Telus Corp.’s scored $2.4 billion in revenue in the second quarter, an increase of eight per cent over the same period a year ago and so good the company is revising its revenue prediction upwards for the year.Pushing the numbers was $1.26 billion in revenue on the wireline side – up 6.5 per cent over the same period in 2007 — aided in part from buying the health and financial services provider Emergis from Bell Canada and streaming media company Fastvibe Corp. The number of high speed Internet subscribers also increased by 23,600 in the quarter.

The company also pulled in $1.14 billion in wireless revenue, an increase of nine per cent from a year ago. Wireless data revenue alone jumped 54 per cent in the quarter over the same period a year ago due to increases in text messaging, downloads and Web browsing.

Wireless net additions increased by 176,000, which was up 37 per cent over a year ago and a second quarter record. Telus credits the leap in part to the launch in March of its Koodo postpaid brand.

On the other hand, average revenue per wireless subscriber dropped 1.4 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2007. The company blamed that on a lower voice component from an increasing number of prepaid subscribers.

CEO Darren Entwistle credited the numbers to “solid operational execution.” Net income was $267 million, a 5.5 per cent increase over the year ago quarter.

Entwistle dodged a question from a financial analyst on how close the company is to deciding on switching its wireless network from CDMA to GSM. The CEO has said publicly it is mulling the move. He did say it will eventually adopt the so-called 4G high speed wireless LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology. That will in part be enabled by the $880 million in spectrum it picked up in the recent AWS licence auction, Enwistle said.

GSM carriers may also shift to LTE for next-generation high speed wireless. CDMA carriers face a choice: Go straight to LTE, or shift first to GSM.

“We are currently evaluating prospective paths to get to LTE at 4G, and we are of course looking at a path that maximizes our economics,” he said.

During the quarter the company added three more GPS services for business, services allowing assets or employees to be tracked through a wireless device. Track and Dispatch, for example, allows a customer to find the closest worker to a new job assignment.

Not all was bright, however. The number of home phone subscribers continued to drop thanks to competition from cable and VoIP providers. On the other hand, the drop wasn’t as bad as in other quarters. In fact, it said it was the slowest drop since the fourth quarter of 2004.

On Wednesday Bell Canada reported wireless gains as well. Total net activations in the second quarter grew to 83,000, or by 31.7 per cent compared to the same period a year ago. Wireless operating revenues were up 10.7 per cent. As with Telus, Bell continues to lose residential phone customers, but again at a slower rate than in previous quarters.

For the quarter Bell Canada had $3.7 billion in revenue, up 1.7 per cent over the year ago period. By comparision, Telus’ revenue was up eight per cent. Bell’s operating income was $682 million, a drop of 0.6 per cent compared to the year ago period. In part that reflected the loss of revenue from the sale earlier in the year of Telesat.

IT managers who comply with information storage regulations by buying more storage and saving every single record will probably spend too much.

This was one tip released this week by Gartner Inc. of Stamford, Conn. Instead of going on a hardware buying binge, companies should instead look at information access technologies that help identify redundant information and decide what to save on primary storage.

In a press release, Gartner quoted Wilt Andrews, one of its vice-presidents and distinguished analysts, as saying information access technologies helps IT departments designate the importance and relevance of information based on advanced approaches, rather than intuition.

He said licence costs range from $10,000 to $3 million.

Another analyst firm, IDC, released a report Wednesday forecasting the storage semiconductor market will grow by six per cent per year over the next four years. The major drivers of growth include emergence of iSCSI and Fiber Channel over Ethernet, plus the need for SAS expanders and multiplexers.

Ontario-based Bamboo Cricket has announced a new Web-based platform, Managed Solution, to help online retail businesses handle customer service requests.

Depending on the retailers’ needs, Managed Solution will either supplement or provide full customer service support with live US-based CSR staff 365 per year. Support is provided in the form of Inbound Email Management and/or Live Chat.

Email management includes sorting, filtering, change of address and unsubscribe requests and CAN-SPAM compliance. “Up to 10,000 emails can be processed per month per user with 100 per cent email response within 12 hours,” states Bamboo Cricket in the release. Live chat benefits include detailed logging, tracking and reporting of customer requests as well as CSR performance.

According to Bamboo Cricket, “Online businesses lose as many as 67 per cent of consumers due to a lack of online product information.” Managed Solution can be “up and running” in 7-10 days.

A Halifax-based vendor of enterprise intelligence management software announced on Thursday a new president and CEO.

Coemergence Inc. appointed Peter Hickey to lead the company into its “new phase of growth in the global market,” said executive chairman Rod Burgar.

For the past 12 months, Hickey was vice-president of operations, during which, according to Burgar, he demonstrated “his ability to build strong relationships with customers and drive both tactical and strategic projects forward.”

With broad experience working with startups and established global technology companies, Hickey has managed the execution of IT strategy and enterprise-critical technology solutions throughout North America, the company said.

Hickey holds an MBA from Saint Mary’s University, a BBA from the University of Prince Edward Island, and a Diploma in Applied Information Technology from the Information Technology Institute.

Catering to mining and resource companies, Coemergence’s flagship product is ACIS, a Web platform that gathers, organizes and shares previously uncaptured data from a company’s employees, industry news and public sources.

Users will also have free access to D-Link staff of sales engineers for support.

The D-3026 has combo fibre optic ports for optional 10-gigabit Ethernet connection, and supports power over Ethernet. The switch has 24 gigabit Ethernet ports capable of connecting to wireless access points or to wired local area network devices like servers, storage and switches.

Femtocells are small cellular base stations that improve indoor coverage. The base stations are connected to the mobile carrier network by a broadband connection.

The solution also features a policy engine, which can control what users and guests can use the network and individual features, including long distance networks, messaging and conferencing.

High-speed data transport technology provider NetEx released a new version of its Ethernet/IP WAN data transport software, HyperIP.

HyperIP accelerates and optimizes data replication and file transfer applications from leading companies including EMC, NetApp and Symantec.

Features new to Version 5.5 include support for multi-site configurations and more than 8000+ concurrent application TCP connections. A new hardware platform can support up to 800 Mb/s throughput for a single TCP/IP connection. Non-disruptive upgrades are possible through multiple system images, which allow users to install new software image upgrades while HyperIP is running.

Through the acquisition of nSuite Technologies Inc., Symantec Corp. will expand its endpoint virtualization offerings to include presentation virtualization and connection brokering

Symantec Corp. has expanded its endpoint virtualization offerings to include presentation virtualization and connection brokering, technologies got through its soon-to-be-complete acquisition of nSuite Technologies Inc.

Presentation virtualization allows users to view and interact with applications running remotely on a server, as if it were running on a local device. Connection brokering is meant to allocate computing resources, whether virtual or traditional, like information, user profiles and applications to an endpoint regardless of the device.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based endpoint virtualization products are targeted at companies needing to manage endpoints, whether physical, virtual or hybrid. The new technology will allow rapid provisioning of anything from traditional desktops to full virtual desktops, the company said.

According to the company’s vice-president of endpoint virtualization, Ken Berryman, “Symantec’s strategy is to help enable a truly dynamic endpoint where applications and information are delivered to any computing environment in a seamless manner.”

As companies increasingly use virtualization technology to deploy applications to endpoints, “simplified, complete management of the virtualization stack and the security of the endpoint solution are both paramount concerns,” said Chris Wolf, senior analyst with Burton Group.