Yet, with all that media noise it gets harder to objectively decide what features and functionality really matter the most before committing to a new smart-phone and the obligatory carrier contract. No question, the new Android phones and the Moto Droid are fantastic and give you just a glimpse of things to come, but the Blackberry Storm is in many ways an equal contender on a more mature platform. The launch of the original Storm last year was a bit of a flop – mainly because the software was just not ready for prime time and subsequent patches were slow to market. Here are 5 reasons why you should still look at the Storm when shopping for your next smart-phone.

RIM OS 5.0: What took RIM so long? The latest version of the Blackberry OS, just released in October, finally provides all the features it should have had when the Storm originally launched last fall, not to mention the many bugs that were fixed. The new OS puts the Storm back in the running and head-to-head against the other devices. Here are some of the feature highlights:

• Touch screen keyboard with 3 modes to choose from
• 3.2 MP camera with AF, LED flash and video recording
• Blackberry App-World (thousands of apps exist for the BB)
• Word completion and auto correct
• Notifications on message folders (email, sms, facebook, etc.)
• Multiple email account and address book sync
• Great SMS texting interface
• Media player (pictures, music, video)
• Volume control overlay on top of all apps
• Image resizing when sharing (email sms)
• Copy & paste

The Network: The coolest smart-phone is really only as good as the network, meaning – Most of the apps are no fun to use if you don’t have fast and reliable data coverage. AT&T’s 3G coverage or the lack thereof turns out to be one of the biggest source of user complaint with the iPhone. Verizon has a great 3G network and aggressively markets that difference in the “there is a map for that” commercials. Of course all Verizon smart-phones, especially the Droid, enjoy Verizon’s domestic 3G network, but you are out of luck if you travel overseas. Verizon uses CDMA while most of the world is running on GSM. The Blackberry Storm and the older Blackberry 8830 World Edition phones feature two built-in radios to support both CDMA and GSM. This is big, if you frequently travel abroad. The Storm seamlessly switches to a local GSM network as soon as you get off the plane and gets you access to your email and apps. International data usage costs extra (~$15/month), but you can enable/disable the feature as needed. Just call Verizon before your trip and allow a little extra time ahead of your first trip to get the necessary SIM card mailed to you.

Tethering: If you can’t live with your smart-phone alone but also need broadband speed connectivity for your laptop, tethering is a must. I love working online while taking the Acela train from Boston to NY. I just connect the Storm via USB cable to the laptop, which gives me broadband speed most of the ride and also charges the phone. One thing to remember though is that you’ll lose data connectivity when making calls. Of course you can accomplish the same with a 3G USB modem or MiFi device, but I like to keep the number of devices I need to bring along to a minimum.

Enterprise Integration: RIM basically invented mobile push email with seamless and secure enterprise integration. Most IT departments prefer the RIM BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) platform over other solutions because of its robustness and massively granular security control. If your company needs secure mobile email with tight remote administration, RIM is still pretty much the only game in town. BES natively supports MS-Exchange and Lotus Notes. Traditional POP, IMAP and Web email are also supported through RIM’s hosted email connector. You can setup up-to 10 accounts and configure individual mail filters.

Usability: I remember the first time I used a Blackberry, having used other WinMo, Symbian and Palm smart-phones before, the BB felt immediately right. Things just worked as one would intuitively expect, the same way you get into any car and know where to find the turn signal. In all fairness though, I was late to the Blackberry craze, which I’m sure had its teething problems too. With all their features and functionality, Blackberry’s are still intuitive and easy to use even for the technically challenged. The iPhones success is built on the same premise, amongst many other things, but this is not about the iPhone… The Droid is on the other side of the spectrum with maximum flexibility and geeky charm that can be overwhelming at times.

At the end there are many individual and subjective reasons for picking one smart-phone over another. Your corporate IT department may have strong opinions on this as well, if you plan on using your phone for work and/or your company pays your monthly cellphone bill. All the latest smart-phones are amazing feats of technology and personal preference maybe the deciding factor in choosing your next phone. But choose wisely, buyers remorse and an early switch can be costly…

UPDATE: There is one reason not to get the Storm – poor web experience. The Blackberry web browser is trailing  far behind compared to Droid or iPhone. The browsing experience is slow and rendering of non-mobile optimized pages is very inconsistent. Unfortunately, 3rd party browsers like Opera still don’t support the Storm.

