I've had a Treo 650 for the past three weeks, and I love the idea of an all-in-one device that features a phone, e-mail, a cool Web browser and all the regular Palm apps. I have even written some nice things about the 650 based on first impressions. I now have to confess, however, I've been fooled. Though theoretically attractive, the Treo 650 is not ready for prime time. My unit has been buggy, volatile and unstable. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to do soft and hard resets - only to have VersaMail mysteriously go on the fritz due to a "Net.lib" message. To make matters worse, the phone suddenly turns off and refuses to be turned back on, which means you can't use the Web. The Blackberry may not be as sexy but at least it works all the time. Palm - the 650 is a 0 so far. It makes my m505 look like a dream machine.

Merrill Lynch analyst Glen Campbell believes Shaw Communications is signing up about 1,000 customers a week for cable telephony in Calgary. A sticking point for may consumers may be Shaw's pricing - $55 a month - but Campbell expects the cost will decline as Shaw hones its deployment system and drives hard to reaching its goal of 20% of cable subscribers within five years. A strategic question that has to be asked is what's holding up rival Telus Corp.'s VOIP and IP-TV launches. Telus was granted a TV license in 2003 but there has been a lot of radio silence since then.

It's been quiet on the Nortel front - relatively speaking - for the past few weeks but you can expect to see the telecom equipment maker back in the spotlight soon. Nortel said yesterday it expects to file Q4 and 2004 annual results this month, and Q1 2005 results some time in May. Then there will be the 2003 and 2004 AGMs in Toronto in June. I've been assured the meetings will not be held in some obscure locations in the middle of the night but you never know.
On a more troubling note, it appears vendor financing could be making a comeback. In a recent report, TD Newcrest analyst Chris Umiastowski said China's ZTE Corp. has extended a US$1-billion line of credit to India's Atlas Interactive, which is looking to build a new high-speed network to deliver IP-TV, while Huawei Technologies has armed itself with a US$10-billion line of credit for international expansion. This could spell bad news for Nortel, Cisco, Lucent, Alcatel, et al because Chinese suppliers could compete for new business with two big weapons: low prices and low financing. It could cause the major suppliers to return to the vendor financing business and/or lower prices. As many people remember, vendor financing was a popular tool during the telecom boom but it blew up when many customers - and I use that term loosely given the flawed business models of many of them - went out of business and couldn't pay their bills. For the health of the industry, let's hope things don't get out of hand again.