Launching Windows 7 with a steeply discounted preorder offer won’t eradicate all memory of Microsoft’s widely criticized Vista operating system, but it might ensure that it receives a better reception at market. And so the company today said that beginning Friday, “select markets” can preorder Windows 7 at a more than 50 percent discount.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster was right. The iPhone 3GS didn’t sell as well as the iPhone 3G did during its launch weekend last year. But it did quite a bit better than he thought. In an investment note issued this morning, Munster estimated the company sold 750,000 iPhones over the weekend.
The outcry over the $200 premium some existing iPhone 3G users must pay to upgrade to the iPhone 3G S has caused AT&T to think better of the move. The carrier this morning extended the 3G S’s so called “standard upgrade” prices of $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB) to existing subscribers who would have otherwise qualified for those lower prices on or before the end of September.
As a valued AT&T customer, AT&T can offer you an early iPhone upgrade with a new 2-yr commitment and an $18 upgrade fee. You may qualify for a standard iPhone upgrade on 12/29/2009.
$299.00*–8GB iPhone 3G (black)
$399.00*–16GB iPhone 3G S (black or white)
$499.00*–32GB iPhone 3G S (black or white)…For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB).
– The ugly fine print for some existing AT&T (T) subscribers planning to purchase an Apple (AAPL) iPhone 3G S.
Apple has $29 billion in cash, no debt, a 36 percent gross margin, and it’s on the cusp of another iPhone ugrade cycle. Little wonder, then, that analysts are raising their target prices on the company’s stock. Among those doing so today: Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty, who says “Apple is emerging as the clear leader in the battle over the mobile Internet.”
The long-awaited upgrade to Microsoft’s search engine will soon make its debut. Sources with knowledge of the situation said the company is expected to demonstrate it at our D: All Things Digital conference next week.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to appear onstage at the event, a three-day event that hosts top players from the tech and media industries in interviews by All Things Digital Co-executive Editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
Code-named “Kumo,” the search engine is Microsoft’s effort to raise its hand to table stakes in the battle for search market share with Google.
PC vendors hoping for a sooner-than-expected recovery later this year best prepare themselves for disappointment. No quick recovery is likely, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, who says the PC market will remain in a shambles throughout 2009.
If/when Apple uncrates its next-generation iPhone at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, it will be identical to its predecessor in physical design and boast only a few modest upgrades. This according to the latest rumor making the rounds, which describes the new device as a near “repeat” of the iPhone 3G.
Brave guy, Yair Reiner, for singlehandedly assailing the “Macs are more expensive” myth (or truism, depending on your particular world view). In a research note on Apple’s new desktops, the Oppenheimer analyst compared, spec-by-spec, the new iMac, Dell’s XPS One 24 and Hewlett-Packard’s TouchSmart IQ800t and concluded that the iMac offers a better value.
Apple may not announce any new product categories at MacWorld come January, but it will uncrate an update to at least one old one: the Mac Mini. An “Apple corporate employee” tells Wired that the diminutive desktop has received a long overdue upgrade that’s to be revealed at the annual expo.
After a week of bleeding purple, a heavily bandaged Yahoo has regrouped to roll out its vaunted Open Strategy. At an event in San Francisco today, the company introduced “socialized” upgrades to Yahoo Mail, Toolbar, My Yahoo, Yahoo TV and Yahoo Music. Each service now features social enhancements that essentially transform the experience of using them into one more akin to social networking.
My apologies. Comcast has made no final decisions about its future network management practices; nor has it committed to slowing the Internet connections of heavy users for up to 20 minutes during network congestion, though Comcast senior vice president Mitch Bowling convincingly told Bloomberg just that on Wednesday. Rather, that technique–which the company prefers to describe as a “de-prioritizing” of heavy user traffic–is one option among the many Comcast is considering.
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.
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.
Includes “Pigs in a Polka,” “Rabbit of Seville” and, of course, “What’s Opera, Doc?”
Take the famous ballads and duets of West Side Story, insert a dozen mentions of famous social media sites like twitter and facebook, and this is what you get.
An iPod mini rebuilt with a wooden case
Star Wars meets Magnum, P.I.
Music videos recreated with new lyrics based on what’s actually happening in them. Daydream Believer and Total Eclipse of the Heart are particularly good.
In response to numerous e-mails, I have no idea what planet the giant alien creature is from. Judging from its enormous gills, I’d have to guess it’s from a watery planet. Reminder: please let me know if you plan to be in the office on Memorial Day so I can request HVAC for your floor.
For those of you who mock the wolf shirt beware. There is an old Navajo story about a young man who made fun of another man for wearing a wolf trio shirt. Legend has it that in his sleep, the wolves on the other man’s shirt came to life and tore his body to shreds. They never found any part of that man’s body. The Wolf is something to be respected and feared, not treated like a novelty.
Hands down the most inexplicably bizarre game for Wii I’ve ever seen
Yo mama is so attractive she could be on the cover of Prevention.
The inspiration for this project was to determine who could generate the worst flatulence measurable in a personally unbiased manner.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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