Mark Evans

What’s Reasonable for the iPhone, Rogers?

Update: ehMac.ca appears to have got hold of an e-mail being sent to stores that will sell the 3G iPhone in Canada. The data packages looking surprisingly reasonable:

- Consumer Data Plan (must be added to qualified voice plan): $30 - Unlimited Data (E-mail/Web), includes Visual Voicemail when subscribed to any voicemail service.
- Enterprise Data Plan (must be added to qualified voice plan): $45 – Unlimited Data with personal and corporate e-mail, web, includes Visual Voicemail when subscribed to any voicemail service.

For consumers, it looks like the iPhone will cost you about $80 to $90/month, including voice service.

One of the great mysteries of the Canadian wireless market is how much Rogers will charge for data plans when it launches the 3G iPhone next month.

So, it was interesting to hear Rogers COO Nadir Mohamed say that wireless prices will “evolve” as subscribers begin using their wireless phones for more than just voice, and that “you will see more value in our pricing as we go forward”.

The key question facing Rogers is how it defines “more value in our pricing”. Without a doubt, the iPhone will be smash hit in Canada but the degree to which it becomes a smash hinges on what Rogers will charge for data plans.

If it follows the AT&T route - highly unlikely - and charges $30/month for unlimited data, the iPhone will be red hot. If, however, Rogers follows its traditional worship of the ARPU model, then we could be looking at $50, $60 or $70/month plans that could include bandwidth caps.

So, what’s Rogers going to do - play nice and enjoy a wave of iPhone customers - new and existing - or be financially conservative and see how much it can squeeze from the iPhone crowd.

One consideration that Rogers will have to take into account is there’s an estimated 100,000 Canadians using cracked iPhones already. If it offers the right data packages, many of these iPhone users will come in from the cold. If not, they’ll stay in the shadows.

Another question is how big the iPhone could be in Canada. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky estimates 300,000 iPhones could be sold in Canada (although it’s not clear over what period of time that will happen).

In any event, 300,000 iPhone customers paying $40/month would generate $144-million of data revenue/year - as well voice revenue and loyal customers. The ball’s in your court, Rogers, what you going to say?

Technorati Tags: Canada, iPhone, Rogers

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The Mainstream-ification of GPS

GPS technology has been around for 30 years and existed as a consumer device for the past decade, slowly moving from an expensive novelty (”Hey, I can tell where I’m located using a satellite!”) to something looming on the periphery of the mainstream as prices decline, devices becomes more user-friendly and more services are created.

But based on anecdotal experience and the fact you can’t browse through a consumer electronics flyer without seeing multiple GPS units vying for your attention, 2008 is going to be the year GPS truly goes mainstream.

In some respects, GPS has been a cool technology looking for a problem to solve. It was great for people, for example, who did outdoor sports such as camping, mountain climbers and hikers and for geocaching. but it was arguably a niche product.

For whatever reason, the GPS market has evolved or matured. It now appears the GPS has found its mainstream sweet-spot as a must-have for drivers going from point A to point B - a huge market. No matter if you’re tooling around town or taking long trips, the GPS is starting to appeal to everyone. In fact, it’s starting to replace map books such as Perly’s that people kept in the glove box of their cars.

With GPS units being easy to use and configure, there’s little pain of buying a $100 to $300 unit from a GPS maker such as Garmin and TomTom. Even if you don’t use it that often, more people see clearly having one as no longer a luxury but a requirement.

Meanwhile, GPS is making aggressive inroads in the cell phone market where more units are GPS-equiped - something carriers love because it generates even more revenue/users. Most of these services cost $5 to $10/month and give you everything from voice navigation and restaurant reviews to event listings.

Now, if they made GPS units for urban bicycle commuters, then I might consider one to navigate Toronto’s network of back alleys.
Note: Last year, 33.9 million GPS units were sold compared with 11.9 million in 2006. In the U.S., 10% of drivers own a GPS device compared with 20% in Europe. And speaking of GPS, you know it’s really hit the mainstream when you see lots of interest in a story about a Swedish art student who created a large “drawing” using GPS.

