Having said that, I am puzzled as to why BCE (who had been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy) thinks this a good move.
Bell was not teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. What you're probably thinking of was an evaluation by an accounting firm that said... IF BELL WAS BOUGHT IN AN LBO AND ITS PURCHASERS TOOK ON A HUGE DEBT then under those circumstances, there was a real question whether it could generate the revenue to service its debt. Consider, for instance Canwest, currently $3.9 billion in debt after buying Hollinger and Alliance Atlantis.

Since the LBO has not gone through, Bell is in great postion financially. The purchase price is peanuts for Bell. Bell saved more money by holding off dividends for 3 quarters, in anticipation of their LBO going through.

Finally, a Bell Store in my province. I guess it doesn't mean much to most of you who think that southern Ontario is the center of the world, but it means a lot to those of us who are outside "paradise"!!!

Lets not forget that this purchase still has to go through regualtory reviews so there could be limits and restrictions to what the new stores can and can't sell. Having said that I doubt Bell buys The Source without first having an idea what they can get away with in regards to pushing Rogers and Star Choice out the door.

I think it will be interesting to see what model these stores will take. Will they just be re-branded or will they become full blown Bell stores.

In one of the malls I visit on a regular basis there are currently 4 places where you can purchase all of Bell's mobile phones, plus a Bell Store. Now there will be another one. They should just rename the whole place to "Bell Mall".
Even before the current acquisition I often wondered why Bell need so much retail space - if a customer purchases something from their store he is unlikely to come in again until his contract expires in two or three years. They don't sell coffee or groceries.
But what do I know about people's shopping habits during economic crisis. A Mercedes-Benz dealership opened in the same mall last week! :)

Korak I don't know where you live, but it can't be Alberta because we have Bell dealers coming out the you know what here...they are surpassing Telus especially in Red Deer & Edmonton, not so much Calgary. Between the Bell World retail stores, WirelessWave & private dealers there is no shortage that's for sure.

I live in eastern Canada (as shown under my User Name) and we have only Bell "Authorized Dealers"?? here. So a Bell Store would be a welcome addition......

I notice that today's flyer from The Source includes ads for both of Bell's HD receivers. Is this the first sign of the changeover?

Has the Source in the East carried Bell TV all along? I know in the west we used to up until around 2006 when we started solely distrubuting Shaw Direct equipment. Are they now going to be scrapping Shaw? They also sell Rogers, Cogeco and Shaw cable equipment so I have to assume they will be Bell only eventually.

For tv here here in PEI The Source carried Shaw/Star Choice and the local cable company. Bell TV/Expressvu was not one of their offerings in the last few years. Cellphone wise it was mainly Rogers and at the moment still seems to be so. I agree that that is likely to change as Bell takes over. What I hope is that Bell doesn't change the inventory to be mainly like a Bell Phone Store. Down here The Source is one of the few good and comprehensive sources for electronic parts, cabling, connectors, small gadgets and just about every battery you can name. You can get items at The Source that are available nowhere else in this area.

I spoke with a salesman in one of the The Source stores. He said that will have to continue to carry Rogers' stuff until Jan'10 due to the terms of the contract. After that - no more Rogers. They will start to carry Bell stuff soon. Apparently the deal is for Bell to take a hands-off approach and just use The Source as an outlet for their products. We'll see how well that works.