Given the havoc the econalypse has played with other industries, the smart-phone market is in extraordinarily good shape. Shipments of the devices rose 4.2 percent to 43.3 million globally compared with 41.5 million shipped in third quarter of 2008.
With Palm’s shares up more than 900 percent since January, they were destined to suffer a correction someday. And now it seems that day has finally come. Shares in the handset maker fell some 23 percent last week amid concerns about increased competition from Google’s Android operating system, which is being rolled out on a number of devices at a variety of carriers, including Palm partner Sprint.
BoomTown’s week began onstage in front of thousands of chanting women. No, Kara wasn’t filling in for Oprah; she was doing something much cooler.
Verizon uncrated its latest iPhone challenger Wednesday morning, introducing the new $199 Motorola Droid, and it already has analysts buzzing about the life it may breathe back into Motorola, whose share of the phone market dropped by nearly half in the second quarter from 10 percent a year earlier.
The BlackBerry’s days as smart phone of choice among consumers in the U.S. appear to be winding down. While Research in Motion’s popular device is still the leader in the smart-phone space, with 40 percent market share, its dominance is threatened by Apple’s iPhone, according to ChangeWave Research.
There’s a new BlackBerry Bold headed to market. This morning, Research in Motion uncrated the BlackBerry Bold 9700, a more refined verison of its popular enterprise device, the BlackBerry Bold 9000.
Though Verizon’s new Droid ad campaign might seem to preclude one, Apple would be wise to ink an iPhone distribution deal with the carrier–if not to hasten iPhone adoption, then to slow rivals that would supplant it. That’s the argument put forth by Piper Jaffray analyst Chris Larsen in a research note to investors Monday.
Nokia describes the management overhaul it’s undertaking as a common “job rotation,” but coming as it does after its lousy third-quarter financial performance and a worrisome decline in smartphone market share, it seems perhaps just a little bit more. This morning the Finnish mobile phone giant tapped Rick Simonson, currently its chief financial officer, as head of its handset division. And the company named Timo Ihamuotila, currently global head of sales, CFO.
Customer satisfaction with the iPhone continues to run high–among both casual and business users. Apple’s smart phone scored highest in the both consumer and business categories of JD Power’s Smartphone Satisfaction Study, besting rivals like Research in Motion and LG.
Some 740 billion text messages were sent in the first half of 2009 in the U.S. This according to the CTIA’s semiannual wireless industry survey, which helpfully breaks down that astonishing figure to an even more astonishing 4.1 billion texts per day. That’s about double the number sent during the same period last year.
No wonder Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is so dismayed by the company’s Windows Mobile division: Most Windows Mobile users aren’t even aware their phones run it. In fact, according to the CFI Group, WinMo has such poor brand recognition that it was forced to group it in the “Other” category in its Smartphone Satisfaction Survey.
What a disappointing report from Research in Motion. For its fiscal second quarter, the BlackBerry maker posted sales and an outlook that fell short of analysts’ expectations. Earnings slipped by four percent, with RIM making $475.6 million, or 83 cents, per share.
The iPhone is finally coming to the world’s most wired country. South Korean regulators on Wednesday cleared the iPhone for sale. Great news for Apple. The South Korean market is a robust one, and analysts say that with the right carrier partner, Cupertino could be looking at first-year sales ranging from 500,000 to two million.
Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein likes to say smart-phone makers “don’t have to beat each other to prosper,” but it’s beginning to look like they–or, rather, Palm–might have to. Because while the Pre may have put Palm back in the game, it’s not clear how long it can keep it there.
Apple’s iPhone continues to be AT&T’s marquee handset, though the data-guzzling “Hummer of cellphones,” as the New York Times has dubbed it, has inspired widespread customer dissatisfaction with the carrier’s network. Indeed, according to Piper Jaffray, the iPhone 3G and 3GS are AT&T’s top-selling phones.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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