Technorati Tags: GPS

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The Bold and the Beautiful (New Blackberry Fund)

For all of the Blackberry’s impressive success over the past few years, it has, for the most part, remained the best wireless devices to send and receive e-mail. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a one-trick pony but when people think of the Blackberry, they think of a durable, dependable device for staying in contact.

That, however, hasn’t deterred Research in Motion from aggressively driving into the pro-sumer market with devices such as the Pearl, while trying to diversify into corporate base through software partners with companies such as SAP.

More evidence of RIM’s strategic vision has emerged over the past couple of days:

First up is the creation of the Blackberry Partners Fund, a $150-million venture capital fund that will invest in mobile applications and services for the Blackberry, including m-commerce, enterprise applications, location-based services, media, entreatment and lifestyle and productivity applications. Investors in the fund, co-managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners, include RIM, Thomson Reuters and several private Canadian investors.

The Blackberry Parters Fund comes on the heels of Kleiner Perkins’ $100-million iFund, which will invest in startups to create applications for Apple’s iPhone. The iFund’s focus will be location based services, social networking, m-commerce, communication, and entertainment.

More coverage of the Blackbery Partners Fund can be seen on TechCrunch and VentureBeat, which has an interview with JLA’s Rick Segal.

The other interesting piece of Blackberry news is the unveiling of the much-anticipated Blackberry 9000, now known as the Bold. If RIM wasn’t going directly after consumers and going head-to-head with the iPhone before, the Bold makes it obvious the gloves are off and the battle has begun. The Bold comes wit one GB of built-in memory (which can be expanded to 8GB), a better Web browser (finally!), GPS, brighter screen and a video camera. And it will run on HSDPA networks.

BusinessWeek’s Tech Beat describes the Bold as the “new super-Blackberry” while Boy Genius Report, which was way ahead on the story, has photos and the official press release. The Bold will sell for $300 to $500.

If you’re into smart phones, the biggest challenge in 2008 could be choice.

Update: Rick Segal has a post on the Blackberry fund as well.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, iPhone, Venture Capital

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With a Blackberry, Are You a 7/24 Employee?

Awhile ago, I had a discussion while playing golf with a high-tech executive, who checked his Blackberry throughout the round.

When I suggested that having a Blackberry tethered him to work all the time, he countered that having a Blackberry gave him the freedom to do things like attend his child’s school concerts because he wasn’t “away” from the office. It’s nice to think having a Blackberry gives you the freedom to do that but let’s not kid ourselves, even when you’re intently listening to a 10-year-old squawk out a tune on a trumpet, the Blackberry has the power to draw you away at any time.

In many ways, having a Blackberry has made a growing number of us 7/24 employees. People may not be at work all the time but they are working all the time given they’re connected to work. Unless you’re disciplined enough to shut off the Blackberry or put it in a drawer, it’s difficult to escape the red blinking light that indicates you’ve got mail.

The issue of the 7/24 Blackberry Employee came to the fore recently (although it attracted a fraction of the attention give to RIM introducing a flip phone Blackberry) when the Public Service Alliance, a union representing civil servants, said it plans to make Blackberrys part of its contract negotiations. Ed Cashman, an executive VP with the PSA, told the Globe and Mail:

“For some people, having a BlackBerry is like: We own you. You are our person, 24 hours, 7 days a week. Our members are running into situations where they’re not compensated properly for having to do work at home.”

Translation: People are using their Blackberrys to work during non-work hours so they should be compensated for it.

Putting aside unions have defined “working hours”, what does having a Blackberry mean for non-union employees? Does it means you’re expected to check your Blackberry on a regular basis throughout the day, night and weekends? Does it mean you have to respond to an e-mail? If you’re boss, who knows you have a Blackberry, sends you an e-mail on a Saturday morning, do you have to reply during the weekend or can you wait until you get back to work on Monday?

