HTC Is On A Buying Spree

Taiwanese handset maker HTC has been on a shopping spree to reshape its business, though it remains to be seen if the strategy will help it gain ground on rivals such as Apple, Samsung and Research In Motion.

HTC has bought or invested in at least six companies this year, many of which provide technologies to improve how users consume and share content on its devices. It’s a big change for the Taiwanese manufacturer, which focused for much of its existence on hardware, leaving software and content to its partners.

Times have changed, however, with rivals like Apple and Nokia building whole ecosystems around their products, including app stores and content delivery systems. HTC has shifted its focus before, moving from contract manufacturer for Microsoft’s smartphones to selling its own HTC-branded devices. It must now evolve once more.

“It is no longer enough to focus only on hardware innovations,” said Ryan Lee, an analyst with Taipei-based Topology Research Institute. HTC’s acquisitions, which include both technology and patents, “pave the way for HTC’s greater competitiveness,” he said.

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Shareholder Group Demands RIM Shake-up

An activist shareholder in Research In Motion said on Tuesday it wants the struggling BlackBerry maker to seriously ponder selling itself or spinning off its patent portfolio, sending RIM’s share price higher.

Jaguar Financial Corp said it wants the Canadian company’s board to take control from co-Chief Executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie and for up to five of RIM’s independent board members to explore options to maximize shareholder value.

RIM shares were up 1.3 percent at midday Tuesday at $30.52 on the Nasdaq and gained 2.3 percent to C$30.26 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Both markets were down sharply
overall. RIM shares have lost almost half their value since the start of the year.

“Our call is for (RIM’s board) to take action; no more study, take action. Take action now, before it’s too late,” Jaguar Chief Executive Vic Alboini said in an interview.

Alboini said Jaguar has talked to a select group of shareholders and received broadly positive feedback for its plan.

“We haven’t found one who wasn’t supportive,” he said. “We haven’t found any opposition.”

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Dell & Baidu To Create Mobile Devices

Dell Inc and China’s top search engine Baidu Inc plan to join forces and develop tablet computers and mobile phones, targeting the Chinese market dominated by Apple Inc and Lenovo.

China is one of the fastest growing markets for tablets and is home to more than 900 million cell phone subscribers, but analysts were skeptical that the partnership would knock Apple from its dominant perch in the market.

“I suspect this is just Dell, who has a lot of problems on the mobile and tablet front, grasping at straws to get any kind of publicity that it can to make its product more attractive,” said Michael Clendenin, managing director of technology consultancy RedTech Advisors.

“Ultimately in China, I still think it is Apple’s game, still for the iPad and iPhone.”

Dell declined to give a timeline for the launch of the devices, but local media reported on Tuesday, quoting sources, that it may be as early as November.

Baidu launched a new mobile application platform last week and offered a glimpse of its upcoming mobile operating system, which it hopes will serve a growing number of users accessing the Internet from smartphones and tablet computers.

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Sprint To Be The First To Offer Galaxy S II

Sprint will be the first U.S. mobile carrier to offer Samsung’s Galaxy S II, starting Sept. 16, but T-Mobile and AT&T said Tuesday they also will sell the phone.

A follow-on to the popular Galaxy S, the phone will be the thinnest available at all three operators.

The largest mobile carrier in the U.S., Verizon Wireless, notably has decided not to sell the phone. Verizon recently said it already has an extensive portfolio of Android phones and so would not offer the Galaxy S II.

All models of the Galaxy S II will work on the 4G networks of the respective operators and will run Android 2.3, or Gingerbread. The phone will have a 4.3-inch Super Amoled Plus display, which uses technology developed by Samsung. It will have an 8-megapixel rear camera, plus a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video conferencing.

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Was Apple’s Victory, Really A Victory?

As we heard this week Apple had won an injunction barring Samsung from selling some of its Galaxy smartphones in Europe.

However, it is likely that an update from Android 2.x to Android 3.0 will resolve the patent issue, which concerns the way photos are viewed on a touchscreen.

According to OS news, only the Gallery application infringes the patent in question, and Samsung has confirmed it will update the software to get around the problem.

“The injunction has been granted due to the method of scrolling in the Gallery. If that’s replaced, there is no more reason to uphold the injunction,” said Bas Berghuis van Woortman, one of Samsung’s lawyers.

The injunction doesn’t come into effect until mid-October, giving the Korean phone maker plenty of time to change the software. OS news points to evidence showing that although Apple entered into battle with three patents and a community design, all but the Gallery patent were thrown out by the judge.

The swipe-to-unlock patent will likely be declared invalid, the judge wrote, specifically referring to the Neonode N1m mobile phone as prior art, which has the exact same unlock method as the Iphone.

