Palm Pre to Launch in Mexico with Telcel

Palm and Telcel today announced that the Palm® Pre™ phone is scheduled to be available Nov. 27 in Mexico on the Telcel network. Palm Pre is the first phone in a family of products based on the Palm webOS™ software, which brings mobile applications together in a unique and intuitive multitasking platform that enables consumers and businesses to connect to their information in more useful and usable ways.

“With the introduction of Palm Pre with Telcel in Mexico, we’re expanding the Palm webOS footprint into Latin America for the first time,” said Dave Whalen, senior vice president, Global Sales, Palm, Inc. “We’re steadily increasing momentum for Palm webOS as we continue to roll out products with new carriers and countries.”

Palm Pre, which is currently available in North America (United States and Canada) and Europe (the UK, Ireland, Germany and Spain), features a smooth, elegantly rounded ergonomic design and a physical keyboard that slides out only when needed. It’s engineered to feel natural in your hand and comfortably small in your pocket. When closed, Palm Pre is ideal for phone calls, web browsing, music, photos and videos; when open, Palm Pre is optimized for email and text messaging. With its curved slider and gesture-controlled touch interface, Palm Pre fuses exquisite design with the revolutionary Palm webOS software for fast access to content on the device or web. Visit Palm's press room for complete partnership details

RIM Unveils New Services Platform for BlackBerry Developers

Research In Motion (RIM) unveiled a new services platform for developers that will enable them to streamline business processes and build highly responsive, location-aware, revenue-generating applications for BlackBerry® smartphones. The new services platform will offer advertising, payment, content push and new location services.

“The BlackBerry ecosystem is thriving and with the new services platform announced today we will help developers further monetize their applications and build breakthrough, highly responsive, location-aware applications for BlackBerry smartphones,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “RIM is continuing to provide the tools, technologies and business services that developers need to create and market even more powerful and successful applications on the BlackBerry Application Platform.”

The new and innovative BlackBerry® Advertising Service will enable developers to integrate advertising into their BlackBerry applications, helping them generate revenue and simplifying the business of mobile advertising. With the BlackBerry Advertising Service, RIM plans to provide developers with access to a large pool of quality and innovative ad units from trusted top tier and specialty advertising networks such as Jumptap, Lat49, Millennial Media, Navteq, 1020 Placecast, Quattro Wireless and Sympatico.ca. The service will feature ads compliant with the Mobile Marketing Association's (MMA) guidelines as well as rich media ads that will be able to deeply integrate with BlackBerry applications. Examples of this deep integration between ads and applications will include the ability to easily initiate a call from an ad, add a calendar entry or contact entry from an ad, and directly link to an application in BlackBerry App World™ from an ad. The service will also include real-time, detailed, consolidated reporting of advertising across ad networks, including ad impressions, clicks, conversions and earnings, as well as integration into the Omniture Online Marketing Suite™ for more advanced analytics. The RIM press roo m offers complete details

Samsung Mobile Announces Availability of the Samsung Mythic™ and Samsung Flight™

Samsung Mobile announced the availability of the Samsung Mythic™, a full touch screen device with AT&T Mobile TV^SM capability, and the Samsung Flight™, a touch screen phone that slides open vertically to reveal a full keyboard.

The Mythic’s 3.3” full touch screen features Samsung’s innovative TouchWiz™ user interface, which allows users to simply drag and drop widgets for their favorite and most commonly used features and functions on the phone’s home screen. With one-touch access to features including AT&T Mobile TV and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, the Mythic is a portable entertainment powerhouse.

The Samsung Mythic is the newest AT&T Mobile TV-capable device to hit stores. AT&T Mobile TV subscribers enjoy around-the-clock access to full-length simulcast and time-shifted programming from FLO TV, including content from leading entertainment brands such as CBS Mobile, CNBC, CNN Mobile, COMEDY CENTRAL, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, FOX News, MSNBC, MTV, NBC 2Go, Nickelodeon and the movie channel Crackle.

AT&T Mobile TV is now available for $9.99 per month – a new, lower price point effective Nov. 8 for new and existing subscribers. Existing subscribers will see an automatic adjustment to the subscription price on their next statement. New AT&T Mobile TV subscribers receive the first seven days of their subscription for free. Visit Samsung Mobile's product portal for features details: www.samsungmobileusa.com

T-Mobile USA Launches Motorola CLIQ with MOTOBLUR in Stores (November 2)

T-Mobile USA announced the national availability of the Motorola CLIQ™ with MOTOBLUR™, the first Android™-powered device from Motorola and the only device to feature MOTOBLUR this holiday season. Beginning today, customers can now purchase the CLIQ in T-Mobile retail stores, partner locations and online. To celebrate the CLIQ’s arrival in retail, T-Mobile also launched the T-Mobile Motorola CLIQ Challenge today, a nationwide contest to build the largest college fan club on Facebook^®.

Available exclusively from T-Mobile, the CLIQ is a must-have mobile device as the only smartphone this season with MOTOBLUR, an innovative solution developed by Motorola that manages and integrates communications – from work e-mail to social networking activity. Updates to contacts, posts, messages, photos and more are streamed together and synced from sources including Facebook, Twitter™, MySpace^®, Gmail™, work and personal e-mail, and automatically delivered to the home screen of the CLIQ in easy-to-view streams.

