In this age of cyber insecurity law enforcement agencies around the world are working feverishly to protect their governments and their countries from threats both from within and without. To that end, while we’ve talked extensively over the past several months about the persistent threat hackers pose on both governmental and corporate infrastructure, one area of cyber-security that both the public and private sectors are becoming increasingly concerned about is that of insider espionage.

Harkening back to the days of World War II where the public were routinely warned in counter-intelligence campaigns that “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” or even to the more recent days of James Bond-like Cold War espionage, the greatest intelligence threat to countries and businesses may be the people inside, those trusted to keep the most secret of secrets, and the FBI wants to make sure you know about the risks and, should you know anything important at all, to keep your mouth shut.

You see, gone are the days when counter-intelligence agencies had to worry about double agents walking away with briefcases full of sensitive information, with the modern situation much more troublesome, as with the click of a mouse any would-be spy can now simply download terabytes of information onto a flash drive and stroll out the door.

It was almost two months ago when I wrote a piece detailing the FBI’s war on cyber-crime, noting a particularly grim assessment from the Bureau’s top cyber-cop Shawn Henry, who stated that “we’re not winning” the war against hackers and the current methods employed to fight cyber-crime are outdated and “unsustainable.”

But as is so often the case with nebulous decentralized criminal groups, cyber-crime is a multi-faceted operation, and you can bet that as much as agencies like the FBI struggle to keep the public and private sectors safe from brazen hacker attacks, it equally struggles to protect those sectors from the people inside lured by the promise of money and intrigue to sell important information to interested parties.

For you see, the greatest threat for businesses and governments today is not from the traditional Cold War spy, but from the ubiquitous mouse sitting next to the keyboard on the desk of almost every employee in the country. In fact, according to a CBS report, cyber-espionage is one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S., with approximately $13 billion lost last year alone in trade secrets. So how do we quell this threat when both government and corporate secrets are targeted daily from hackers thousands of miles away and from insiders only a few feet away?

The answer, you can’t really, although there are things you can do to mitigate the damage. As Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and National Security Agency, states, in his current role as a security consultant for companies targeted by hackers, “What we tell clients is, ‘Number one, you’re in the fight, whether you thought you were or not…Number two, you’re almost certainly are penetrated. Number three, take heart: There are other lines of defense that you can and should rely on to minimize damage.’”

In the end, this digital age comes with its own unique set of risks, with the advent of cloud technology only looking to exacerbate these security issues. But as governments and companies assess their vulnerabilities, perhaps its best to remind everyone about the dangers of cyber-crime, a fact 22 year old Bryan Martin, a former Naval officer and would-be spy, learned the hard way, now serving 34 years in federal prison.

In this era of smartphones and tablets, it’s hardly surprising that the personal computer market has been slowly decaying. Of course, tablets and smartphones are consumer gadgets that can be repurchased to a greater degree of frequency in comparison to the PC, but that hasn’t changed the fortunes of some industry giants.

Hewlett-Packard, the world’s leader in PCs, has announced layoffs of around 27,000 employees. That amounts to roughly eight percent of its workforce, the largest round of layoffs in HP company history.

HP made the announcement when revealing earnings for its second fiscal quarter, noting that the numbers were down from a year earlier.

Dell has also been impacted by the slowdown in the PC market, enjoying a 17 percent dip in share price after their earnings missed analyst expectations.

The task ahead for companies like HP and Dell is one of reinvention in a market that is notoriously fickle. World PCs have slowed as the products have become more ubiquitous, making the tablet/smartphone shift all the more pressing. Decades of growth in the sector meant decades of bounty for the likes of HP and Dell, but the shifting tide has left them unprepared and underperforming on the markets.

Consumers, says Scotiabank analyst Carlos Gomes, are more likely to spend on upgrading smartphones and tablets than they are to spend on upgrading their desktop units. “Tech is facing an accelerating shift from older technologies (servers, PCs, routers) to new technologies (mobile devices, sensors, cloud computing),” Gomes said. “Smartphone shipments overtook PC sales in the final months of 2010 and continue to advance in excess of 50 percent per annum.”

That’s not to say that there’s no growth to be had in the PC industry. Things are simply shifting, with one or two top guns in the sector pushing to the top and the rest sitting around the fluffy middle. According to data from Gartner, Lenovo and ASUS posted the biggest year-over-year shipment growth in the field (28 percent and 21 percent, respectively). HP saw 3.5 percent growth, while Dell saw decline.

