Ontela is celebrating a win today with the announcement that the BlackBerry Bold 9700 from T-Mobile USA comes preloaded with Ontela.s camera connection services.
Ontela could offer its photo services as an app through various application stores, but it has chosen to work directly with carriers because it provides the most leverage and is the most sustainable for the company, according to CEO Dan Shapiro.
Ontela.s service, called Camera Connect, allows end-users to set up their phone so that pictures automatically go to their PC hard drive, personal e-mail and/or accounts on Photobucket, Flickr, Snapfish or Blogger. The customer can send photos to just one place, some or all of the ones available, but Shapiro says studies have shown the vast majority of people just want their photos sent to a hard drive.
With T-Mobile.s BlackBerry Bold 9700, the Camera Connect service is free for three weeks and $2.99 a month thereafter.
Shapiro himself probably represents the service.s most likely customer. With 13-month-old twins, he takes pictures of his kids pretty much daily and the photos automatically upload to a Web site where the grandparents can view them and make comments. When his kids were born, one set of grandparents was at the hospital but ironically, relatives in Wisconsin were the first to see the twins because they were checking the site for the first glimpse.
The Bold 9700 marks Ontela.s second preload with T-Mobile. Its technology is available as a white-label service, either on deck or at point-of-sale preloads, on 30 operators in the United States and more than 100 models of phones. Most of the phones Ontela supports are Brew and Java phones.