For an increasing number of people, work is no longer a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. proposition. With the Internet allowing you to be connected to work away from the office, being in the office isn’t as crucial as it used to be. Maybe this is why employers tolerate people surfing the Web, using Facebook, Twitter, eBay, booking trips, blogging, etc. when they’re at work because they know many employees work during “off-hours” at home by checking e-mail, reading and creating documents, spreadsheets, etc.

We’re living in a world where the lines between our work and personal lives are blurring with the Blackberry (and the iPhone) making this more of a reality.

Technorati Tags: 24, Blackberry

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Hard to Believe But…

1. The White Pages was delivered to my house yesterday. Who uses the White Pages anymore other than as a door stop?

2. Someone send me an invitation to be their friend on Pownce. First one I’ve seen in months!

3. The NYT has jumped on the iPhone is going to knock off the Blackberry story, which has been BusinessWeek’s baby for months.

Until the number show otherwise, these stories remind me of the children’s story in which Chicken Little is worried the sky is falling. The premise is possible but there aren’t many signs, it’s happening. Nevertheless, it makes for a good story given RIM’s dominance and the iPhone’s sexiness. Here’s a typical quote you’ll find in all of these RIM-iPhone stories:

“The vultures are circling,” says Roger L. Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a research firm in Wayland, Mass. “There is this sense that the R.I.M. franchise is under assault.”

Who’s to suggest there won’t be more than room for RIM and the iPhone, which is apparently coming to Canada in the next month or so? If smart phones are becoming all the rage, perhaps the market for people who want wireless devices that deliver e-mail, music, the Web, etc. will dramatically expand.

One more question: if RIM is vulnerable to competition, why hasn’t any of Nokia’s much-vaunted devices such as the N95 made major inroads in North America?

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, iPhone, Pownce

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Can Paul Allen Bring Wireless Competition to Canada?

Among the people involved in bidding for wireless spectrum in Canada is billionaire Paul Allen, who’s hooked up with John Bitove through an entity called Data & Audio-Visual Enterprises Wireless Inc., or DAVE.

As much as Richard Branson has tried to jump-start competition within Canada’s wireless market with Virgin Canada, real competition is still, at best, tepid, half-hearted, non-existent, etc. Wireless prices in Canada are significantly higher than U.S., particularly rates for data, which are very iPhone-unfriendly. (Check out Tom Purves’ post on how high wireless prices are in Canada, as well as Wireless North.)

Given Allen’s mixed track record in making investments other than Microsoft, no one should hold their breath waiting for him or Bitove to save Canada’s wireless market but it’s a good sign that he’s interested.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Wireless

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BusinessWeek’s Blackberry-iPhone Obsession

What with BusinessWeek trying to pull a Don King and create a heavyweight title match between the Blackberry and the iPhone?

For the third time in as many months, BusinessWeek has a story looking at the “battle” between Research in Motion and Apple for power mobile users.

Check it out:

February 27 - Apple versus RIM: Now it’s Game On

Jan. 3 - BlackBerry vs. iPhone: Who wins?

Dec. 20 - The Coming Apple-RIM Battle

The latest RIM-Apple story from BW was instigated by an media conference next week by Apple about the software roadmap for the iPhone “including iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features.”

It looks like BusinessWeek is trying to create something that just isn’t there. Given Apple’s almost non-existent presence in the corporate marketplace, do you really think CIO are going to be embracing the iPhone as opposed to the rock steady Blackberry?

The Blackberry’s biggest strength is it does one thing really well - mobile e-mail - while the iPhone does everything except wash the kitchen sink. That makes the iPhone appealing to consumers but a potential nightmare for CIOs who are intent on controlling all aspects of their infrastructure.