For now, the focus is on cost-cutting for HP. This leads us back to the 27,000 layoffs, described by CEO Meg Whitman as necessary to help place the company “on a path to extend our global leadership and deliver the greatest value to customers and shareholders.” HP expects to save around $3.5 billion in the cuts and has slashed most jobs via offers of early retirement.

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Written by: Jordan Richardson. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Avaya yesterday announced that it has promoted Michael Runda to senior VP and president of Avaya Client Services. He was previously the Vice President of Avaya Global Support Services where he led the delivery team for maintenance services.

Runda, a veteran technology executive, joined the company last year and has quickly risen through the ranks at Avaya. He will continue to report directly to CEO Kevin Kennedy and serve on the Avaya Executive Council.

Runda’s previous stints include KCS Academy as CEO where he leveraged his industry experience to bring innovation around knowledge capture and effective re-use across support and services in a variety of industries. He has also worked in various capacities at Intuit, Oracle, Delphi and Symantec.

In his earlier role at Avaya, Runda played a key role in transforming the customer service experience by introducing enhanced web services, new diagnostic tools and swarming of technical support personnel. Runda says it’s vital for support to provide an ‘amazing’ online experience in order to keep customers happy.

In his new role at Avaya Client Services, he’ll be at the helm of market-leading managed services and support solutions for businesses worldwide.

“Avaya Client Services is a recognized hallmark of high-quality service and support, helping businesses around the world achieve their communications and collaboration goals. I am pleased to announce the appointment of Michael Runda to head up this important division, as Avaya Client Services leads enterprise communications support into new areas of innovation.” –Kevin Kennedy, CEO of Avaya

“Avaya delivers innovative services that focus on bringing the best of unified communications and contact center capabilities to businesses in the simplest, most cost-effective way. I’m looking forward to helping Avaya execute on the next phase of its strategy during what is an exciting time for enterprise collaboration and customer service.” –Michael Runda, senior vice president and president, Avaya

As Avaya’s “Partner in Customer Excellence”, we at Digitcom congratulate Michael for his new role at Avaya and we look forward to working with him to create many more customer success stories.

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Written by: Gaurav Kheterpal. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.comby:RSS,Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

As the medical and educational sectors across the continent explore the possibilities of integrating tablets into not only their respective curricula but their workplaces as well, the educational eBook market is becoming increasingly cutthroat, with companies like Apple and Amazon duking it out to become the ubiquitous choice for both platform and eBook selection.

But this situation has put many medical and educational institutions in a bind, as the constant need to reduce costs and balance budgets is now sharply juxtaposed with the desire to attract the best talent and retain students.

The reality is, however, that whether or not the medical or educational sectors need or can even afford such technology, the digital advancement continues unabated, with many predicting that within the next two years  eBooks will replace outright the traditional textbook. It’s a situation that has many concerned that picking the wrong eBook provider, the wrong tablet, or even the wrong school, may mean restricted access to important content.

To gauge the effectiveness and even the necessity of tablets, medical and educational institutions across the continent are launching pilot programs, putting tablets in the hands of students, doctors, and educators alike to see if having apps and information available at the swipe of a finger is something that these sectors not just want, but actually need.

The findings of most studies, it should really come as no surprise, are that tablets are incredibly useful tools, offering aspiring doctors and other such students the ease of data access, note-taking, and reading (to name only but a few features) all on one digitally advanced (yet relatively portable) platform.

But while many are already convinced of the wondrous power of the tablet, the problem for many medical and educational institutions is, which tablet is for us? You see, the problem with choosing a tablet is that in doing so one is choosing a platform; and in choosing a platform, one is also choosing a format, particularly for eBooks; and in choosing a format, one, somewhat unintentionally, marries oneself to a particular line of e-textbooks.

The issue is further exacerbated by the fact that competing e-textbook distributors continue to “try to cut exclusive deals and limit competitors’ supplies of e-content,” leaving “educators from the kindergarten to university level…wondering if their choices of learning material will be choked as a result.”

The extant issue, it seems, is that should medical or educational institutions choose the wrong platform, the wrong tablet, or the wrong e-textbook distributor that they will be missing out on valuable content that other institutions (and don’t forget that medical and educational institutions do compete with each other for student and doctor retention) might be able to provide.

