The Motorola Milestone - Verizon's slightly tweaked Droid - will be arriving on Canada's Telus network in early 2010, the carrier announced. The Milestone is Motorola's first Android smartphone for the Canadian market.
A version of the Motorola Droid, renamed Milestone for non-U.S. markets, will be arriving in
Canada on the
Telus network in early 2010, the carrier announced Nov. 10.
"Telus' new 3G+ network gives Canadians access to a world-class selection of
mobile devices such as the Motorola Milestone," said David Neale, senior
vice president of product and services at Telus, in a statement.
There's Microsoft Exchange server support, for hosting corporate and as well
as personal e-mail accounts, and in addition to 3G access, users can text, IM
or enjoy the full HTML browser via a Wi-Fi connection.
The Motorola Milestone comes with 16GB of memory that's expandable to 32GB, as
well as a 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus and video, contact integration for
syncing information from sources such as Gmail and Facebook, and access to
Google services, including the 12,000-apps-and-growing Android Market.
The Droid arrived in the United States
on the Verizon Wireless network on Nov. 6, and while the launch was no iPhone
launch, it is nonetheless selling well.
"Demand seems brisk," Mark McKechnie, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech,
wrote in a Nov. 9 research note. "While we heard of no stores that were
completely sold out, the majority reported that more than half of the initial
stock was sold, and some said they had just a few remaining."
McKechnie additionally told investors, "We estimate about 200k total
-sell-in' to the Verizon channels for day one," while analyst Mark Sue told the
Wall Street Journal that "RBC
Capital Markets forecasts Verizon Wireless could sell as many as 1 million
units of the phone in the fourth quarter."
The
success of the Droid, and potentially the Milestone, offers a much-needed boost
to Motorola, which was once the second largest global handset market share
holder, but has since fallen to fifth position.
"With Motorola Milestone, Canadians will no longer be limited in what they
can do with their smartphones," said Rick Gadd, vice president of Motorola
Canada Mobile Devices, in a statement on the Milestone's impending arrival on
Telus. "They will experience the Web the way they've always wanted on a mobile
device, with lightning fast speeds and pages that show them more."
Pricing and specific arrival dates have yet to be released.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This text
has been corrected to reflect that the Milestone is not Canada's first Android
phone, but Motorola's first Android phone for Canada.
Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.
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