Telstra, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced that BlackBerry(R) Connect(TM) for the Palm(R) Treo(TM) 650 smartphone on the Telstra Network will be available early next month in Australia. Telstra customers now have a wider choice of devices that support the robust and secure capabilities of the BlackBerry services and a wider choice of wireless email solutions that support the feature-rich Treo 650 smartphone.

BlackBerry Connect enables new and existing Treo 650 users to benefit from many popular features of the BlackBerry “push”-based architecture via BlackBerry Enterprise Server (TM).

Telstra’s general manager of Mobiles, Mr. Martin Conneely, said Telstra was partnering with industry leaders to offer its customers relevant mobility solutions and devices.

“With more than 2,000 business and government customers using our mobility solutions, we have a lot of experience integrating these services with their existing business processes,” Mr. 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.

“The benefits of the Palm Treo mobility solution are that it integrates a mobile phone with the BlackBerry push email solution and allows customers to access a wider range of business applications. This means our customers can do more using just the one device.”

“Support for BlackBerry Connect makes the Treo 650 even more compelling for businesses in Australia,” said John Hartnett, senior vice president of worldwide sales and customer relations, Palm, Inc., “and it demonstrates Palm’s promise to provide customers with a broad range of world-class, enterprise-strength mobile-computing solutions to meet mobile email needs and more.”

Norm Lo, vice president for Asia Pacific at RIM, said, “BlackBerry provides a powerful and optimized wireless solution to satisfy the requirements of millions of mobile professionals worldwide. We are very pleased to bring BlackBerry Connect to the Treo 650 with Palm and Telstra. With BlackBerry Connect, Telstra’s corporate customers are now able to take the advantage of the proven ‘push’-based BlackBerry architecture on a broader choice of BlackBerry-enabled handsets, including the Treo 650.”

BlackBerry Connect for the Treo 650 smartphone supports the following features:

• “Push” Corporate Email delivers messages automatically and wirelessly to the Treo 650 smartphone’s VersaMail(R) inbox. Changes to the inbox, including read/unread status and deletion, are automatically synchronized between the user’s PC and the Treo 650.
• Wireless Calendar Synchronization keeps the Treo 650 smartphone’s built-in Calendar up to date remotely, allowing users to receive, accept or decline meeting requests on the go.
• Attachment Viewing lets users view Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or PDF documents while on the road.
• Remote Address Lookup (RAL) allows users to search their corporate directory wirelessly for email addresses without the need to download every name to the Treo 650.
• Extends the benefits of BlackBerry Enterprise Server to the Treo 650, including centralized device management, IT policies such as over-the-air device disablement and password device lock, and Triple DES encryption supporting end-to-end security.

The award-winning Palm Treo 650 smartphone makes it easier than ever for mobile professionals to stay connected. The Treo 650 combines a compact, full-featured mobile phone with email, an organizer, messaging and web access, allowing users to organize and simplify their business and personal lives all in one place.

The Treo 650 has won acclaim for its intuitive user interface, award-winning form factor, and the availability of more than 29,000 third-party Palm OS(R) applications and enterprise solutions. With third-party software applications available in finance, insurance, real estate, healthcare, education, sales force automation and IT management, users have the ability to mobilize enterprise data now, and the opportunity to leverage a vast community of developers to expand custom enterprise solutions.

The Australian state’s proposed A$24bn (ВЈ10bn) privatisation of incumbent carrier Telstra could be forced off the rails over a disagreement with the national regulator.

With Telstra’s earnings taking a dive on the back of losses in the fixed line space, the carrier has warned that future investment in its multi-billion dollar next generation networks depend on favourable terms from the regulator.

However, it seems neither the national operator, nor the regulator can agree on a pricing structure for allowing rival service providers access to Telstra’s infrastructure.

As part and parcel of the government’s proposal to future-proof communications in the country, the Department of Communications last year announced a more robust regulatory framework to ensure reviews of the regional telecommunications services on a regular basis. This also included the introduction of operational separation at Telstra.

Under the new legislation, Telstra would be required to maintain separate retail, wholesale and network business units as a means to ensure that as the dominant carrier, it treats all other telecommunications companies fairly.

An announcement from the regulator is expected this week.

Nevertheless, as the spat continues, the possibility of the government’s sale of its remaining 51.8 per cent stake in the company slips further away.

The company’s share price has dipped to below, A$3.60, way under half the price that Telstra stock went for in 1999.

While the government will convene next month to decide on whether to go ahead with the offering in October or November, a report in the Financial Times suggests that Prime Minister John Howard, is considering stalling the deal until the share price picks up.

More likely, such a delay would remove the deal from the table for several years with federal elections on the agenda for next year.