In the end, while I have no doubt that, as textbooks insiders predict, the traditional textbook will go the way of the Dodo bird in the next several years, a relic of a bygone era that our kids will only be able to see in museums, I do fear for the accessibility of information in the coming paradigm shift, particularly as that information, for the time being at least, will be device specific. Oh for the simplicity of a book!

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Written by: Matt Klassen. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Facebook’s IPO fortunes haven’t exactly been the boon the markets were waiting for and now it looks like two American regulators want to review its market debut.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) want to review the initial public offering for two reasons: the NASDAQ delay and Facebook’s underwriters’ cutting of its revenue targets.

First up, Facebook’s stock has continued to drop since the IPO. As of press time, FB is currently down 8.90 percent to $31.00 a share. The controversy over how the IPO was handled has to have made a dent in the social networking giant’s long-term fortunes, although it’s possible things could swing around once the debut is properly reviewed. It’s also possible that fortunes could sink even lower once the IPO sees review.

NASDAQ has since apologized for any trouble that may have been caused by delays on its end on Friday. The delays caused some orders of Facebook stock to go unfilled and unconfirmed for hours after they were placed. It is possible that these delays could have caused millions of dollars in losses for some brokerage firms and investors.

At least two of Facebook’s underwriters (Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) shockingly revised their fiscal forecasts during the so-called “road show,” but those revisions were only passed along to major clients. The revisions were made after Facebook added warnings to the IPO prospectus about its user base increasing at a more rapid rate than the number of advertisements on the site, meaning that the potential for revenue growth was, at least for the time being, shrinking.

Morgan Stanley cut its revenue targets as a result, so it’s probable that some investor reaction was tempered once the major clients found out about Facebook’s advertising concerns. The exact numbers as to how much revenue targets were cut are not available at this time, but one has to imagine that it was significant enough to cause some investors to back off from FB stock.

Of course, the situation left smaller investors in the lurch. According to at least one writer, Henry Blodget of Business Insider, this “selective disclosure” was “grossly unfair” at best and at worst seems a “violation of securities laws.”

Still, Facebook’s underwriters jumped in and purchased FB stock on the first day of trading to keep it at or above the $38 valuation. Once the fuss died down, the underwriters stopped buying and the shares have dropped to what many are calling more realistic levels.

While the regulators sort this out, Facebook’s IPO takes its place in history. It’s still an expensive stock as far as many tech stocks go and its IPO was a success in that it was one of the largest of all-time. But the long-term picture is less dazzling, with forecasts for growth and earnings singing a less-than-optimistic song.

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Written by: Jordan Richardson. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco have never been the best of friends. Last year, the two companies were at loggerheads over the latter’s Cius tablet. However, there’s no denying that they’ve excelled in their respective core strengths. While Alcatel-Lucent leads the pack in wireless infrastructure, Cisco is considered the ‘Big Daddy of Router World’.

Given the fierce competition in the telecom segment, it’s not uncommon to see these arch-rivals encroach upon each other’s strengths. Nearly a decade ago, Alcatel-Lucent tried its hand at routers with the 7770 Routing Core Platform and7670 Routing Switch Platform with ACEIS, which, with all due respect was a debacle.

Since then, Cisco has established itself as the world’s top vendor for edge and core routers. But Alcatel-Lucent isn’t giving up just yet. The company yesterday unveiled a core routing platform, the 7950 Extensible Routing System (XRS) – optimized for the video cloud computing. The company’s offering will be up against the Juniper T4000 and the Cisco CRS-3.

Alcatel-Lucent has signed Verizon as the first customer for the 7950 XRS and it believes “We have a real opportunity to gain share … in the core”. Should Cisco and Juniper be worried? Perhaps, it’s too early to gauge that.

The company claims the 7950 XRS uses 66% less power and requires five times less floor space than competitor products currently available in the market. Built on the company’s FP3 400G chipset, the new core router can handle 100 gigabit per second links and build to 400G and Terabit jumps in the future. The 7950 scales from 6.4Tbps to 32Tbps with a density of up to 160 100G Ethernet ports. Up to six nodes can be linked in a multichassis configuration of up to 240Tbps.