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Droid will sell for $199, presumably with a new 2 year contract, no information yet about deals for existing subscribers.  The features are impressive, especially considering the very competitive price tag when compared to the price of much lesser devices.

Cool Features:

• Android 2.0
• Support for HTML5 & FLASH
• 3.7-inch WVGA touch display (480 x 854 pixels)
• Slide out full QWERTY keyboard
• 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, autofocus, image stabilization
• DVD-quality (720 x 480 pixels) video capture at 24 FPS
• 16GB microSD card
• EVDO Rev. A, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and WiFi
• Exchange support
• Multiple GMail accounts

For corporate IT, the good news is that droid (android) supports active-sync, which makes it push-email compatible with the leading messaging platforms. The bad news: Droid will most likely accelerate the adoption rate of the android platform in the enterprise. Blackberry, iPhone, Palm-Pre, anDroid, Windows Mobile, oh my…

Update: I’m so intrigued by Android and Droid that I have started a new blog that is tracking all developments around this exciting platform.

Check it out at at: www.droidstory.com.

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The Storm2 resembles much of its predecessor, with some cosmetic and some functional improvements (read bug fixes), but most importantly the addition of Wi-Fi. The Boy Genius Report is currently testing a production unit and will be posting a full review shortly.

There has been much speculation over Verizon’s unusually low-profile release of the Storm2. Could this perhaps be a direct result of the disappointing results for the original Storm – both in terms of total sales and customer (dis)satisfaction? There were rumors that the Storm had the highest return rate of any phone right after its original release.

Even more telling is the fanfare and aggressive marketing campaign for Droid, Verizon’s much anticipated first Android based phone, which is also expected to be released shortly.

If you have an original Storm like I, you may want to grab the latest 5.0 firmware and see if that cures some of the remaining ills before rushing into an upgrade. There are certainly some new interesting choices coming, so better wait and see…

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Many blogs and websites already covered the details about the handset, which sports a large touch screen and a slide-out keyboard and is manufactured by HTC.

While there is nothing truly revolutionary about the phone itself, the rumors about T-Mobile possibly offering free 3G data access with a two year calling plan could be “game-changing”, literally extending the notion of free email to the wireless world. It will be interesting to see if T-Mobile has indeed the guts to make this bold move.

There are no details yet on synchronization with corporate email systems or enterprise security and provisioning tools. However, given the free/open access and flexibility of Android, one can expect many 3rd party applications to become available within the next few months.

Update: Predictably, T-Mobile did not have the guts to offer a free data plan for the G1. The pricing announced at today’s press conference is comparable to the service plans offered by the other carriers.

Technorati Tags: g1, gphone, android, t-mobile, mobile email

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Roger Matus, a colleague of mine, and fellow blogger even declares that “BlackBerry Gets It Wrong” on his DeathbyEmail blog.  I respectfully disagree.  Blackberry has become a household name by building a huge following in the enterprise. One of the reasons for the success is the robust back-end called Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES). With BES, companies can implement mobile IT policies that address the all-important corporate security and compliance needs.

Over the last few years, RIM has been keen on expanding its market beyond the enterprise into the broader consumer space, offering many slick new phones such as the Pearl and Curve, and providing integration with consumer email services as well. It just seems logical to add a device to the line-up that can compete with the iPhone, which will be a huge design and engineering challenge for RIM nonetheless.  There are many mobile applications, other than email, (e.g. web browsing, maps, etc.) that hugely benefit from the large screen without the keyboard.

Let’s remember, unlike Apple’s one-trick pony, RIM offers plenty of other phones to choose from. If you don’t like the touch-screen you can pick one with a keyboard!

I’ll have to wait and see if this new phone is right for me. I’ve tried the iPhone and admit that the touch-screen takes some practice for fast typing. RIM is planning to improve the typing experience by providing tactile response.