Apple’s complaint about the design of Galaxy smartphones was also thrown out, with the judge citing numerous cases of prior art, including the LG Prada. And in the case of the Android GUI patent, the judge cited the Nokia 7710 as prior art.

Although Samsung’s PR firm in the UK hadn’t heard anything about an Android update, Samsung said that it expects only the Netherlands to be affected by the ruling. It said, “[The] ruling is an affirmation that the GALAXY range of products is innovative and distinctive. With regard to the single infringement cited in the ruling, we will take all possible measures including legal action to ensure that there is no disruption in the availability of our GALAXY smartphones to Dutch consumers.

“This ruling is not expected to affect sales in other European markets. We will continue our plans to introduce new products and technologies that meet and exceed consumer expectations. And we will defend our intellectual property rights through the ongoing legal proceedings around the world.”

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RIM Heads To The Cloud

Canada’s Research In Motion (RIM) will take the wraps off of a new cloud-based social music sharing service called BBM Music, as companies begin to bet on entertainment delivered over the Internet that incorporates social networking features.

Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry phones, said select music from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music and EMI would be available for the users.

A closed beta trial of the BBM Music service is starting on today in Canada, the United States and the UK, the company stated.

The music service is expected to be commercially available to customers later this year for a monthly subscription of $4.99 in a number of countries, it said.

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Beetel Teletech, part of India’s Bharti Enterprises that controls top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel (BRTI.NS), unveiled a tablet computer priced at 9,999 rupees ($220) on Wednesday.

The 7-inch tablet, branded Beetel Magiq, uses Google’s (GOOG.O) Android operating system and supports both 3G and Wi-Fi networks, Beetel said in a statement.

Beetel is one of the largest makers of fixed-line phones in India. A company spokesman said China’s Huawei HWT.UL was their manufacturing partner for the tablet.

India is the world’s second-biggest and the fastest-growing market for mobile phones, although computer penetration is still low.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) began iPad sales in India in January this year, while Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) launched its Galaxy Tab in India in November last year.

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Sprint To Debut Cloud Services

Sprint will introduce cloud services to all sizes of businesses in the fourth quarter, a Sprint executive said on Wednesday.

A Sprint spokeswoman said more details would be announced at a later date, but confirmed the executive’s comments in an interview published Wednesday.

Paget Alves, head of Sprint business markets, said in the interview that Sprint’s offerings to businesses will include selling its network infrastructure as a service available on-demand.

Sprint will also offer software, security apps and Internet hosting.

Verizon and AT&T offer similar services, and Alves was said that the carriers are “in a unique position because our business is centered around the cloud.”

Sprint plans to offer services that rely on the company’s own data center, unlike Verizon, which is using capacity from Terremark, which Verizon purchased for $1.4 billion in January.

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China Debuts Apple iPhone Knock-Off

The latest version of Apple Inc’s popular iPhone has already hit the Chinese market — the counterfeit market that is.

The ‘hiPhone 5′ is selling for as little as 200 yuan ($31) on China’s top e-commerce platform Taobao, which is owned by Alibaba Group.

But one has to pay around 800 yuan for a more “genuine” one, according to some store representatives at a mobile phone market in Shanghai.

“Look at this. It’s not the same as the 300-400 yuan ones,” Shanghai-based daily Metro Express quoted a clerk as saying, pointing to one originally priced at 850 yuan.

The ‘hiPhone 5′ is based on leaked images of the yet-to-be-launched iPhone 5 and is thinner and with less rounded edges than the existing iPhone 4, according to the newspaper. However, it is extremely light, almost like a plastic toy, like most pirated mobile phones, it said.

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AMD Not Chasing Smartphone Market

Advanced Micro Devices is not immediately pursuing opportunities within the smartphone markets as it does not align with the company’s strength in technologies like graphics, an executive said on Monday.

Smartphones are constrained on battery, pixels and screen space, and AMD has other areas it can focus on in order to grow, said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager for AMD’s product group during the Pacific Crest Securities Technology Leadership Forum in Vail, Colorado. The company sees an opportunity to apply its graphics and chip technologies to tablets, where customers are demanding better video and battery life.

“We haven’t announced any plans to go in that handheld space. We’ve got plenty of opportunities… in server, notebook and now tablets, that’s our immediate focus. But if the right circumstances come up and we can see a way to impact the market, we’ll obviously continue to look,” Bergman said.

AMD has faced criticism for not aggressively pursuing the booming smartphone or tablet markets. The company in June rushed to release its first dedicated tablet chip, called the Z-series. The chip is a low-power variant of PC chips based on the Fusion microarchitecture, which includes a graphics processor and CPU on a single chip. Based on the x86 architecture, the chip can help tablets deliver a full PC and graphics experience, the company has said.

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