The 7950 is available in three configurations. The entry-level variant is the XRS-16c, which features 6.4Tbps of capacity, 16 interface slots, 32 100G Ethernet ports, 80 40G Ethernet ports, or 320 10G Ethernet ports in a single rack. The mid-range offering is the XRS-20, which features 16Tbps of capacity, 20 interface slots, 80 100G, 200 40G, and 800 10G Ethernet ports in a single-rack. It can be configured as the XRS-40 by linking two chassis together, or it can be grouped in a mulltichassis configuration. Lastly, the high-end is the XRS-40 featuring 32Tbps of capacity, 40 interface slots, 160 100G, 400 40G and 1,600 10G Ethernet ports in two racks.

Ben Verwaayen, Chief Executive of Alcatel-Lucent, said: “The new digital economy demands constant and rapid evolution of the networks that manage and deliver data traffic, connecting the hand of consumers with their content and applications in the cloud. Our market entry is the data equivalent of revolutionizing telephone exchanges. It will enable our customers to optimize the delivery of Internet video, gaming, photo sharing and data-hungry business applications.”

Verizon says it chose this new core router because it’s consistent with other Alcatel-Lucent products already in its network will make it easier to integrate the 7950 than another vendor’s router might have been. Further, the carrier says that Alcatel-Lucent’s expertise in  cellular RANs (radio access networks) as well as the wired networks that backhaul traffic from the wireless systems, makes it an ideal one-stop vendor for multiple solutions.

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Written by: Gaurav Kheterpal. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.comby:RSS,Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Amidst the news yesterday that Google had finally received the necessary regulatory approval to close its acquisition deal with Motorola Mobility and the subsequent storm cloud of layoffs looming on the horizon, was the relatively innocuous story of how Google finally managed to convince Chinese antitrust officials to sign off on the deal.

As I mentioned briefly yesterday, before giving Google and Motorola its collective blessing, China had the search engine giant agree to a number of key stipulations, the most prominent being that Android remain free and open source for at least five (5) years. In order to uphold its end of the bargain, Google will have to submit biannual reports to China’s Commerce Department, with the assumption it will face stiff reprisal should it fail to comply.

But why is a free and open source Android important to China? While trying not to overstate things, it truly seems like Android is China’s kind of mobile operating system; a widely accessible and infinitely modifiable platform that seems to embody everything China hypothetically stands for.

Over the past several years I’ve often given Google a hard time for its Android strategy, a quantity over quality approach that is diametrically opposed to Apple’s single device method. My complaint has always been that Google floods the market with a myriad of devices running a modifiable platform, relinquishing any sort of quality control over the platform that ultimately results in a market filled hundreds of Android devices competing against each other, with few actually competing against Apple et al.

With that said, however, I can’t help but admit that Google has found its own successful marketing strategy, and nowhere else in the world is the success of Android more evident than in China. Following the latest Q4 results, Android accounted for 74 percent of all mobile devices beyond the Great Wall, meaning that China and its telecommunications sector have a vested interest in seeing Android, well, stay exactly the same.

It is exactly that concern, it seems, which spooked Chinese antitrust regulators in regards to the proposed deal between Google and Motorola, as questions were raised about the ramifications of Google entering the mobile market and the “the vertical integration of software and hardware” that would result from the joining of the two companies.

In order to preserve the mobile status quo, China offered its approval of the deal contingent on Google agreeing to several provisos. Not only will the search engine giant continue to keep Android free and open source (and really, why would it want to stop?), but it has also agreed to uphold the existing fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) rules governing Motorola Mobility (something that Motorola has already struggled with in Europe),.

Truth be told, the free and open source nature of Android may still eventually be its undoing—I still happen to think so—but I simply can’t argue that Google’s strategy both here and abroad its paying handsome dividends, earning Android the top spot among global operating systems. In fact, one might even wonder why China would have to put such stipulations in place to begin with, unless of course Chinese regulators knew something else about Google’s long term Android vision…but that’s for another time.

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Written by: Matt Klassen. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

It’s been a quiet year by Mobilicitiy’s standards so far. By comparison, the carrier had hit a purple patch last year as it signed a slew of distribution agreements and rounded off by adding 63,000 net subscribers during the fourth quarter – thereby staking its claim to be the “nation’s fastest-growing new wireless entrant”.

