Visto – A Vulture

May 3, 2006 | blog

So here comes wave two of the patent suite against RIM.  ZD Net is reporting about Visto suing RIM over their BlackBerry mobile email system.  This is the same company that is engaged in a lawsuit against Microsoft – and the same one who did a cross-license agreement with NTP (who just settled with RIM themselves) on several of their patents.

Trying to paint RIM as some evil patent-stealing empire, Visto’s CEO Brian Bogosian says:

“Under the law, which protects consumers from products that contain infringing technology, RIM should not be able to sell the BlackBerry system.”

More crybabies who can’t compete fairly.  I’m just curious where Visto’s and NTP’s lawsuites were when RIM was starting the mobile email productivity revolution 5+ years ago?  Wouldn’t it have been prudent (for them) to stop the company then?  I’m really getting tired of this kind of behavior that impacts progress and innovation.

Anyone who thinks mobile email is a breakthrough technology must have been born yesterday.  My advice to Visto/NTP – develop a real, competitive, creative business plan and produce some real products that truly are breakthroughs in the mobile space.

Brighthand Reviews Cingular 8125

May 2, 2006 | blog

The crew over at Brighthand.com have posted a review of the Cingular 8125 Pocket PC Phone.  A varient of the HTC Wizard, its comparable to the T-Mobile MDA and iMate K-JAM.

For you new (or potential) Cingular 8125 owners – don’t hesitate to check out the HTC Wizard Web community site.  You’ll find a lot of useful tips, tricks, registry hacks, etc…  lots of fun.

Moto Q

Apr 30, 2006 | blog

The Motorola Q smartphone is a great looking device and may be a great smartphone, but will any of us find out?  There have been many false release dates and such about the device, and in typical Motorola fasion, they just can’t seem to get their devices ready for prime time in a reasonable amount of time.

Check out this post over at Engadget Mobile and then participate in the survey at Smartphone Thoughts.

Oh, and msmobiles.com has another post about the Q.

Dual Windows Mobile ‘BlackBerry’ Style Devices

Apr 23, 2006 | blog

motoQ So there are two awesome thin new phones coming out soon that are similar in layout to traditional BlackBerry devices. Say hello to the Motorola Q (top), which you’ve probably read about, and the Samsung SGH-i320 (bottom).

The two phones both run Windows Mobile 5 and will be available in the coming weeks in the US. Both have recently been approved by the FCC for use in the USA. While we know that the motoQ is currently a CDMA phone and will be available from Verizon, the SGH-i320 is a GSM phone and could be used on either T-Mobile or Cingular (or some of the regional GSM providers) here in the States.

Samsung SGH-i320Unfortunately, the i320 is a tri-band phone (900/1800/1900) and would only really have decent coverage on the T-Mobile network as theirs is primarily a 1900 band network. Cingular relies heavily on the 850 band and has significant 1900 band holes everywhere. Cingular sells only tri-band phones that have both 850 & 1900MHz, or quad-band phones that support all GSM frequencies around the world. T-Mobile has recently rolled out a number of 850MHz towers and has signed a roaming agreement with Cingular for vast 850MHz streaches of the country, and in addition has also taken to selling quad-band phones or tri-band with 850/1900 band support.

At any rate, its great to see this style of phone coming out from two of the top three Windows Mobile phone vendors. Now all we need is to see an HTC version of this format, one that builds on the great layout that BlackBerry has demonstrated, and these two have copied.

For more information on either of these phones, check out these great articles:

Pin It on Pinterest