By Tim Ferguson

HSBC (HBC) claims to be the first financial institution to offer this type of service on these mobile devices in the UK. The bank launched the service for BlackBerry devices in October last year.

Thanks to the new service, the bank's 325,000 business internet banking customers with an iPhone or iPod Touch can securely monitor their financial transactions, make payments of up to £100,000 per day, apply for overdrafts and set up and manage pensions.

More From BusinessWeek:
Bank Bailouts Could Dwarf Stimulus Plans
Are U.K. Banks Forgetting Crisis Lessons?
Compensation: Getting the Most Out of a Smaller Budget
Winning Over an Interviewer
Ads That Break the Mold and Grab Attention

The bank's online-only division First Direct has been offering online banking on the Apple devices since January 2008 but it's only now that HSBC business customers have been able to enjoy the service.

Huw Morgan, head of business banking at HSBC, said that around 70 per cent of business customers choose to bank online and the new way of accessing the service should increase the number of people using it.

The bank is looking at rolling out the service to other mobile devices in the near future.

HSBC recently said it is overhauling its approach to transaction monitoring and examining how emerging technologies could improve security.

Provided by silicon.com-Driving Business Through Technology

Shop for an iPhone today:

1. Reply to IMs by Text Messaging on Your Phone
2. IM Forwarding is Easy to Turn On and Off
3. Manage Who Can Contact You When You're Mobile
4. How to Reset Your Mobile Number with AOL(R)/AIM(R)

Manage Your Mobile Settings

Samsung Electronics has emerged as a power providing credible challenges to the mobile-phone king Nokia. But when it comes to smartphones, the South Korean giant is a minnow. While Apple (AAPL) and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIMM) are setting new trends in the fast-growing segment of the global handset market, Samsung has had a hard time trying to grab consumer attention.

Now, executives at the company seek to shoulder their way into the smartphone big leagues. Samsung last week introduced five new models sporting features comparable to Apple's iPhone. "Our business focus this year is to establish a strong presence and lay a foundation for further growth in the smartphone area," says Hong Won Pyo, executive vice-president in charge of product strategy at Samsung's mobile communication division.

The rush to bolster its standing in the highest end of the handset market is understandable given Samsung's disappointing presence there. Although the Korean company overtook troubled Motorola (MOT) as the world's second-largest mobile-phone maker in 2007, and increased its share in the overall handset market to more than 18% in the first quarter of this year from around 12% two years earlier, its smartphone share stood at only 3.5%, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. That's a big problem since the research firm forecasts global sales of smartphones will rise 31% this year, almost five times faster than the total handset industry.

More Than 20 Smartphone Models Due

Samsung's approach is starkly different from Apple's. While the real beauty of the iPhone and its latest successor, the iPhone 3G S, lies in the creative use of the iTunes Store to inspire a myriad of third-party developers to write applications for the phones, Samsung's emphasis is more on hardware. To expand its presence, Samsung plans to keep rolling out new lineups of smartphones-more than 20 different models this year alone-to cater to different consumer segments.

Samsung isn't following Apple's initiative to set business direction in partnership with mobile carriers, either. Instead, Samsung lets service providers call the shots as a way to increase its handset market share. "We will continue strengthening our relationship with key operators and work closely with them to develop smartphones meeting their specific needs and to help their business," says Hong.

The Korean company is also offering all sorts of operating systems, except for Apple's. Four of the five smartphones released last week are the successors to its Omnia, and all run on Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile software. But they come in different shapes and varying focus on functionalities.

Expensive Strategy

The problem is the Samsung way will be costly. "I'm sure this aggressive volume-based push will increase Samsung's market share, but it's an expensive strategy to pursue," says senior analyst Thomas Kang at Strategy Analytics. "I don't think this business model is sustainable in the long term in view of high development and manufacturing costs."

Already, smartphone makers are under pressure to lower prices to compete with Apple. On June 8, AT&T (T) began selling the previous-generation iPhone for as little as $99 with a two-year contract. With U.S. carriers trying to match what AT&T offers, handset manufacturers will likely be asked to cut their margin. Samsung officials say their new lineup of smartphones-which boast ultra-fast data processing speed, a 5-megapixel camera with quality video recording, and next-generation AM-OLED (active-matrix, organic light-emitting diode) touchscreens that use less power and project sharper images than traditional liquid-crystal displays-won't compete with the old iPhone.