Mobilicity, till end of last year, had signed distribution agreements with 7-Eleven, Walmart Canada, HMV, Zellers and Metro Stores. And last week, the carrier announced the arrival of full-service Mobilicity kiosks at select locations of The Brick in Toronto and Edmonton.

Mobilicity says that the partnership will help The Brick find a stepping stone in the mobile phone industry. The new kiosks introduced as part of this partnership will complement The Brick’s electronics department. Besides The Brick’s standard offerings such as home furnishing, appliance and electronics, these kiosks will serve as a one-stop shop for Mobilicity’s unlimited talk, text and data plans, as well as smartphones including the recently launched Samsung Galaxy Q, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and Nokia Lumia 710.

“Teaming up with The Brick makes a lot of sense,” said Mobilicity Chief Customer Officer Anthony Booth. “After all, Canadians have turned to The Brick for added value for years. We are excited about bringing The Brick customers the value they deserve in wireless.”

As I’ve mentioned earlier as well, there is little doubt that a strong retail presence plays a crucial role in determining a carrier’s success as cell phone services are getting increasingly commoditized. Among the new entrants, Public Mobile and Mobilicity have explored numerous partnership avenues to strengthen their distribution channel. Mobilicity, in particular, has adopted an aggressive retail distribution expansion strategy that continues to pay off and it’s no surprise that the carrier claims to have “by far the highest ARPU among the startup new entrants.”

Last December, reports from Bloomberg News suggested that Globalive, Wind Mobile’s parent company, was purportedly in talks to purchase Mobilicity. As my fellow blogger Jordan Richardson mentioned back then – WIND and Mobilicity have a number of things in common. While WIND had larger aspirations, both companies have service in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Alberta. And both companies use AWS band spectrum, which means that their frequencies could be combined. While that didn’t happen, Wind Mobile’s recent struggles mean there isn’t much likelihood of the deal going through.

Mobilicity currently has around 300,000 subscribers and the carrier would be confident of bumping up those numbers in the coming quarters thanks to its strong retail distribution partnerships.

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Written by: Gaurav Kheterpal. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.comby:RSS,Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

On Friday, Facebook’s initial public offering made its debut in public markets. It was far from the hullabaloo it was built as and there was some trouble out of the gate as the NASDAQ delayed opening trading to around 11:30 am EST.

Once things got going and investors were invited into the social networking fold for the first time, Facebook enjoyed the third largest opening in United States history and the biggest ever for a tech company. The stock started the day valued at $38 a share and closed at around the same point, hardly ballooning but hardly the “failure” that some were champing at the bit to report. For Facebook, the IPO did what it was supposed to do. And for early investors, they were able to cash out some of their investments at a good price.

But with the weekend over, Facebook took to the market on Monday and dropped 11 percent on their second day of NASDAQ trading.

Facebook finished the day at $34.03, down 10.99 percent (or $4.20), to be exact, from where it closed on Friday. Comparing that to the opening Friday price of about $42.05 and you’re looking at a pretty stiff drop.

The problem, according to analysts, lies with the fact that demand for Facebook stock was overestimated. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter slapped FB with an “outperform” prior to the IPO and stated that the extra shares dumped into the market by the social networking giant’s stockholders may have flooded things out a bit. The price was “limited” as a result and the price was held down to more “reasonable” levels, hardly reaching the frenzy predicted.

It’s also possible that NASDAQ’s delays caused some trouble with Facebook’s ability to move more shares. Some investors say they were “locked out” of buying shares in Mark Zuckerberg’s baby (and they now claim to be better off), while other investors and brokerage firms couldn’t get in on the action at desired prices and are out for NASDAQ’s blood. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority will be reviewing the situation and reporting on the total value of claims.

With its shares below the initial IPO price on the second day of trading and the much-awaited “pop” never having arrived, can it be said that Facebook’s initial public offering was a flop? From a market perspective, perhaps. But from the perspective of a Palo Alto-based company filled with young minds and no real significant revenue stream (outside of some advertising money), you have to think those Facebook whole wheat low fat flax waffles are tasting pretty good about now.

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Written by: Jordan Richardson. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Google finally cleared the last of the many regulatory hurdles standing in the way of final approval of its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, with Chinese regulatory bodies approving the transaction over the weekend.  With Motorola Mobility today filing an 8-K form that officially notes the company will be closing in two days, this now marks the beginning of Google’s controversial foray into the mobile market.

