TORONTO, March 3, 2010 – Canadians will soon be able to leave their wallets at home thanks to a wireless payment sticker trial launched by EnStream LP, Canada’s leading mobile commerce company. The Zoompass Tag ^TM is a wireless payment device designed in the form of a sticker that can be attached to a mobile phone. The Zoompass Tag ushers in the future of mobile payments by allowing consumers to tap their phones at checkout to make purchases at retail stores.

In 2009, EnStream launched the revolutionary Zoompass™ mobile application and began offering Canadians the first version of a mobile wallet. Available at www.zoompass.com and accessible on most mobile phones in Canada, Zoompass already allows users to send money quickly and securely to friends and family.

“The new Zoompass Tag goes even further by allowing Canadians to make their regular store purchases quickly and securely, using only their mobile phone.” said Robin Dua, President of EnStream LP. “All Zoompass users will soon be able to pay for their morning coffee, gas at the pump, and lunch at a fast-food restaurant with a quick tap of their mobile phone.”

By tapping a mobile phone with the Zoompass Tag on a contactless reader at the point-of-sale, payment is automatically drawn from the user’s Zoompass stored value account. Contactless payments remove the need for coins and cash, plus time spent waiting in lines and digging for change. Canadians can look forward to having exact change ready via their mobile phones whenever they need it.

Customer’s financial information is stored on secure servers, not on the mobile phone, so even if the phone is lost or stolen, the customer’s Zoompass account remains secure. Together, the Zoompass Tag and Zoompass application allow consumers to monitor their purchase transactions in real-time.

“Every transaction is logged in the Zoompass application and can be instantly seen on the mobile phone. This is very handy to track purchases and budgets in real-time,” added Dua.

The sleek and appealing sticker measures 43 mm by 33 mm and can be easily affixed to any mobile phone.

“This is the most advanced wireless payment sticker available in the Canadian market today. Our Convego® Air Mobile sticker is the only sticker of its kind with a flexible body and a unique shuttle distribution method. It is the only sticker being trialed by the leading Canadian wireless carriers for use on their mobile phones”, said Kim Madore, VP Emerging Technology and Market Development for Giesecke & Devrient, producer of the Zoompass Tag.

The Zoompass Tag can be used at most contactless payment ready locations. Leading retail merchants such as Tim Hortons, McDonalds, Petro Canada and Loblaws will accept payment through the Zoompass Tag as these merchants are rapidly adopting contactless payment terminals in an effort to offer convenience to consumers and save costs.

The trial is offered to select Zoompass clients and is expected to last up to 3 months. The pilot will allow EnStream to evaluate many aspects of the mobile payment experience and shape the way Canadians pay for goods and services in the future.

It is appealing... but it is the same thing as my Starbucks or Timothy's card. I load them and then I use these when purchasing my coffee.

Key to this announcement is the following phrase: "payment is automatically drawn from the user's Zoompass stored value account."

I want it to take the money out of my bank account directly... The problem with this method is that I have to maintain yet another account. I want integration... not fragmentation!

The little sticker is not as appealing to me as the press release makes it sound: "...sleek and appealing sticker measures 43mm by 33mm and can be easily fixed to any mobile phone."

I know this is a step forward, but it seems too much like a step backwards.

Nevertheless progress is progress...

Remember - this is a carrier lead initiative. To be honest with you I am waiting for the banks. I have a feeling they can do a better job at it.

Integration... not fragmentation!

Are there reasons to suggest that the iPad won't be Apple's third game-changer in a decade, following the iPod family of products and the phenomenal iPhone, which has turned into a mutli-billion dollar business in less than three years?

There are at least three things that give me pause.

First, I wonder if Apple hasn't actually created too good an interface for content providers. One of the things I love about my Kindle is it has just the right sets of features for reading books and many magazines. It is basic content delivered easily at reasonable prices.

Apple's device allows textbook publishers and others to pour on multimedia features like pictures and videos. Publishers love that option because it seemingly gives them options to charge higher prices. But is it possible that many customers don't actually want the extra bells and whistles? They just want the basic content at affordable prices.

Of course, that's not true for all customers, some surely want as many features as they can get, but it is possible that content providers jumping onto the iPad platform will overshoot the market's mainstream, providing more room for Amazon's Kindle and other simpler readers (of course, Amazon is trying to figure out how to get third-party applications onto the Kindle so it can compete with Apple).

Also, the iPad is entering a pretty crowded space. Not only are there are growing number of e-readers, multifunctional netbooks share many of the same features as the iPad (without the slick design, of course), and other major manufacturers are coming up with their own tablets as well. I'm sure there are a class of consumers who will look at Apple's device and not see a place for it in their arsenal of gadgets.

And that leads to my third concern. I wonder whether Apple is beginning to get into uncomfortable territory where it will face hard choices about the degree to which it cannibalizes itself. One of the great things about the iPod is that it was all new growth for the company. The iPhone might have cannibalized the iPod a bit, but for the most part it was all new growth for the company. Apple surely hopes the iPad slots in nicely between its phones and its computer lines, but if it doesn't, Apple might have a difficult balancing act on its hands.

It's hard to bet against Apple. The two things I admire most about the company are its ability to think holistically about business models (iPod + iTues, iPhone + the App store, iPad + iBookstore) and its willingness to keep innovating. Imagine how different it would have been if Apple stopped at the first generation iPod, or just rode the iPod for as long as it could. Its willingness to step out and enter into new categories is an important lesson for all companies.

What’s CoPilot?

It’s a high quality mobile application that effectively transforms your phone into a GPS navigation device. It ain’t cheap, but it’s a lot cheaper than a dedicated GPS device.

What’s the news?

CoPilot announced that the Android version of the application was compatible with the new Nexus One. To which my response was “well, yes, it’s an Android.”

But two pieces of info have since come to light which have softened my cough.

First, only yesterday did Google actually release the Software Development Kit that allows developers to check whether or not their apps can run on the Nexus One. So making sure that CoPilot actually runs on the phone would have involved an awful lot of experimentation and leg work.

Second was info I got from CoPilot itself. They said a considerable amount of work goes into making sure software is compatible not only with new Android handsets, but also the updated Android OS. The example given was the previous version of CoPilot Live for Android. It was fully compatible with the Motorola Droid in the US. But there was a slight change in the Android ROM for the European equivalent (the Motorola Milestone) that caused CoPilot to crash. Updates and changes had to be made so that the app could work on the new device. And that was for two device that were supposed to be the same and run on the same OS. The Nexus One is both a different phone, and a new OS.

After a few unrelated stories on the topic my gut is now telling me to do a story on this... the fragmentation of the Android platform and the difficulties this represents for the penetration of the platform into the enterprise. Now time is my only enemy...