“Smartphones are fast becoming the primary way many consumers engage with social networking services, e-mail and the Web, which makes the Motorola CLIQ with MOTOBLUR the right phone at the right time,” said Travis Warren, director, product marketing, T-Mobile USA. “T-Mobile continues to expand upon its industry-leading lineup of Android smartphones for the holiday season with the launch of the CLIQ, and we expect it to be very popular among our highly connected customers.” Visit T-Mobile's portal for product and pricing details

291.1M Mobile Handsets Shipped in Q3 09 - Vendors Confident About Q4 09 (ABI)

“The outlook for mobile handset markets continues to improve”, says Jake Saunders, ABI Research’s VP for Forecasting. “While 3Q-2009 showed a YoY 6.5% contraction in shipments to 291.1 million, 2009 should close out with only a 4%-5% contraction (to 1,138 million for the year).”

Handset vendors are starting to mutter confidently of 4Q-2009 cash tills jingling to the tune of robust handset sales. In 3Q-2009, North America and Asia-Pacific helped to spearhead a recovery. In North America, the avid enthusiasm for smartphones was the driver. In Asia-Pacific, recovery in the local economies has been stoking interest in upgrades.

Market shares are starting to thaw. Nokia saw its market share slip from 38.3% to 37.3% in 3Q-2009. Samsung continues to steam ahead, raising its market share to 20.7%. Despite some very novel handset model introductions in 2Q-2009, LG’s market-share softened in 3Q-2009 (10.9%). All the other vendors either held their ground or lost a small amount of market share. The prime exception is Apple: its iPhone range of smartphones increased its market share from 1.9% to 2.5%. There have been arguments that Apple’s limited handset line-up will constrain growth, but for the mid-term, ABI Research does not expect any slowdown in Apple’s market-share growth.

“Despite the successes of the iPhone operating system, the leading player in the smartphone OS market is still very much Symbian (48%), followed by Blackberry (18%),” notes practice director Kevin Burden. “The ‘dark horse’ in all this is Android.” This week Motorola announced the launch of its navigation-friendly “Droid” handset. As the list of vendors committed to releasing Android handsets expands, product momentum should translate into increased Android sales. ABI Research estimates Android could capture 10% of the smartphone market by 2014. Visit ABI's portal to review the abstract or order this report. Forecast: www.abiresearch.com/research/1003877

Smartphone and Platform Forecasts and Trends (ABI Research)

Smartphone prices are falling as shipment volumes increase, and a new study from ABI Research finds that while in 2007 only 18% of smartphones on offer cost under $200 retail, that percentage has already grown to 27% this year. By 2014, say the firm’s forecasts, 45% of the smartphones shipped that year will be priced below $200. These numbers highlight a rapid change in many consumers’ attitudes about smartphones, and a corresponding shift in vendors’ and mobile operators’ sales and marketing strategies.

“Manufacturers see consumers increasingly demanding smartphones, because of their better understanding of the value that a smartphone delivers,” says mobile devices practice director Kevin Burden. “Nearly all consumers used to choose handsets based on the physical characteristics of the hardware, not the software inside. The iPhone changed that: more users are now shopping for their handset based on the operating system and software, which is something once thought to be very unlikely.”

The result: more and more smartphones and conventional phones are priced in similar ranges. Handset makers’ and carriers’ marketing strategies must accommodate both groups of consumers: those who want a basic replacement phone, and those who care about what the OS can do for them. In some markets, these strategies are further complicated by the heavy subsidies that mobile operators may offer.

Some smartphones are never subsidized: the high-end concept phones intended as prestige items or to demonstrate a manufacturer’s design and innovation prowess. But increasingly, manufacturers want to offer a mix: some high-priced, high-margin models, but also a generous helping of moderately-priced smartphones that can generate high volumes of sales. According to ABI Research, by far the greatest increase in smartphone shipment volumes over the next five years will be found in the $100-200 price range. Review the abstract or order this report via the ABI Research portal

Droid By Motorola Arrives Next Week via Verizon Wireless

High-speed Web browsing, voice-activated search, customizable large screen, access to thousands of Android applications and hundreds of widgets and the best 3G mobile network in the country: DROID by Motorola arrives on Nov. 6. Verizon Wireless, the company with the nation’s largest wireless 3G broadband network, and Motorola a pioneer in the mobile industry, today unveiled DROID by Motorola, the first smartphone powered by Android™ 2.0. DROID by Motorola features the brainpower and breakneck speed of a modern smartphone, designed to outperform where other smartphones fall short.

“We’re proud to work with Verizon Wireless and Google™ on the first smartphone to feature Android 2.0,” said Sanjay Jha, co-chief executive officer of Motorola and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobile Devices. “DROID by Motorola delivers a rich consumer experience with warp-speed Web browsing, a mammoth screen, and Motorola’s expertise in design and voice quality. Combined with Android’s open, flexible graphical user interface and the power of Verizon Wireless’ 3G network, DROID is a smartphone that simply doesn’t compromise.”

“This is an exciting announcement for Verizon Wireless, as the DROID by Motorola is the first device that we are bringing to market under our ground-breaking strategic partnership with Google,” said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. “DROID by Motorola gives customers a lifestyle device with access to more than 12,000 applications that will help them stay in touch, up to date and entertained, using the best 3G network in the country.” Visit Verizon Wireless' portal for featureand pricing details