But while analysts, Android partners, and mobile competitors wonder what the future of the mobile market will hold with Google now in the mix, it looks like Motorola Mobility employees may have their own uncertain future to worry about, as rumours of imminent layoffs have started to swirl.

According to a report from TechCrunch, upon acquisition Google will immediately begin a “listening tour” of Motorola, getting fresh eyes on Motorola’s corporate make-up and taking stock of what people actually do there. It is with that information, sources say, that Google will decide who stays and who goes.

Although both companies have remained silent over the possibility of restructuring, layoffs following acquisitions are certainly not unexpected, particularly from Google. Following its acquisition the online advertising company DoubleClick in 2008, for instance, the search engine giant announced layoffs of 40 percent of the company’s workforce (some 300 employees). While I wouldn’t expect the cuts at Motorola to be quite so deep (with a total workforce of 19,000) you can bet that Google will want to streamline its operations as soon as possible.

While it’s certainly lamentable that real people are the victims of corporate streamlining, it’s a reality of the business world, meaning that while I wish I could fault Google for what seems to be impending restructuring, it’s likely the same steps any company would take following a landmark acquisition.

Further, while layoffs are regrettable, it might not be such a bad thing for Motorola as a corporate entity, as the company has slipped in the mobile market, watching its revenues slide as it struggles to compete with other Android partners like Samsung and perennial market behemoths like Apple.

But again, this is all based on speculation derived from historical precedent, meaning that officially nothing has been said by either Google or Motorola on their plans going forward. In fact, as I’ve reported before, it might be just as likely that Google looks to offload some of Motorola’s, taking what it wants from the company and selling off the rest; meaning, at least for the short term, that jobs may actually stay intact.

Interestingly enough, however, the one little tidbit of solid information gleaned from the weekend announcement that all regulatory hurdles had been cleared came in the form of stipulations from the Chinese authorities demanding that Google’s Android platform remain free and open source for at least five years, going to show just how central that little green droid has become to the Chinese mobile market.

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Written by: Matt Klassen. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

The wind has been blowing in the wrong direction for Wind Mobile this year. The carrier which staked its claim to be the “fastest growing wireless carrier in Canada” last year, has had a forgettable year so far. Last month, Wind Mobile lost an appeal to the CRTC regarding its request to review an earlier decision on seamless roaming.

The carrier’s been plagued down by rumors which suggest that a management shuffle is likely to happen sooner than later. To add to its woes, Wind’s growth seems to be slowing down significantly. The carrier last week reported that it added fewer than 13,000 new subscribers in its most recent quarter ended March 31, up only 3% from the previous quarter.

Wind’s total customer base now stands at 415,000 – a sorry state of affairs considering that the carrier crossed the 400,000 landmark at the end of 2011. Wind Mobile reported that ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) increased by 2.2% year-over-year to an average $26.70 from $27.30. To put things in perspective, arch-rivals Mobilicity and Public Mobile have reported adding 63,000 and 45,000 customers in the last three months of 2011.

“In Canada, the subscriber base of Wind Mobile has exceeded 415,000 all the while maintaining APRU levels compared to [the first quarter] in 2011,” Ahmed Abou Doma, CEO of Cairo-based Orascom Telecom, said in a statement.

Till last year, WIND Mobile chairman Anthony Lacavera said repeatedly that his company would be a consolidator and the last new entrant standing. It was believed that Globalive would buy Mobilicity and the deal made sense for a number of reasons. One of the first considerations is that of the imminent spectrum auction, a land rush for exquisite 700 MHz (and maybe 2500 MHz) spectrum that could draw billions. With the pooled forces of Mobilicity and WIND Mobile bidding on the same team, the fused firm could theoretically score more of the good stuff.

There’s also the consideration that WIND and Mobilicity have a number of things in common. While WIND clearly has larger aspirations, both companies have service in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Alberta. And both companies use AWS band spectrum, which means that their frequencies could be combined.

However, Wind’s fortunes have worsened in the recent months. The carrier says the reorganization of Polkomtel, which operates under the Plus brand, was one of the main factors causing the decline. Polkomtel is a key strategic customer for Wind Mobile and it’s believed the reorganization took more time than expected, thereby leading to substantial costs for the latter.

