American financial services giant, J.P. Morgan, is reportedly testing the Apple iPhone as a potential replacement for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry device.

The company is trying to determine if the iPhone meets its standards for email security, according to sources familiar with the matter. If the trials go well, J.P. Morgan may allow its employees to use iPhones instead of BlackBerrys for business email, provided that they buy the Apple device themselves.

The move in favour of the iPhone is apparently motivated by employee preference, as well as a desire for cost savings.

If major investment banks begin opening the door to non-BlackBerry devices, troubled smartphone giant Research In Motion stands to continue losing market share and investor confidence.

GMail users made more than 10 million calls through the web-based email service’s new ‘Call Phones’ feature during its first week of availability, Google announced yesterday.

Since August 25, Google has been allowing users to make free VoIP calls to landline and cellular phones within the U.S. and Canada. Calls outside of North America start at just $0.02 per minute.

The service can be integrated with Google Voice, allowing Google’s existing VoIP users to have their personal web-based phone numbers displayed as their caller ID. Other features include call screening and the ability to record conversations and send them to a GMail inbox.

Canada’s leading wireless operator, Rogers Wireless, has launched two new pay-as-you-go plans for BlackBerry smartphone users.

The plans, priced at $40 and $55, respectively, come with unlimited text and instant messaging, voicemail, call display, call waiting, and a choice of unlimited email or social networking. The $40 plan includes unlimited local calling between 3:00 and 6:00 PM, while the $55 option comes with free evenings and weekends.

Additional prepaid airtime is available for $0.25/minute, with a minimum top-up of $10.

These plans will likely be useful to traveling businesspeople who frequently visit Canada but don’t want to pay for minutes they don’t use or be locked into a two- or three-year contract.

Research In Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry device, has released a statement saying that it cannot allow the Indian government to monitor the communications of its enterprise customers.

India is one of several countries that has demanded greater access to highly-encrypted BlackBerry traffic, citing national security and counter-terrorism concerns.

RIM has made some concessions with regard to consumer BlackBerry traffic, allowing foreign carriers to access communications in the “context of lawful access and national security requirements as governed by the country’s judicial oversight and rules of law.”

The company says it has “no ability” to provide enterprise-level encryption keys, however, noting that “strong encryption is a fundamental commercial requirement for any country to attract and maintain international business.”

Research In Motion “genuinely tries to be as cooperative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations,” the company said in its statement.

It remains to be seen whether India will act on threats to ban RIM’s corporate email and BlackBerry Messenger services at the end of this month if its demands are not met.

Canadian software developer, Lymbix, has developed a Microsoft Outlook plugin to analyze the language used in email messages and prevent potential misunderstandings between friends and colleagues.

The ‘ToneCheck’ application reviews the content of an email message to evaluate words and phrases for eight primary emotions, then highlights potentially inappropriate language, allowing users to make changes before hitting ‘send.’ This helps to mitigate the lack of context that is inherent to text-based communication and prevent unintended tones or emotions from being transmitted.

The beta version of ToneCheck is a free download, available at http://tonecheck.com/.