The BlackBerry work/life balance debate rages on in Australian Parliament as 40 handhelds due for top executives get stalled due to concerns about squeezing in on staff’s personal time. There’s been an ongoing effort to promote telecommuting by the Australian Telework Advisory Committee, but apparently there’s still some resistance to adopting BlackBerry – and living in a city full of federal employees grumbling about their little digital ball and chains, I can see why.
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Optus will be carrying the BlackBerry 8120 as of the first week of December, just in time for Christmas. The Wi-Fi Pearl packing a 2 megapixel video-capturing camera and externally-acessible microSD slot is set for a $659 recommended retail price. Pacific VP Norm Lo is understandably excited about the 8120 coming out.
“BlackBerry Smartphones are well received in Australia and we are pleased to be working with Optus to introduce another RIM innovation,” said RIM President of Asia Pacific, Norm Lo. “The new BlackBerry Pearl 8120, with its elegant design, advanced multimedia features and Wi-Fi capabilities, is perfect for both personal and professional use.”
Australia is facing a BlackBerry boom, according to RIM’s Asia-Pacific regional manager Paul Osmond.
“We’re expecting to see growth well over 100 per cent in the Australian market over the next 12 months,” Mr Osmond said. “Three years ago, I remember being in one of the Qantas lounges seeing one or two BlackBerrys and I had one of them. Two months ago, myself and one of my sales representatives counted 53 BlackBerrys in the Qantas lounge in Melbourne.”
Service bumps aside, Australia has a really impressive wireless landscape, what with 3G making such headway. Good stuff, Aussies!
Optus customers down under might be having some connectivity issues today. An official statement has confirmed the issue:
“I can confirm that some Optus customers have today been experiencing disruption to their BlackBerry data services,” an Optus spokeswoman said. “Technicians have now resolved the issue and we have been progressively restoring customers to normal service from approximately 1pm (AEDT) this afternoon. Optus apologises for any inconvenience caused to its customers by this disruption.”
Any of our readers still having problems?
We’ve heard some rumblings of Virtual BlackBerry software coming for Windows Mobile 6 devices on Telstra within the next month. Keep in mind, this isn’t BlackBerry Connect, which just gets you push e-mail on something other than a BlackBerry. Virtual BlackBerry includes that, but lets you load up BlackBerry applications (calendar, address book, tasks, memos, browser, instant messaging, etc.) on Windows Mobile. Progress the Virtual BlackBerry service has been pretty quiet since the announcement last April – here’s hoping Australians won’t be the only ones getting it soon.
Thanks, miblackberry!
Australian carrier Telstra has been trying to bring their Next G service to the continent, which entails shutting down their existing CDMA network by early 2008. However, Australia’s Communications Minister Helen Coonan has blocked the shutdown until it has been definitively proven that Next G will provide equal or better service than the CDMA network, which means Telstra would have to run both for an indeterminate amount of time, which they claim they can’t afford. The whole mess has resulted in Telstra taking legal action against the minister, citing “the Minister has breached her Ministerial duties by making up her mind about the imposition of the license condition to block the closure of the old CDMA network – an integral part of the Next G network plan – even before receiving submissions and evidence from Telstra as to why such a license condition was unnecessary and bad for the bush”. So, who’s right here? Does the minister require an actual side-by-side comparison to tell if Next G will be an acceptable replacement, or is it good enough to have it all on paper?
