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Bell Feels the Pinch from Discount Carriers as Wireless Activations Decrease

Bell managed a 14% increase in net earnings and a 23% growth in free cash clow in the first quarter of 2012. But not everything is quite so rosy.

Will revenue managed to grow nearly 12%, investors are wary of the impact that the startup discount carriers—Wind Mobile, Public Mobile, etc.—are having. Bell postpaid and prepaid activations were down on the quarter, and the telecom admitted that it was in part due to "competitive acquisition offers from the newer wireless entrants"—meaning the startups are indeed managing to siphon consumers from the Big Three to their lower-priced offerings and Bell knows it.

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RIM CEO Thorsten Heins: The Enterprise is 'Where BlackBerrys Really Flourish'

Despite more aggressive marketing toward consumers in recent times, it seems that RIM doesn't intend to lose focus on the enterprise space that helped drive its earlier successes. Even though emerging trends like BYOD are rapidly eroding BlackBerrys marketshare in the enterprise, CEO Thorstein Heins told reporters today that growing the company's presence in business "absolutely matters," noting that the enterprise is "where BlackBerrys live best, where they really flourish."

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59% of Mobile Apps Don't Generate Enough Revenue to Break Even [Infographic]

Last month, Toronto-based app strategy and marketing agency App-Promo kicked off its first annual App Developer Survey, a questionnaire that focuses on the business side of applications. The goal of the survey, App-Promo said, was to reach out to the community to get a "deeper statistical understanding" on how developers are doing with their applications, "especially from a monetization and marketing perspective."

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Apple and Samsung Combine for 99% of Profits in Smartphone Industry

Talk about a two-horse race. Apple and Samsung combined for an unbelievable 99% of smartphone industry profits in the first quarter of 2012, according to Canaccord Genuity.

Samsung's 29% marketshare and Apple's 23% marketshare of smartphone sales in the quarter managed to dominate the profit sheet because companies like Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson all lost money during the quarter on smartphone sales. 

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Canada One of Three Countries in World Where IKEA Launches New Mobile App

Retailers may have shoved mobile aside in Canada for the most part, but it is becoming increasing clear that consumers will have none of that.

IKEA is the latest major retailer to launch a mobile app known as “IKEA on the Go” in Canada after finding out that 10% of their traffic was via mobile—without even having an app.

The president of IKEA Canada, Kerri Molinaro, says that is an annual increase of 250%.

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BC Startup Goes from Nothing to $500k in 1 Year with No Funding

Last March Victoria's MetaLab launched their second product Flow, a new simple tool for managing and delegating tasks.

One year later Founder and CEO Andrew Wilkinson is telling the world that the Metalab spinoff is "bringing in over $500,000 in recurring revenue and growing like crazy."

Similar to the birth of HootSuite from Vancouver's Invoke Media, Flow was a result of Metalab scratching their own itch. "We were frustrated with having to use three different apps to manage our daily workflow, so we decided to build a solution ourselves," says Wilkinson.

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Win Airfare, a Hotel Stay, and a Conference Pass to Canada's Mobile and Social Media Event

MoSo 2012, Canada’s Mobile and Social Media Conference, brings together over 300 of Canada’s brightest creative minds to imagine the future of technology in Saskatoon.

Featuring two days of engaging presentations from some of the world’s most prolific social media and mobile companies, MoSo offers a line up unheard of this far from Silicon Valley. Aimed at developers and business audiences alike, the conference offers a chance to get a glimpse of the next big thing and connect with the folks who are making it happen.

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Toronto's Woodbine Launches Mobile Betting Platform for HorsePlayer Interactive

Toronto's Woodbine Entertainment has its new HorsePlayer Interactive Mobile Betting platform.  As the company puts it, this new platform is "just one more advancement in technology for a corporation that blends leading edge technology with respected traditions."

WEG is bringing its racing fans what it describes as "another new innovation in wagering." Horse racing customers can now place their wagers through mobile devices and still use the traditional HPI conveniences such as live video streaming, programs, account funding, results, replays, and the HPI rewards program.   

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The Economist CEO: 'Printed News Will Be Dead in 25 Years'

Print is alive, but it has a shelf life. And according to one prominent media veteran, that shelf life is about two and a half decades.

Speaking at a conference in Madrid, The Economist CEO Andrew Rashbass acknowledged that, while "print circulation is at record highs ... the idea of mass printing of paper in 25 years is odd." 

Andrew suggests that society is "holding on to [print] as long as possible," which rings true for many. But, he affirms that, eventually, "it will all be digital."

The CEO also took a jab as news aggregators like Flipboard and Zite, who he describes as "head-on competitors." Their ability to cherry-pick third-party content can give them an advantage over individual publishers, allowing them to become a more valuable resource to readers while doing minimal work themselves - and not always routing significant traffic back to the original source.

What the Hell Was RIM Thinking with This Bizarre, Ridiculous Stunt? [Video]

Last week, a flashmob leapt out of a black bus that read "WAKE UP," and the group of protestors began waving black signs reading the same phrase in front of an Apple store in Australia. No one knew what was going on. The media suspected that Samsung was behind the odd stunt - the company has been taking not-so-subtle jabs at Apple for the past year through a monsoon of ads - but it turns out that another company was behind it.

MacTalk played the role of Sherlock Holmes and, after some digging, discovered and then confirmed today that the peculiar flashmob protest was indeed conceived and executed by none other than Research In Motion's Australian arm. The ironic part is that this stunt has left people thinking that its RIM who needs to wake up. After nearly 500,000 views, the video has a steep 43% dislike rate, suggesting users are less than impressed with RIM's awkward attempt at viral marketing. Check out the videobelow.

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