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Written by: Gaurav Kheterpal. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.comby:RSS,Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Is anything ever really dead in the mobile world? Two years ago, leading up to the launch of the first Nexus Android smartphone, Google launched a hopelessly doomed smartphone revolution, bypassing the traditional mobile carrier avenue in favour of direct sales to the consumer. At the time Google’s intention was to mirror the openness and innovation of the Android OS by giving the consumers the same kind of unrestricted purchasing experience, the experiment didn’t ever work as planned.

Not only did Google immediately come under fire from carriers—expected, given the fact that carriers make their money off contracts for phones like the Nexus—but many consumers shied away from Google’s online store as well, wanting instead to get their hands on a phone before purchasing.

Shortly thereafter Google scrapped the project, stating that while Android was a hit the online store simply was not. But, as expected, nothing stays dead forever, and Google is looking to revive its failed mobile revolution and restart its controversial online sales program once again.

Since that direct sales debacle I wrote about two years ago to the day, Google’s Android strategy has been rigidly uniform. To date, preceding the release of any Android update, Google has partnered with only one select hardware maker (anyone else think that it’s been exclusively Samsung for awhile now?) to create a “lead device,” after which the search engine giant releases the new software to other device makers. Those flagship devices, smartphones or tablets, were then sold to consumers through the traditional wireless carrier or retailer route.

But according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Google’s Android modus operandi is about to change, as leading up to the release of the next Android iteration (Jelly Bean) the company will partner with up to five different manufacturers at a time, creating a portfolio of Nexus devices (both phones and tablets) that it will sell to consumers both directly through its website and through some select retailers. 

While some may question Google’s revival of an already failed practice, consider the place the search engine giant currently finds itself. With its acquisition of Motorola all but complete, Google needs to find a way to get Motorola the newest Android updates as quickly as possible, yet it needs to do so without alienating any of its other partners. So, in an effort to not anger the likes of Samsung and HTC (currently the makers of the top Android devices), the fact is that Google needed to change its strategy.

Beyond keeping the Android ecosystem copacetic, it’s clear that with this direct-sale strategy Google is looking to reign in Android fragmentation, creating a more uniform Android experience so consumers and developers know what to expect from the platform.

But will Google find success with a strategy its only found failure with in the past? To its credit in the two years since it attempt this bold revolution Android has firmly established itself as the dominant OS in the market, but that still doesn’t take into account the mobile carriers, most of whom, I would wager, won’t be happy about Google once again doing an end-around on the traditional distribution process.

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Written by: Matt Klassen. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Last month, Gartner published a report which indicated that the tablet segment will boom over the next few years. The report suggested Apple leading the tablet market with 169.7 million units by 2016 – thereby maintaining a more than 45 per cent worldwide share of the booming sector.

Therefore, most people would have expected a similar explosive growth pattern for the smartphone segment as well. However, the research giant caught everybody by surprise when it revealed that worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, a 2% decline from the first quarter of 2011. To put things in perspective, this is the first time since the second quarter of 2009 that the market exhibited a decline.

Interestingly, Gartner attributes this dip to a slowdown in demand from the Asia-Pacific region and the far-reaching effect of economic uncertainties in developed markets. Gartner also confirmed that Samsung is now the world’s top mobile handset vendor, beating Nokia’s undisputed run which lasted more than a decade.

The research giant says the lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers had a strong effect on the overall sales. China, world’s largest smartphone market, witnessed sales drop by nearly 6% as consumers put their buying plans on hold for to wait for new advanced models. Gartner expects smartphone manufacturers to lower their prices in order to dispose their unsold inventory.

“Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia – which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.”

As for Samsung taking pole position ahead of Nokia, it’s been on the cards since last year. The Korean handset manufacturer Samsung has seen remarkable success in the last several years, producing some of the world’s most popular Android devices and producing the only line of tablets that even comes close to rivalling Apple’s success with the iPad. As mentioned by our very own Matt Klassen, Samsung has done a great job of exposing Apple’s weaknesses.

Earlier this month, Samsung posted record breaking numbers related to mobile revenues and units shipped, and there was no doubt left that Samsung has topped the global list in both categories, unseating Nokia in the latter units shipped category and seemingly passing Apple for total mobile revenues.

