Verizon May Not Carry The PlayBook

Verizon Wireless is still evaluating whether or not it will carry the PlayBook tablet computer from Research In Motion, the biggest U.S. mobile operator stated on Wednesday.

While BlackBerry maker RIM had said it expected Verizon Wireless to be one of its distribution partners for PlayBook, the company said it has yet to make such a determination.

“We’re still evaluating the BlackBerry Playbook and have not made a determination as to whether we’re going to distribute it,” Verizon Wireless Spokeswoman Brenda Raney said.

The comment came the day after PlayBook debuted at North American electronics retailers.

Read More…

RIM’s PlayBook Gets Harsh Reviews

RIM’s PlayBook tablet didn’t fare so well with influential technology reviewers who called the iPad competitor a rushed job that won’t even provide RIM’s wildly popular email service unless it’s hooked up to a BlackBerry.

The overwhelmingly bad initial response to a device the company hopes will get it attached to the tablet computing explosion overshadowed a splashy coming-out party in New York Thursday evening, where co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis played up the gadget’s attractiveness with corporate users.

There was little mention of the blistering reviews only hours before.

“RIM has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do email. It must be skating season in hell,” New York Times’ David Pogue wrote in a review published on Thursday.

Research In Motion built its reputation on a BlackBerry email service that it says is so secure that it can’t bow to government requests to tap messages, winning high-profile customers in business, defense and politics before branching out to a wider consumer market.

But the PlayBook, which hits North American store shelves on Tuesday, offers that secure service only in tandem with a BlackBerry. RIM says secure email and other key services will come later, not at launch.

Read More…

Is Twitter Finally Getting A Competitor?

Twitter your days alone at the top of the micro-blogging mountain may soon be ending. UberMedia, which owns major third-party mobile applications for the Twitter platform, is said to be building a service that will compete directly against Twitter. If it’s true, the move would come on the heels of Twitter briefly suspending the company’s apps for alleged use policy violations.

Citing unnamed sources, CNN.com reported today that UberMedia is looking to attract users to its own microblogging service by addressing common complaints about Twitter, such as its rules on message lengths as well as how the service can be confusing to new users.

UberMedia declined to comment on whether its programmers are building a new microblogging service. However, in an emailed statement to Computerworld, company marketing chief Steve Chadima said, “Our foremost desire is to continue to innovate on the Twitter platform and bring more users and usage to Twitter.”

UberMedia owns UberTwitter, which is for the BlackBerry platform; Twidroyd, for Android devices; and UberCurrent, which can be used on iPhones and iPads. The company also has been in the news in recent months because it’s moving to acquire popular Twitter client TweetDeck.

TweetDeck competes directly with Twitter’s Web and mobile clients.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said he wouldn’t be surprised if UberMedia were to go after some of Twitter’s business, but the company would have an uphill climb.

HTC Profits Rise, Lead By Android Popularity

Taiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp said first-quarter profit almost tripled, beating forecasts, driven by strong demand for its mobile devices, especially those running on Google’s Android operating system.

The company, which has just overtaken industry giant Nokia in terms of market capitalization, said on Friday that first-quarter net profit was $511 million.

“That its first quarter would be above expectations was well foreseen, Q1 seasonality was better than expected,” said Bonnie Chang, an analyst at Yuanta Securities in Hong Kong.

“For the second quarter everyone is expecting revenue sequential growth in the high teens to 20 percent, shipments will be strong and average selling prices are holding up pretty well.”

Growing demand for phones running on Google’s Android platform will help the smartphone market grow in 2011, boosting companies such as HTC and Samsung Electronics who are betting on the platform.

The smartphone market is likely to grow 58 percent this year and 35 percent the next, according to research firm Gartner.

Read More….

Nvidia Stockholders Mad As Heck

Reports are coming out that stockholders of Nvidia are losing patience with executives as they do not believe the company does not have a sizable share of the smartphone and tablet space.

Analysts were giving warning signs about Nvidia’s share ability to compete against the Apple iPad and iPhone and what appears to be an overall weakness in the PC market. Incidentally, analyst have always speculated that the success of tablets cannibalize PC sales. That said, Nvidia stocks fell around 3.8 percent. Keep in mind there are some who do not want to kick Nvidia to the curb this early in the game.

Read more….

Android To Control Smartphone Market By 2016

Android will be the operating system of choice for 45% of smartphones shipped by the year 2016. It will take up most of the market share vacated by the soon-to-be exiting of Nokia’s Symbian operating system, according to figures released today by ABI Research.

Although Android will come to be the dominant player in the smartphone market, this doesn’t mean that OSes will necessarily see a big cut in their own market shares, ABI said.

In fact, the firm projects that Apple’s iOS will see its market share rise from 16% in 2010 to 19% in 2016, while Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS is expected to fall slightly from 16% in 2010 to 14% in 2016. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Samsung’s Bada will also be players in the 2016 smartphone market, as ABI projects those two operating systems to take 10% and 7%, respectively.

ABI vice president Kevin Burden says that although RIM stands to lose a bit between now and 2016, the company will carve a comfortable niche for itself in the enterprise market, as enterprise users will still need the security provided by RIM’s network operations center.

“RIM’s slight loss of share doesn’t mean falling shipments,” he says. “RIM has found its niche, but the consumer market will grow faster than its portion of it.”

Read More…

Playbook Set To Launch April 19th

This is shaping up to be quite the season for the tablet wars as Research In Motion’s long-awaited device, the BlackBerry PlayBook, is set to go on sale in the United States and Canada on April 19 at a base price of $499.

RIM said on Tuesday it plans to sell the PlayBook through retailers and wireless carriers including Best Buy, AT&T, Verizon, Radioshack, Sears Canada and Wal-Mart.  ReadMore….

Playbook To Focus On Corporate Space

With the Playbook supposedly launching in April, it is expected that RIM will  a lot of their marketing budget on the corporate space. This is the best strategy for RIM since the company already has a strong presence in the enterprise space with companies that already use Blackberry services as part of their electronic communication infrastructure.

RIM is expected to leverage is clients existing investment in BES Blackberry Enterprise Server). RIM’s strategy gives Playbook a small advantage; since BES customers will be able to utilize functions like provisioning, configuring, applying corporate policies, application deployment/management and auditing PlayBook devices using the BES infrastructure that they already have in place.  Read More….

Japan’s Earthquake Will Not Impact PC Supply

According to Scott Lin, President  of Acer Taiwan has said the PC supply chain still has at least three months worth of stock.  That said, Lin stated that the Japan earthquake should not have an immediate will on impact on the PC market.

With PC manufacturers, brick and mortar each having at least one month’s worth of inventory, the supply should be fine for up to three months. Nevertheless, Lin did caution that Japan’s power infrastructure is an important factor and taking it online sooner rather than later will be crucial to whether the shortages become more serious. Read More…..

Intel’s Atom More Expensive Than Cortex A9

« Previous Page — Next Page »