I’m also testing a new service on my current Blackberry, called myCaption, The service allows me to speak my emails directly into the phone. It is still a little slow but provides amazingly good speech recognition results. Who knows, I may not need a keyboard for typing emails much longer after all…

Technorati Tags: Blackberry Thunder, iPhone, RIM, Blackberry 9530

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“Over the past year, I’ve become increasingly aware of and annoyed by staff who use their BlackBerries during meetings,” says Frank Palmer, chairman and CEO of DDB Canada. “Whether it’s done openly or covertly under the table, using a PDA during a meeting is completely unacceptable, disrespectful and hinders the progress of the meeting. While these devices are considered time-savers, they’re also extremely intrusive.”

Colleagues will show the yellow card to first offenders, followed by a red card for repeat misconduct. Receiving a red card results in the employee footing that month’s mobile services bill.

Technorati Tags: blackberry, etiquette

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“New York attorneys ordered Hirsch to provide records of the content of the messages exchanged on TXTmob during the convention, as well as the identification of people who sent and received messages, the time the messages were sent for the duration of the event, and a list of people who used the service during the event.”

Hirsch is fighting to protect the privacy of the users of his service, but it is becoming clear that under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, text-messages and for that matter all other electronic communications are admissible in court.

This raises some serious privacy concerns and makes you want to think twice of twittering about your life’s every moment.

The even bigger question is how companies must and can comply with discovery requests that are as broadly defined as seen in this case. The archiving of email messages is already adding a huge expense to corporate IT budgets. In case of litigation, the cost of retrieval and e-discovery of this archived content is often even bigger.

Companies should certainly consider these issues when leveraging new collaborative technologies.

Technorati Tags: txtmob, twitter, text-messaging, tad hirsch

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Sure enough, there is a section called Text Blocking on the VerizonWireless customer portal. I assume that the cell carriers are just as motivated to control text-message spam, since they will have to deal with the undesired system load and resulting customer complaints.

The settings are straightforward. In my case, I simply disabled all messages that are sent as email or originate from the web. I figured it is OK. to receive messages from other cell phones, since the sender has to pay for the text-message as well.

I am sure the other cell carriers have similar tools in place. Perhaps now is a good time to check your text-message settings.

Technorati Tags: sms spam, text-message spam, cell phone spam

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Email spam is already a huge nuisance and a significant drain on worker productivity. Getting spammed on your cell phone adds yet another dimension, as text messages cost the receiver money, often charged by the message.

“It’s so annoying because I get charged every time I get one, said Ryan Williams, 27, of Falls Church, Va., who receives half a dozen spam messages on a daily basis. They ask him to download ring tones, visit questionable sites over his phone’s Internet connection or urge him to subscribe to horoscopes or sports-score updates.”

Just like regular email, spam is only the beginning. Watch out for smishing – the SMS equivalent of phishing.  Some e-commerce and online banking services have started offering text messaging services for consumer interaction. I am using a service offered by my credit card company, which sends a text-message alert to my cell phone when certain charges exceed a preset limit. The crooks are now using similar, authentic looking text-messages to request personal information, such as social security numbers and account pin numbers.

Just remember, your bank would never make such requests.

Technorati Tags: sms spam, text-message spam, cell phone spam

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Most organizations that maintain their own internal messaging infrastructure have already invested in a number of different backup and fail-over systems that reduce the risk of prolonged outages. These systems typically consist of clustered mail servers and mass-storage devices, backup power and redundant network connectivity.

But what about external dependencies?

Contingency planning is becoming increasingly complex, as more and more businesses rely on external solution providers for their electronic messaging infrastructure. These services are provided in form of complete outsourcing of enterprise email and IM, hosted security & anti-spam gateway filtering solutions, and mobile messaging networks, to name just a few. Of course, the Internet itself is the most critical backbone of it all.
In recent weeks we have witnessed a number of incidents that made me wonder how many companies are actually prepared for infrastructure disruptions that are outside of their direct control.

What do you do when your company’s Internet connectivity is disrupted for days?

How does your field work force cope when mobile messaging goes down?

It is well worthwhile to include these and similar scenarios in a corporate contingency plan.

…or you can have a different outlook altogether, compliments of The Onion

Technorati Tags: internet outage, email disruption, RIM outage

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