to ongoing technical problems (Telegraph). Since receiving far greater reviews at launch than the Storm, recently consumers have reported an overwhelming number of random crashes, poor reception and call drops. RIM has since seen a large increase in the number of unexpected returns on the phone.
- Orange previously has suspended shipments of the Bold in the past due to mandating RIM get a handle of seemingly obvious bugs in the phone software. This would be a big let down for RIM if they lose this contract, as the company is already under scrutiny for the poor performance of its other devices as well.
- If the Bold does get removed, it will only increase pressure on the upcoming launch of the new Blackberry Curve 8900.
by Jason Wilk on December 17, 2008
- It’s no secret anymore, the iPhone is popular (who knew?). It is so popular that it has been entirely strange to me that competitive carriers unable to strike a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone haven’t taken stronger action to do so. Well, that changes today.
- On September 18th, France’s third largest mobile operator Bouygues Telecom filed a complaint with the regulator, arguing the deal between Apple and its larger rival, violates local freedom of competition and pricing laws. Today, that ruling was passed, forcing Apple to cease its exclusive relationship with France Telecom’s Orange carrier. The French competition counsel ruled that Apple must open up the phone to other French carriers and French Telecom is further prohibited from signing any further exclusive deals with Apple in the event they release a new phone.
- The French Competion Counsel said:
Apple’s exclusive arrangement with Orange poses a serious and immediate threat to competition in the wireless sector and causes consumers to incur hefty and unjust fees should they attempt to switch providers. (A copy of the 48 page ruling can be seen here [PDF] in French.)
- France Telecom plans to appeal the issue, but it is likely that they won’t be able to get the decision turned around. This is a big win for consumers who should have the right to use whatever device they want with any carrier they choose. We will see how the carriers in the US who want to carry the iPhone react to the issue. Moreover, how will this ruling bleed over into neighboring European countries and extend into Apple’s upcoming deal with China to carry the phone in early 09′?
by Jason Wilk on December 2, 2008
- With international business and travel continuing to surge, AT&T customer have been up in arms lately due to escalated roaming charges for US subscribers.
- Now with the iPhone 3G working in Europe and Asia, suddenly “Turn Data Roaming Off” is not an option for AT&T customers wanting to use their phones for email, maps, SMS, Internet browsing and most importantly useful applications that need a data connection to push
- AT&T now charges $.0195/KB ($19.96/MB) while T-Mobile charges about $.015 ($15.36/MB). From a simple week trip of using mail and maps (no other applications), users like CrunchGear’s John Biggs have been racking up international phone bills of up to $736.
- AT&T is already losing a considerable amount of business to their savvy customers who have been using ‘pay as you go’ SIM cards or a MaxRoam SIM and a Rebel SIMCard for the iPhone 3G.
- Also, many customers have been ditching AT$T international data usage to purchase Boingo for Wi-Fi roaming in airports and, increasingly, cities.
- As usual, Europe is ahead of the game taking care of the problem. Last week, the European Commission, placed price caps on roaming SMS messages. The price cut was substantial, reducing retail text message prices from an average of 0.29 Euros to 0.11 Euros. The wholesale rate has been capped at 0.04 Euros.
- US carriers have done no such thing.
- What’s the solution for US carriers? Well, for starters, they need to beat their current international plans for data and voice usage. If AT&T doesn’t make any moves over the next couple years to do this and wi-fi becomes increasingly more present with plans like the US free wireless spectrum, they will have no choice but to make swift changes in their pricing.
- With mobile phones having been around for 20+ years now, and the relationships within the telecom industry amongst the major carriers of the world, I think it is time to offer customers a realistic solution, whether that be free data and VOIP capabilities via third party applications or a significant decrease in price for all.
- Thoughts on solutions beyond this?
Something I have always thought as a viable plan: Since business travellers can most often be pinpointed to sticking within major cities. Let the US carriers swap part of their spectrum with the carriers like Vodafone in Europe. US travellers can purchase a cheap additional plan for business travel to major destinations where once they are in the city, can use their phone as if they were back in the US (or Europeans travelling here using their phones as if they were in Europe). Let the carriers split the revenue. Now you can at least make it through your business trip for a small additional fee with no hassles. Is that feasible? Maybe not, but it’s certainly better than what we’ve got.CG
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