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Written by: Gaurav Kheterpal. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.comby:RSS,Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

I would guess that despite its popularity in some niche markets, most analysts, users, and perhaps even employees of Microsoft would have to admit that the company’s Windows Phone 7 operating system has failed (so far) to make any sort of indelible mark on the mobile world.

While certainly not for a lack of effort, Nokia’s Lumia 900 is currently selling well in North America thanks to competitive pricing and a hard marketing push, the truth is that to date no Windows Phone has come anywhere close to seeing widespread popularity, and most carriers aren’t willing to take the chance that AT&T recently did in actively pushing the Windows Phone brand.

I have no doubt that there are some out there, Microsoft included, that are saying, “just hold on a minute, give WP time to gain a foothold,” but from my perspective if the Windows Phone brand was going to be a hit, we would have seen some evidence of it already. It also looks like I’m not alone in my impatience, as Microsoft is already seeing some of its original WP partners abandoning ship.

If there’s one thing that Microsoft’s Windows Phone project has shown us all, it’s that big budgets, big dreams, and unlimited opportunity does not guarantee a successful product. To date Microsoft has poured a great deal of money into its foray into the mobile world, and has seen little in return. In fact, as the writers here at theTelecomblog have noted before, Microsoft makes more money of licensing deals with competing OS brands than it does with its own WP platform.

Although I can’t quite put my finger on why Microsoft’s Windows Phone has, to date, been nothing short of a failure (nor would I have enough room in this blog forum to articulate it all even if I could put my finger on it), it seems obvious to me that unless Windows Phone 8 is truly revolutionary, blowing away all our expectations, if WP was going to be a success we would have seen its popularity trending upwards.

As I mentioned, there are many in the WP ecosystem that remain steadfast supporters of Microsoft’s OS, stating that given a little more time the WP franchise will be a success. To wit, they point to the initial struggles of Android and iOS, both of which endured glacially slow starts as they tried to break into the competitive mobile market. The difference, however, is that both those operating systems showed continued growth, while Microsoft hit the market with a flourish followed by a steady downward slide.

Further, I think many industry analysts knew when Microsoft first launched its WP platform that success would, at least at first, come from secondary markets, places where Microsoft has always been a strong performer. The problem with WP, however, is that it has struggled in those very markets, failing to even overtake its older brother, Microsoft’s antiquated and obsolete Windows Mobile platform.

In the end, it seems that I’m not along in my critique of Windows Phone, with original WP partner LG stating in an earnings call that it will no longer be developing WP devices. With that in mind, while I remain cautiously optimistic that Microsoft will be able to revive its flagging Windows Phone brand, the information collected to date does not bode well for any long term success, pointing instead to yet another high budget, well-intentioned failure.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has stated that the Tories’ Bill C-30, the online surveillance bill, is not dead in the water as has been reported in some places. What’s more the bill is going ahead through the political process.

“Our government has been very clear, that matter will be referred to a parliamentary committee. In fact we made it clear that legislation would proceed to committee prior to second reading,” Toews said on Wednesday.

The bill was initially tabled in February and was to usher in a “new era of online surveillance” in Canada. C-30 proposed to give police and investigators extensive powers to access electronic communications of Canadian citizens. The bill also allowed investigators and intelligence services the ability to push telecommunications companies for subscriber data without a warrant.

Bill C-30, which was racking up a set-up cost of nearly $80 million, appeared to be stalled out of the gate after public outcry got in the way. The government revealed that it was in “no hurry” to pass the legislation and the bill was set to be “redesigned.”

But Toews never took the surveillance bill off his mind, continuing his implication that Canadians can either stand with C-30 or “stand with the child pornographers.” His vitriolic approach even caused concerns from within his own caucus over the privacy implications of the bill.

So what’s next?

Toews can move the bill to committee for review before any House debate on it takes place, but that hasn’t happened yet. That review, it appears, has been stalled until fall. Toews, on Wednesday, stated that it was the House leader’s responsibility to determine when C-30 actually gets nosed into committee. He also asserted that his government was not prepared to simply back away from the bill.

Commons is expected to hit recess in June and it’s not expected that the bill will face review prior to that. Toews and Co. are probably wisely waiting for some of the heat on it to die down before they reintroduce the unpopular legislation. Whether that tactic will work to pull the wool over Canadians’ eyes remains to be seen, but stranger things have happened.

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Written by: Jordan Richardson. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.