IDC Australia PC hardware market analyst Mercie Clement said the second half of 2005 saw the local smartphone market post record growth and expects adoption levels of mobile devices by enterprises in Australia will continue to increase steadily again this year. "By 2006 we anticipate smartphone [converged device] market growth of 41 percent, providing a market landscape that holds significant opportunities for smartphone vendors."
Telstra's general manager of mobiles, Martin Conneely, said Telstra was partnering with industry leaders to offer its customers relevant mobility solutions and devices.
"With more than 2000 business and government customers using our mobility solutions, we have a lot of experience integrating these services with their existing business processes," Conneely said.
"Many of our customers have realized significant productivity gains and competitive advantage from mobilizing business applications for their field workers and some have seen return on investment within three months."
Conneely said the benefits of the Palm Treo mobility solution are that it integrates a mobile phone with the BlackBerry push e-mail solution and allows customers to access a wider range of business applications.
In addition to push e-mail, BlackBerry Connect for the Treo 650 smartphone features wireless calendar synchronization, attachment viewing, and remote address lookup.
Also supported are the BlackBerry Enterprise Server features like centralized device management, over-the-air device disablement and password device lock, and triple DES encryption.
Palm Asia Pacific vice president Paul Blinkhorn said the launch underscores Palm's commitment to providing a broad range of enterprise-strength mobile computing solutions, and offers Treo 650 customers greater choice and flexibility to address their mobile e-mail needs.
The Treo 650 now claims to support more than 29,000 third-party applications and enterprise solutions.
The BlackBerry Connect software on the Palm Treo 650 will be available from Telstra in early May on Telstra's $49 a month BlackBerry Enterprise e-mail plan. The software is a free download and will be available at www.palm.com/au/bbc.