Staff Writers

Dildo dealer and porn purveyor, AdultShop.com, has agreed to acquire the Perth-based developer of Hutchison Three’s social networking service – Kink Kommunity.

The acquisition is part of a strategy for AdultShop.com to develop business outside its traditional adult-oriented content. In addition to its 3G mobile social networking product, Loop Wireless offers other content products, including mobile comics and mobile AFL products. The conditional agreement will in turn help Loop Wireless fast track its international expansion of Kink Kommunity in the US and European markets.

As reported by SmartOffice News yesterday, Kink chief executive Gavin Bullen is currently in London negotiating with Three UK to launch the service to Hutchison’s 4 million 3g mobile phone subscribers in the United Kingdom.

Kink Kommunity, announced as the Best Mobile/Wireless product at the Australian Interactive Media Industry Awards, has been available to users of Hutchison’s 3 network since October 2005. Users pay a monthly fee to access interactive, web-like content via their mobile phones, with much of the content generated by users themselves, such as photos, videos and commentary — all moderated by Loop Wireless.

By mid 2006 the company aims, in a world first, to join Australia and UK Kommunity members in an integrated and real-time social networking forum.

Terms of the acquisition, upon the satisfaction of certain conditions, will see Loop Wireless become a wholly owned subsidiary of AdultShop.com in return for the issue of 20 million ordinary shares in ASC and 80 million performance shares in ASC and the provision by ASC of $1.5 million for Loop Wireless working capital.

The 80 million performance shares will be converted into a maximum of 80 million ordinary shares in ASC over the next 2 years, subject to Loop Wireless achieving agreed performance hurdles.

“This acquisition will further allow Loop to bring our 3G mobile social networking product to a more global community,” said Loop Wireless’s CEO Gavin Bullen. “The expertise we have developed to moderate and produce the content, as well as understanding what works with our target audiences, will prove invaluable in expanding our offering beyond Australian users.”

Telstra has entered the online storage business launching BigPond Online Storage targeted at both business and consumers looking for a secure way to store data.

BigPond Managing Director, Mr Justin Milne, said secure off-site servers are ideal if you’re running out of room on your hard drive, you’re worried about losing files if your system crashes due to a virus, or you just want the security of off-site data and settings back-ups.

Customers can choose ‘Basic’ or ‘Professional’ storage plans to suit their requirements.

Basic Storage plan subscription ranges from $2.50 per month for 100MB to $12.95 for 800MB. Professional storage is available from $4.95 for 100MB to $24.95 for 2000MB.

Basic storage features easy drag-and-drop uploads to a customer’s personal online folder and is ideal for storing photos or transferring large files from PC to PC.

Professional storage enables the user to create an online copy of a nominated folder and provides automatic, ‘always-on’ access that synchronises a customer’s local files with their online folder.

Transferring files between your PC and BigPond Online Storage is unmetered for BigPond Broadband Cable & ADSL customers.

Introducing the pocket-sized gigabeat Flash and updating the existing gigabeat X series with some larger drives, Toshiba has saved its cherry for Harvey Norman.

The gigabeat X series shrinks the F series by 20 per cent, but capacity reaches the limits with a 6oGB model in the offing.

Lighter and smaller than the gigabeat F series, the X series features a larger 2.4 inch QVGA LCD screen using new small footprint 1.8 inch HDD technology that can display photos and album covers in full colour. The 30GB model, the gigabeat X30, is available in a pearl white or Cherry Red case if you buy from Harvey Norman. Harvey Norman sells the Cherry Red X30 exclusively.

The 60GB model (X60) comes in any colour you want as long as its metallic black.

A great feature on the X Series is the ability to RIP CD directly to the player at the push of a button, eliminating the need to upload from a PC. The management software features album cover art, separate audio and photo libraries.

A little on the small side, Toshiba describes the Flash series player as “no bigger than a Tim Tam”. Available either in a 512GB or 1GB, the Flash has an Organic Light Emitting Display (OLED) full colour screen and weighs 50 grams.

Available in either white (512MB) or metallic black (1GB) the Flash is only 13mm thick, yet has a built-in voice recorder and a 14 hour battery life.

Both players USB charging and new headphones designed for the 3-dimensional sound image created by SRS WOW Sound, an audio enhancement technology.

Pricing as follows

gigabeat Flash MEP-05L (512MB): RRP $179

gigabeat Flash MEP-10L  (1GB)

gigabeat X30 (30GB): RRP $429 (Cherry Red exclusive to Harvey Norman)

gigabeat X60 (60GB): RRP $569

Nokia released three new business phones onto the market to target Corporate and eventually SME businesses looking for mobile email services.

Nine months after the Veritas acquisition security and availability software vendor Symantec has launched a new partner program that brings its 1600 Australian and New Zealand Symantec and Veritas partners under one umbrella.

David Blackman, Symantec Channel Director for the Pacific Region, told SmartOffice News the new program was part of a global roll-out covering more than 60,000 reseller organisations and bringing what was once eight different partner websites into one portal while simplifying the tiered structure of the program to better suit its diverse partner base.

Importantly, the new partner program tracks and rewards partner performance for the value and expertise they bring to customers as well as the volume of products and services they sell.

The difference is that with the points based system it means you don’t necessarily get the most attention for having the highest revenue, said Blackman. You get points for your marketing efforts, specialisations and investment in training, he explained.

The four tier program means that a partner can join at the ‘registered’ level and move up the tiers in recognition of the commitment to Symantec without having huge sales volumes. Similarly they can move downward, notes Blackman.

Channel Partners are now classified as either; Registered, Silver, Gold or Platinum. Silver and above level partners have increased access to online service such as technical information and advanced product notification.

The partner portal, PartnerNet, also offers access to competitive information, marketing campaigns and collateral, a quote generator and the dealer registration system.

The new PartnerNet portal is part of a five-fold increase in partner-focused technology infrastructure investment, said Blackman

“We have actually created a whole team called the Partner Enablement Team which is working with managed partners and producing technical and sales training programs. Face-to-face contact will be as important as it has ever been and we plan to run 3000-4000 face-to-face training courses across sales and technical this year.

The company already has more than 600 under its belt following a seven capital roadshow to tell partners of its first integrated Vertias/Symantec offering for the mid-market.

“The key message for the partners was that they can now leverage both security and availability. A lot of the partners are focused on one or the other, now they have the opportunity to get into information security and information availability,” said Blackman.

The new solution combines Symantec’s LiveState Recovery with what was Veritas and Backup Exec which now share code between them and are offered as a bundled solution.

While EMC remains the current marketshare leader (29.7%) in the global storage software market, Symantec moved into second place with the acquisition of Veritas (20.3%). IBM is in third spot (10.5%) with Network Appliance (6.6%) and HP (6.5%) also players in the market.