It may be time for BusinessWeek to instigate a new fight cause Blackberry vs. iPhone shows few signs of intensifying any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blackberry

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I May Have Just Created a Monster

My wife - The Luddite - has been bugging me politely asking me to get her a new wireless phone for weeks - something about crappy reception and a battery that refuses to recharge.

So it didn’t come as a surprise that somehow her phone accidently fell into a tub full of water and beer during a party over the weekend. Another surprise: if you let a wireless phone sit for several hours in a cold bucket of water, it no longer works!

What to do, what to do? Go to Rogers where they’ll charge you an arm and a leg for a fancy-dancy new phone that does everything ‘cept open cans? Buy something on eBay, which will take weeks to arrive, and provide The Luddite with more opportunities to bug me sweetly ask me when her new phone is arriving?

Then, a wave of inspiration: there’s an old, but perfectly good, Blackberry in my office that’s been collecting dust. We pop out the SIM card from her the phone that has sadly drowned, and put it in the Blackberry. Problem solved, everyone’s happy.

Except now I may have just created a monster/Blackberry fanatic. The Luddite has already figured out the scroll wheel, pruned the address book, done some SMS-ing, and wondering whether it’s possible to get e-mail messages on her Blackberry.

I feel like a crack dealer who sells cheap stuff to new clients based on the idea they’ll become regular customers. And you know how this Blackberry story is going to end, right? Pretty soon, the e-mail gets activated so The Luddite can get important, work-related e-mails, which then leads to the need to get personal e-mail. Then, The Luddite will need a bigger data plan after realizing you can surf the Web. Then…..

Curse you, Blackberry!

Update: Here’s hoping that I haven’t also created a technology addict. According to a new report, techno addiction “can become so bad that people wake up several times a night to check their e-mails and text messages”.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Luddite

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Rogers Preparing for iPhone with New Data Plans?

Don’t take this as the gospel but according to the Redflagdeals forum, Rogers is poised to unveil unlimited data plans that could signal that the iPhone will finally come to Canada.

Based on a conversation that a Rogers customer had with a service rep, Rogers will be rolling out unlimited plans next month. Here are the deets:

Value Packs Update:
$5 Community Value Pack
500 SMS
50 MMS
3 months unlimited SMS and MMS

$20 Updated Communicate Pack
Caller ID
Name Display
Voicemail
Who Called
2500 SMS
1000 MMS
Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing

$7 Vision Internet Package
50 Video Calling minutes
Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing
Unlimited Video calling for 12 months

New Data Plans
$5 - Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing
$15 - 2MB Blackberry Package

Note: Windows Mobile, PDAs & Blackberry phones aren’t eligible for $5 Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing

Technorati Tags: iPhone, Rogers, Wireless

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Jumping on the Data Bandwagon

When Apple finally convinced Verizon/AT&T to be the carrier for the iPhone, one of the biggest reasons to accept Steve Jobs’ terms was the notion that it would encourage more high-margin data usage. Not surprisingly, this has materialized as the NYT has a story that traffic to Google through the iPhone’s browser surged last month.

This say three things:

1. If you give mobile users a browser that works, they will use it. (Note: Given this reality, it continues to be a mystery why Research in Motion has done little to upgrade the browser experience on the Blackberry.)

2. Data has become the business for the carriers as voice becomes a cheap commodity. If you want to attract customers and boost ARPU, selling more data services such as Internet access is a no-brainer.

3. As a recent article in Wired magazine illustrated, the carriers are looking for well-designed, appealing phones so they can compete for consumers rather than using price promotions and subsidized hardware. In return, the hardware makers are going to demand a cut of the action - something RIM has been doing for many years, and something Apple embraced with the iPhone.

More: I like Paul Kedrosky’s explanation was the iPhone generated so much traffic: “Apple’s iPhone has the first mobile browser to genuinely not suck”.

Technorati Tags: Apple, RIM, Wireless

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