Industry analysts believe Samsung is betting on its knack for developing models quickly until it strengthens its own software capability. "Smartphone is such an important segment that Samsung just can't let others grab share even if it is not fully prepared to meet all software needs," says Chun Seong Hoon, electronics analyst at brokerage Hyundai Securities in Seoul.

To Samsung's credit, it has steadily posted decent profits in recent years although it is offering some 150 models annually-more than any other rival. In the first three months of this year, the Korean company earned $833 million on sales of $7.26 billion in its telecom business. That's a respectable margin of 11.5%, beating the 8.9% margin reported by Nokia for the quarter.

The good performance was partly due to a weak Korean currency, which lost nearly a quarter of its value against the dollar in the past 18 months or so. The currency advantage isn't likely to last forever, and as smartphones take on greater importance in handset markets, so will the software capability for industry players. "I've no doubt Samsung will report handsome results this year," says Kang at Strategy Analytics. "But its long-term profitability will be in question unless it addresses its software weakness."

Moon is BusinessWeek's Seoul bureau chief.

Here are some of its cool features:

Cubital tunnel syndrome results from prolonged flexing of the elbow, experts say

By Jennifer Thomas

BusinessWeek
HealthDay Reporter

It would mark the first time Apple has produced a version of the iPhone for a CDMA wireless network, which is different from AT&T's GSM technology. Vodafone, co-owner of Verizon Wireless, already sells the iPhone in Europe.

For most of us, cell phones have become a way of life. More and more people are dropping their home lines altogether and going purely with cell phones, but the massive amounts of cell phones floating around raises some serious environmental problems. Samsung is looking to change things up a bit with its newest cell phone concept, the solar powered "Blue Earth".

Samsung started displaying its touch screen Blue Earth phone earlier this week at a trade show in Barcelona, Spain, and it is capturing the attention of cell phone lovers and environmentalists alike. According to the company, the phone will be able to generate enough power on its own to make a call anytime, so you will never have to worry about running frantically around looking for a place to get a quick charge.

While Samsung's Blue Earth is the first solar powered cell phone to hit the market, the eco-friendly attributes do not stop there.

What is IM Pics to Mobile and why are you so excited about it?

IM Pics to Mobile is a service that lets any AIM user send pictures from their desktop PC to a friend's mobile phone. The mobile friend doesn't even need to be using AIM on their phone! All they need to have is a standard text/picture messaging plan and the image will arrive on the phone as a picture message (also known as an MMS message). When the mobile friend receives the picture, they can even reply to the message with an image of their own from the phone, and the AIM user will see the reply picture on their PC. It's really IM Pics to Mobile and back!

iPuppy 3D Pet [App Store link] is currently going for $.99 on the App Store. Is it worth it? Well, it depends on how much you really need a 3D puppy on your iPhone. The concept conjures images of Dogz for the Nintendo DS. While the dogs may look the same, the functionality is vastly different. Currently the Chihuahua is your only choice of breed within the app, although there's currently a free Husky Puppy [App Store link] available. I picked up the Chihuahua weeks ago when it was free.

The puppy is cute enough, and the animations are quite good. Left to herself (taking a guess on the gender), the puppy will trot around a small room, scratch the floor, bark a little and generally be a puppy. Once in a while it'll get bored and yawn in a very cute manner. According to MASQ Interactive, you should have control of the camera, but all I could do was spin the camera. There's not very fine camera control in swipe/panning or pinch/zooming.

Gallery: iPuppy 3D Pet
Read More From TUAW

With all of their new product launches and a growing smartphone market, the future looks very bright for Research in Motion (RIMM). However, a recent ChangeWave survey took a close look the immediate outlook of the smartphone market as well as the reaction of 61 BlackBerry Storm owners. The overall satisfaction rating given by new owners of the BlackBerry Storm can be characterized as lukewarm, at best.

And of course, in the never ending effort to stoke the flame of the RIM -- Apple (AAPL) war, ChangeWave compared the results with a similar survey of new owners of the original iPhone, which was conducted in July 2007.

They found that only 33% of Storm owners surveyed said they were very satisfied with their new model, well below the 52% very satisfied rating given by all current owners of BlackBerry smartphones.

Simply put, the Storm satisfaction rating is similar to that of mid-tier smartphone manufacturers like Nokia (NOK) (32%), Motorola (MOT) (32%), HTC (31%) and Samsung (30%). While far from being bad, it's mediocre, which means it's a potential concern regarding RIM's head-to-head battle with Apple.