JLA Ventures: RIM, RBC, and Thomson

RIM is rocking with its announcement to make a $150 million fund that will invest in companies creating software for BlackBerrys and other mobile devices. The Royal Bank of Canada and Thomson Reuters are co-investors.

The BlackBerry Partners Fund will be managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners. This move from RIM smells similar to Apple's March declaration that it would set up a $100 million "iFund" for the development of iPhone and iPod Touch applications.

Well, this new BlackBerry model in more than a year: the Bold, a high-end model that further expresses the company's wish to make tools for work with fun and frolic. The Bold, or 9000, has twice the screen resolution of the current Curve model, making for a very sharp display. It matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple's iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the "smart phone" category. It also has much more internal memory, a glossy metallic look, and adds corporate-strength Wi-Fi capabilities to third-generation cellular and Bluetooth radios.

A horizontal screen above a trackball and a keyboard with one letter per key seems impressive. This Canadian, Waterloo based RIM didn't declare a price for their new model 'Bold', nor did it sepcify any agreements with specific cellphone carriers. Assumption is the phone would be available from various carriers this summer. The initial model would support GSM networks, the kind employed by AT&T and T-Mobile. Later models could work on the Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless networks.

Like the Curve and the Pearl, BlackBerry's consumer-oriented phones, the Bold has a full-size headset jack and a camera that can also capture video. At the same time, it has dual-band Wi-Fi, a feature previously only found on a model aimed at the corporate market.The Bold will also have exchangable back plates in different colors, a first for a BlackBerry.

iPhone's Global Reach

The paucity of iPhones for sale in some markets comes as Apple is hustling to meet its goal of selling 10 million of the hybrid iPod-cell phone-Internet surfing gadgets by the end of 2008. So far, Apple has sold 5.4 million iPhones, according to the latest data as of the end of March.

Apple, is rapidly linking its network with the world wide wireless carriers to expand its presence across the Globe. In the Asia-Pacific region, SingTel will sell the gadget in Singapore, Bharti Airtel in India, Globe Telecom in the Philippines and Optus in Australia, SingTel has about 2.3 million mobile subscribers in Singapore and around 7 million in Australia.

According to data as of Dec. 31, 2007. Bharti currently has about 64 million subscribers, while Globe reported a 21.3 million mobile subscriber base for the quarter ended March 31.

Last week, the top mobile phone operator in Latin America, America Movil SAB, also announced plans to deliver the iPhone to its region. America Movil has 159.2 million subscribers in 16 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

In recent weeks Apple has also signed deals with Rogers Communications Inc. to sell the device in Canada; Milan-based Telecom Italia to sell the iPhone in Italy; and Vodafone Group, the world's biggest mobile company by sales, to sell it in a total of 10 countries, including Australia, India, Italy and Turkey

Apple is also planning a software update for this summer that makes the iPhone work better with corporate e-mail, a necessary upgrade to help the iPhone compete with Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Palm Inc.'s Treo smart phones. Girding for a fight with Apple in the business-oriented smart-phone space, Research In Motion on Monday unveiled the Bold, its first BlackBerry model to work over 3G.

Can iPhone cater to Enterprise Market ?

Since Apple's iPhone launched last June, one of its biggest weaknesses has been its lousy/non-existent support for corporate email. That should change soon: Apple is planning to lay out the iPhone "software roadmap," including "exciting new enterprise features."

Apple might do to make the iPhone a solid business-email gadget by improving its ability to work with Microsoft's (MSFT) Exchange email server and IBM's (IBM) Lotus Notes, the top enterprise email platforms.

How will Apple make it happen? Most likely, the company has developed its own hooks into those platforms. Or Apple could have licensed email software from a third party, like Microsoft's ActiveSync technology -- less likely. Possible but least likely: licensing Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry Connect software.

I don't think they are going to replicate the robustness of BlackBerry push e-mail, but nonetheless, it seems improvements as positive.

Not just positive, but mandatory: If Apple (AAPL) wants to sell 10 million iPhones this year, cracking the enterprise market is key.

First they would have to worry about security stuff, complying with the Federal Information Security Management Act. Some features they would be looking for:

Does the system encrypt the data coming in and out of the iPhone?

Does it support encrypted email?

Can you wipe the device remotely?

To satisfy the group's disaster recovery plan, is there a backup messaging feature in case the Exchange server goes down?

Assuming all of that passed, they will have to set up the Microsoft (MSFT) ActiveSync software that the iPhone uses to connect to Exchange for email, contacts, and calendars. Then they would have to figure out a deal with AT&T (T), Apple's exclusive U.S. carrier partner. (Their organization's BlackBerry account is currently with T-Mobile.) Then they would have to test iPhones on the system, buy a bunch, and set them up.

To be sure, this is a branch of the Federal govenment we're talking about, so we wouldn't expect them to turn on a dime. But we think many large companies won't be much nimbler. Which means the iPhone's first corporate customers are going to be small shops with dozens of people, not hundreds or more.

And given that a lot of the growth in the smartphone market -- even for RIM -- is coming from consumers who just want to connect to their corporate email as a convenience, Apple (AAPL) will focus on them first. They can tackle RIM's biggest business customers down the road.

There are applications you can think of–field technicians in areas with poor connectivity who need access to large amounts of data–but those are probably the exception, not the rule. Most road warriors could use Web-based tools with little loss in productivity. I have been amazed at the richness of some of the iPhone applications that I’ve seen and it’s only been a few months.

Creating Web-based applications and data might not work for every enterprise, but if it works for you, then the iPhone, and it’s future copycats, might prove to be a superior platform. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because the iPhone doesn’t work like the last generation of mobile devices that it’s not right for your organization. Regardless, the iPhone portends changes for the mobile market and it’s worth paying attention to what that means for your enterprise.