Business Anywhere Blog

We have talked about the various concept phones that the formidible KDDI au Design Project is working on including the Ply and the musical instrument phones. Today at CEATEC event in Japan, KDDI showed of those phones and a few others including two that look like satellites and have solar panels on them for charging. Take a look at the gallery and keep your fingers crossed that these become reality some day soon.

[Via AkihabaraNews] 

AT&T has announced the dates of the Blackberry Bold launch parties around the country. According the announcement, the New York launch is the last and it will be on October 30th. So, I think we can safely assume that the Blackberry Bold will be launched shortly thereafter, maybe on November 1st.

[Via Crackberry]

Looks like the Blackberry Storm is here. Well, actually, just the dummy, floor models are in the Verizon store. And Crackberry user manage to get some photos of the dummy. Clearly, the photos indicate the launch date is approaching fast, though no word on the actual launch date yet. However, what is intriguing is that if you look closely at the blurred background in one of the shots, there is a price of $149. Is that what this is going to be priced at with two year contract? I doubt it but then again I hope so.

[Via Crackberry]

LG yesterday announced a new touchscreen phone, the KP500. From a specs perspective, this is a very standard smartphone:

However, the interesting thing about this is that it is targeted towards the lower to mid-market. According to LG, the phone comes ‘with an affordable introduction price never offered before. ” The LG KP500 will be available at the end of October 2008 in Europe and then on to the rest of the world. The price of the LG KP500 will be announced during the launch. There is also a promo video to go with it.

[Via UnwiredView]

It appears that Samsung is spreading holiday cheer to AT&T and Verizon and launching a number of phones including maybe the Omnia. In addition to the Omnia, there are atleast three new phones headed for AT&T. The first one is the i907, aka the Mirage which is confirmed to be the BlackJack III. This i907 has a touch sensitive screen with QWERTY keyboard a la the BlackJack II and runs on Windows Mobile 6.0. It runs on a quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA network and comes with optical mouse, Wi-Fi and 2MPxl camera. A similar package running CDMA/GSM hybrid is headed for Verizon Wireless as SCH-770.

The SGH-A867 is another Omnia look-alike but without Wi-Fi. Details are scarce on it other than it is safe to say that it is not the Omnia as that model is the i900. My guess is that the A867 is a mid-to-lower range smartphone.

Finally, there is the A767 Sangria. It too has limited information available except that it looks like the i620 and is 3G with Bluetooth phone, planned for late October launch.

Also rumored is that the Samsung Omnia may launch with Verizon Wireless in time for the holidays. No model numbers or other details are available.

Rumor has it that Verizon and Apple are teaming up to release iPhone on the VZW network in 2009, according to the 9to5Mac. Cleve Nettles, the author of the article has laid out some compelling reasons why that would be the case including, number of job postings on Apple site for EVDO developers, Apple interest in expanding its footprint, Apple just launched an unlocked version of iPhone in Hong Kong and above all the AT&T exclusivity was never confirmed via documentary evidence. So, the exclusivity agreement might be coming to an end or there never was one.

Apparently, negotiations between Apple and Verizon are ongoing and will be completed by end of the year. So, Cleve thinks the announcement will be made during the Macworld next year.

This news is definitely good for Apple, I am not sure whether Verizon gains anything out of it, especially since it will have a highly-anticipated touchscreen phone out soon too and with all the issues the iPhone has with the 3G connection. The only thing I feel that Verizon can get out of this is a boost to their Open Network initiative.

Samsung today announced a new 8Mpxl camera phone called the Pixon. The phone is a quad-band GSM network with HSPDA support. The camera comes with autofocus, smile recognition, geotagging and 30 fps digital video recording and 120 fps slow motion video recording. The phone itself is a 3.2 inches touchscreen phone with 200MB internal memory and microSD card slot. It weighs 121 grams and at 13.8 mm, is pretty slim. The phone will be launched in mid-October in France, followed by launch in most European and Asian countries. Looks like North America will miss out on this phone. No word on pricing yet.

[Via Engadget, AkihabaraNews]

Here are some more marketing pics for the upcoming Verizon launch of the Blackberry Storm, courtesy of Crackberry.com. Clearly, Verizon is busy working to get the launch material ready. Now, when will it launch the product. Verizon, give me a sign, any sign

Clearly the current economic climate is beginning to affect the mobile business. Last week RIM released stellar Q2 earnings but with downward guidance for Q3. Another sign of that is today’s announcement by Nokia that it was “renewing” its business mobility strategy. It is shutting down its behind-the-firewall mobility solutions business and is in talks to sell its security appliance business. It is also talking up its relationship with Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and others. To me it appears that Nokia has decided that it does not expect enterprises to invest in mobility solutions until such time as the economic climate improves. As a result of this, Nokia realizes that it will have an uphill task to win sales against entrenched solution providers like the ones named above.

The wait for Blackberry Bold may soon be over in US. It appears Best Buy might be carrying the phone starting October 26, according to the internal document that Boy Genius Report manage to snag.

If this is true, than we can expect AT&T to launch the phone a few weeks in advance. So, does that mean it will be available in early October? Or will this be a simultaneous launch?