Telstra's managing director of mobile sales and solutions Murray Bergin, made the comments at the launch today of new features to the solution, including the ability to view e-mail attachments and to wirelessly synchronise address books and delete files or purge the device.
"This could be the hinge year," said Bergin. "We have a plan for GPRS and 1XRTT (the Mobile Loop network) data this year that will see us get close to 70 percent of SMS."
The Blackberry device allows users to check their e-mail and other business desktop applications by pushing the information out to the device, like a mobile message. It also has voice capabilities through a headset. At the end of last year around 50-100 devices per month were being sold, according to Telstra, and this month it expects to sell almost 1,000.
Currently around 90 percent of mobile data revenue is derived from SMS messages, and the attempts of carriers to encourage people to use other technologies has so far met with limited success in Australia. However, Bergin said Blackberry was "softening up the market in the country for wireless data use".
"Blackberry is very much a part of our growth strategy...because it is such an easy thing for the customer to do, pick up a Blackberry and use it, and it's such a compelling proposition out of the box," said Bergin. He said for people to use the mobile network they had to have something to do.
Telstra are currently targeting large corporations to sell the device, and have plans to move into the SME market.
