A complete reversal of its earlier policy restricting Internet telephone services to Wi-Fi only, AT&T’s decision to allow iPhone owners to use such services on its 3G network has gone over well with consumers and with Apple. But it hasn’t gone over well with AT&T investors. Shares in the company slipped on news of the decision yesterday and they’re falling still further today.
It has taken far too long, but AT&T has finally warmed to the the idea of voice-over-Internet services on its wireless network. On Tuesday afternoon, the carrier opened its 3G network to telephony apps, ending a restriction that had limited them to Wi-Fi.
Apple seems to have gotten over its aversion to apps duplicating core iPhone functions. This morning, Internet telephony company Vonage released an app that allows iPhone users to make calls over Wi-Fi and AT&T’s voice network.
The world’s largest mobile phone maker has finally entered the PC market. Not a week after confirming its interest in the netbook market, Nokia leapt into it, uncrating the Booklet 3G–a 2.8-pound “mini-laptop.”
“Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it.” So begins Apple’s response to the FCC’s inquiry into its rejection of the app and of its App Store approval process. Seems Google Voice was withheld from the App Store not because of any ill feeling toward Google or a nefarious request from AT&T, but because it too closely mimics the iPhone OS.
Well, what do you know. Vonage posted a quarterly profit. The Iong-suffering Internet phone company reported first-quarter earnings today and with them its first profit ever: $5 million on revenue of $224 million. Sadly, that profit was only made possible by “a $13 million mark-to-market adjustment relating to the derivative liability in the Company’s convertible debt.”
Describing its long-term financial outlook to analysts last week, eBay said it expects Skype to more than double its revenue to over $1 billion by 2011. Quite a claim to make about an Internet telephony business for which the company has taken some pretty nasty write-downs, a business that back in January eBay seemed to be looking to divest. But apparently, eBay sees quite a bit of promise in Skype’s new voice-over-IP service for businesses.
eBay (EBAY) may have finally figured out a way to get the sort of return it needs from its infamous $2.6 billion (+$1.4-billion writedown) misstep – the 2005 acquisition of Skype. Unload it. Word on the street has it that Google (GOOG) is considering a partnership with the the telephony service – and perhaps even [...]
Ribbit is as much “Silicon Valley’s first telephone company” as the region’s first to boast a silly name and grandiose claims.
Still, the Silicon Valley start-up, which officially opened its Web-based telephony platform to third party developers this morning, is generating a lot of buzz for its Flash/Flex-based telephones (see video below), and rightly so. The [...]
With some $15.4 billion gathering dust in its bank accounts, Apple’s cash reserve is among the Fortune 500’s largest. Yet since 1999, it’s spent just $217 million to repurchase stock and it’s not yet declared a stock dividend.
What is the company planning to do with all that money? Certainly, CEO Steve Jobs must have an [...]
Vonage lawyer Louis Jameson was right. Vonage doesn’t owe Sprint Nextel a dime. It owes the company 800 million of them. Vonage settled its patent dispute with Sprint Nextel this morning for $80 million–$35 million for past use of Sprint’s patented technology and $40 million for future licensing, along with a $5 million prepayment.
SunRocket may be dead and buried, but like the corpses in Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead,” there’s a bit of life left in it yet. Sherwood Partners, the company presiding over the dissolution of SunRocket’s assets, sued Vonage last week, accusing the Internet telephony outfit of wrongfully using the SunRocket subscriber list to solicit new customers.
The [...]
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.
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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