Staff Reporter

Connection to the customers bank is over Vodafones GSM network. An authorisation time of beweteen 13 and 15 seconds is being claimed.

The idea of the devices is to enable businesses to process electronic transactions wherever the customer is such as an exhibition sporting event or in the home (eg delivery services).

The freebies contain a tiny deckchair stand for the phone sunglasses disposable camera sun block and a transparent phone case.

The promotion is being support by a national press and ad campaign.

The technology is being supplied by the Sema Groups SemaVision software.

Vodafone chose the system because it says it is easy to use and that information can be quickly updated with data from partner organisations such as the Automobile Association.

Its integration with our other systems means that in a few months we will be in a position to offer a range of commercially-viable services said Tony Riley sales and marketing director of Vodafone Added and Data Services.

George Steaur previously in charge of Olivettis Dutch Benelux and Northern European operations has been appointed general manager of the operation in Holland.

Eircell head of retail sales Stephen Mackarel is now The Carphone Warehouses general manager in Ireland and John Grummitt leaves Smith Kline Beecham to become European commercial director in charge of financial and strategic development of the European business.

These top quality people will bring invaluable business and operational experience to our European network said Carphone Warehouse chief operating officer David Ross.

The Carphone Warehouse runs 140 shops in France Sweden Spain Holland Germany Ireland and Belgium.

Most of these outlets run under The Phone House brand.

Meanwhile a reorganisation of The Phone House Germany is also underway and the previous general manager Howard Gleave is being replaced.

The Dumers Lane call centre will at first employ 250 people when it opens next month. The rest of the vacancies will be filled by Autumn.

Most jobs are full-time contracts for customer care operators.

BTCellnet is working with Bolton and Bury Chamber of Commerce and recruitment agents to find people to fill the jobs.

Bury is a great choice for the location of the new call centre. Weve had tremendous support from Bury Metro Council and Bury Chamber in pulling the deal together said BTCellnet director of sales and service Hugh Logan.

Customers are charged 10p (plus VAT) to send a message to a subscription pager and 20p to send to a caller-party-pays Zap! pager.

After composing the message users key in the pager number instead of the mobile number.

Worth more than 1 million a year the contract makes One 2 One the main supplier of mobile phones to the Central Buying Consortium.

The Consortium was formed eight years ago and is the largest local authority purchasing group in the UK.

We chose One 2 One primarily because of its innovative approach to structuring the deal said Paul Raimbach senior contracts manager for Buckinghamshire County Council the main authority in the Consortium.

As well as offering unbeatable value for money it was immediately clear that One 2 One was easily capable of meeting the range of strict network and customer support quality guidelines we laid down in the tender process.

Messages can also be redirected to any fax machine to obtain hard copy.

E-mails of up to 160 characters (the maximum length of an SMS) can be received with no need for a data card or modem. If the message is longer additional parts of the e-mail can be requested.

Customers need to register for the BulletIN service but there is no monthly subscription fee. The cost of originating or receiving an e-mail is 20p to forward an e-mail to a fax machine costs 50p. However until the end of September the service is available at half price.

The statistic comes from interviews with 150 people in mobile phone outlets nation-wide.

At least 76 per cent of people interviewed said they only visited one shop before making their purchase decision.

However although sales people influence a third of all purchases they could influence far more as half of consumers questioned said they didnt have a brand in mind when they went into the store.

This says EMS Chiara suggests that they believed the sales staff would help them make their decision.

Out of the 33 per cent respondents who said they were influenced by sales staff only 27 per cent were women. Other factors that affect sales are advertising (six per cent) promotional deals (16 per cent) friends recommendations (10 per cent) low price (16 per cent) ergonomics (13 per cent) and other reason (six per cent).

The research has also identified that 43 per cent of people bought a mobile phone because its the norm to have one. And 56 per cent of females are still buying their first phone compared to 33 per cent of males.

Also 52 per cent of males will change their phone to keep up with technology compared with 16 per cent of females.

These figures highlight the necessity for technology retailers to tap into and capitalise on their most valuable asset their sales team said EMS Chiara chairman Richard Thompson.

Sales staff are the direct link to the shoppers and therefore their attitude and product knowledge is crucial. Advertising will draw people in-store but essentially it is the sales team that are able to make or break a sale. Retail managers should consider investing more in sales training.

The Nokia 8850 is a dual-band GSM 900/1800 mobile phone weighing 91 g and having a volume of 70 cc. Its features include voice dialling.

The phone was unveiled at the CommunicAsia 99 exhibition held in Singapore last week.

With the introduction of the Nokia 8850 we are confident that Nokia can once again live up to expectations. The Nokia 8850 will be received with great excitement by our most demanding customers said Nokia Mobile Phones president Matti Alahuhta.

Nokia chief designer Frank Nuovo said:

The Nokia 8850 exhibits further refinement of the form we introduced with the Nokia 8810 last year. The overall balance finely tuned shapes and unique selection of materials clearly position the Nokia 8850 in premium class.

The cover is made of a combination of aluminum and magnesium. The Nokia 8850 incorporates an internal high-performance antenna and internal semi-fixed battery. Voice dialling allows the user to store up to eight voice tags in the phone memory. The 8850 also supports predictive text input which enables users to type messages with greater speed and convenience. The phones built-in dictionary assists in quickly picking up the right word.

A picture Messaging facility allows users to send graphics attached to a short message. The new phone also comes ready-made with a set of default pictures that can be sent to any other Nokia 8850 or to a Nokia 3210. More information and pictures can be downloaded from Nokias website where the user can also design new pictures.

Standby time of the Nokia 8850 is up to 150 hours and the talktime is up to three hours 20 minutes depending on the network conditions. There is a built-in vibra alert and the phone supports all three wireless voice codecs HR FR and EFR as well as the extended GSM bandwidth the EGSM band.

Also due out from Nokia in the fourth quarter is a high-speed data terminal called The Nokia Card Phone 2.0 which is said to quadruple usual data transmission speeds over digital networks.

The Nokia Card Phone 2.0. is a PC Card with a built-in GSM phone supporting High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) and enabling data transmission of up to 43.2 Kbit/s without data compression.