Skype coming to a Blackberry near you

eWeek is reporting that Skype will be available for free on Blackberry Curve and Bold phones starting in May.

Skype COO Scott Durchslag commented:
"With Skype on BlackBerry smartphones, we are making Skype available in the briefcases and purses of BlackBerry users around the world. We have heard loud and clear that our users want Skype on whichever smartphone they choose to use.”

Security Patch Issued for Blackberry

RIM (Research in Motion) has released a short term patch to fix critical flaws in Blackberry.

From CNet.com,

Multiple security vulnerabilities exist in the PDF distiller of some released versions of the BlackBerry Attachment Service. These vulnerabilities could enable a malicious individual to send an email message containing a specially crafted PDF file, which when opened for viewing on a Blackberry smartphone, could cause memory corruption and possibly lead to arbitrary code execution on the computer that hosts the BlackBerry Attachment service.

Beware and make sure that you don't download PDF files from untrusted sources on the Blackberry--in fact, wait until you get near a computer to do so. As CNet describes, this security fix will do little to help President-Elect in his quest to keep his Blackberry.

Do you think that this security fix will help? What permanent measures can be implemented to keep the Blackberry safe?

iPod Touch Gaining Enterprise Credibility

When the iPhone first came out, there was a sudden rush of executives that were trying to justify the use of this phone in the enterprise. Now, according to this post on the Burton Group Blog the iPod Touch might be an even bigger story than the iPhone. The iPod Touch already supports the Safari web browser and enterprise capabilities like support for virtual private networks (L2TP/IPSEC, Cisco IPSec, and PPTP). These latest numbers from the AdMob report show how traffic from the iPod Touch is just exploding!

• Traffic from iPod Touch in the US and UK was “2.7 and 3.2 times higher” the week after Christmas than the week before.
• “The iPod Touch is now the #2 device in the AdMob network with a 4.7% share.” The #1 device is the iPhone with a 10.8% share.

These numbers show us that the Touch might someday surpass the iPhone itself. For enterprise purposes, I want to see how well the Touch will compete with Blackberry’s release of its touch screen model, the Storm.

BlackBerry Goes Touch-Screen

Larry Dignan gives us several reasons why the release of RIM’s Storm, a rival to the iPhone 3G, is so important to the market in his latest post on ZDNet. Here they are:

Why is the Storm important?

• RIM can use the Storm to rally telecom carrier support–especially among those left out of the iPhone launch.
• The Storm will define how RIM is viewed among consumers.
• The Storm may be able to thwart any enterprise momentum gained by Apple’s iPhone.

Will the release of the touch-screen Storm stop executives from asking IT for iPhone support on the corporate network? Only time will tell what effect the RIM Storm will have on enterprise practices.

Peek brings email to mobile devices for small businesses

Peek is a mobile phone service setting out to capture an untapped portion of the mobile phone market, aiming for the small business wireless market. According to this article at EWeek, they’ll be partnering with Target to distribute this new wireless email device which is low-cost and can satisfy the email side of those working for small business, and do what the Blackberry is doing for the corporate world.

This wireless start up company decided to tap into this market for the amount of customers that haven’t been satisfied yet. Of the 32 million cell phone users, 15 million manage their email over the phone.

When developing this mobile device, Peek came up with and followed these six objectives to better meet the needs of small businesses:

1. low cost

2. wide, color display with high-contrast fonts

3. an easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard

4. easy-to-set-up access to popular e-mail portals

5. well-designed software that gives a good user experience

6. easy to buy

New Smart Phone Available

A new phone has come to the business world. We’ve already told you about the importance that cell phones are playing in the growing demand for social networking. E Week recently shed light on the newest Treo Pro to allow us to network, and more, with a new smart phone. Palm, Inc, has developed a new series of phones based on Microsoft Software, and their direct competitor will be Blackberry. New tools on this phone include WiFi, to boost internet speed where reception is low, and GPS technology. Palm, Inc, developed this phone specifically to target the 90% of the market who don’t already have smart phones.

This phone will be carried by Vodafone Group PLS and O₂ in Europe and Telstra in Australia. Although there is currently no US carrier, Palm Inc, expects to see a demand for unlocked phones that will work on any network.

Mobile FireFox Might Be the Key

As mentioned in our previous post, Firefox is slowly increasing its market share as the world’s premier internet browser. A mobile browsing app called FireFox Mobile has been in the works for some time, but according to this latest post on TechCrunch it is actually taking shape.

What’s interesting about this mobile user interface is that it will be fundamentally easy to use with touch-screen smartphones. This is heaven for Palm Treo and iPhone users. FireFox Mobile will reduce the amount of typing required by simply scrolling down and makes it easier to send email, search Google, or mapping locations with any of its pre-defined buttons.

Collaboration in the enterprise is reaching new heights as we are experiencing a lot of changes in mobile applications. I would like to see how FireFox Mobile will make life simpler for those users who do not have touch-screen smartphones like the Blackberry. FireFox Mobile is still at its beta phase though, I’m sure the end result will be something that all enterprise users will be able to take advantage of.

New Collaboration Software for Blackberry

And just when you thought that Blackberry could handle no more web 2.0 apps, there it goes breaking barriers again. This latest article in InformationWeek details this latest announcement, and how WebSphere and Lotus Connections have long wanting to bring business applications to enterprise users on blackberry; it was just a matter of time.

Portals are available through IBM Websphere software, which enables users to build websites. Calendar applications offered through IBM and Domino enable users to effectively collaborate through their smart phones.

William Campbell, the manager for computing services at Standard Life mentions:

"Lotus Software on BlackBerry is critical to our business as it allows Standard Life to enable better collaboration across the world at any time. We have taken the BlackBerry way beyond e-mail, adding a high level of rich functionality resulting in what our employees call 'the laptop in your pocket.'"

These applications are expected to be released later this week. Is this the way of the future for enterprise users?

Mobile Social Networking: The Growing Phenomenon

How often do you access Facebook on your mobile phone? Personally, I find it more convenient to share information with my business contacts on my Blackberry. The latest article in eMarketer estimates that the number of mobile social networking users will grow from 82 million users now to roughly 800 million users worldwide by the year 2012.

The iPhone and Blackberry have launched several mobile-friendly applications of popular enterprise networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn so it was only a matter of time before we would see this influx of mobile users. As the growing demand for collaboration between individuals grow, so will the need for mobile enterprise networking, since most corporate executives are always on the go. This chart by eMarketer details the forecasted total mobile users.

The enterprise can expect a huge shift from the usage of social networking sites within the office to usage on their mobile devices. Tailored social networking apps have the changed the focus of the Treo, Blackberry, and the iPhone from being primarily a consumer gadget to an enterprise mobile device.