Blackberry’s chairman announced that the former smartphone heavyweight will begin exploring “strategic alternatives” to address its dwindling market share and placate unhappy shareholders. As I’ve said before, it ultimately makes sense for Blackberry to ditch its OS team, adopt Android, and just concentrate on two businesses: hardware and enterprise services like encrypted email and messaging. It seems logical for a few reasons: Continue reading “Strategic Alternatives”
IFTTT just released an iOS app, which brings all the great features of the website to iPhones and iPads everywhere. One “recipe” that the blog post mentions is the ability to automatically upload pictures from your iPhone to Dropbox or Google Drive. Pretty cool, huh?
Only thing is, many Android phones have had the feature for years, and in fact, I take it for granted that when I snap a picture on my EVO, it pops up in my Dropbox ten seconds later.
This morning’s Times article on dangerously high levels of pollution in China presents an interesting contrast with much of the country’s other, hands-on policies. By virtue of being a Communist state, China owns – outright or in part – and regulates virtually every major national sector. China Mobile? State owned. Phone maker ZTE? Formed from the ribs of state organizations. PertroChina? You betcha. What these degrees of ownership and oversight mean is that, obviously, Beijing plays favorites with homegrown enterprises, and will squeeze or sanction any foreign firms that don’t play by its rules. The Party knows that it has a large consumer base, and it uses that fact as a fulcrum in ensuring that corporations like Disney don’t depict subversive content, Google filters its search results, and Apple provides upgraded customer service. In fact, the latest Apple charge seems strongly government-instigated, demonstrating that if you can’t join ’em (at least in a venture), you might as well beat ’em. Continue reading “Selective Regulation”
T-Mobile, in many respects, has its back to the wall. It did not carry the iPhone until this week. Its 4G network still lags behind those of Verizon and AT&T. And one year ago, AT&T dropped its $39 billion acquisition plans, in light of opposition from the Justice department. And its relatively small hold on the US phone market has meant that the T-Mobile still lags among the big four phone carriers.
In light of the screenshots of the new Chrome OS, I figured that it’d be worth publicly positing, that if given the opportunity again, Google would probably have chosen to make Chrome, and not Android, their mobile OS.
The blogosphere is all abuzz with the announcement of RIM Blackberry’s new OS, and, naturally, reviews of the both the device and the company’s future abound. Check out The Verge’s generous take, below: And, in perfect complement, BGR’s perspective. As someone once said, “everything is relative. Even Blackberry reviews.” Continue reading Everything’s Relative in Tech-land
Yesterday, internet services company Akamai released its annual “State of the Internet” report, which tracks the various changes in internet speeds and penetration across the globe. When it came to broadband speeds, the US pulled in at 14th place, behind smaller countries such as Germany and South Korea. Before the alarmists clamor about the loss … Continue reading Fiber in the Diet
There is a great metric by which companies’ success can be measured. Effectively, if the name of a corporation’s good or service becomes interchangeable with the product category as a whole, the company’s product – or at least its marketing – is probably pretty successful. Older examples would be the use of the word “Xerox” as a verb, or “Kleenex” as a catchall for tissues. In our generation, the use of “Google” as a verb is likely the best example.
I’ve written about Samsung’s shotgun approach to production vis-a-vis the Note – a different strokes for different folks view, as opposed to Apple’s one size fits all philosophy – and, over at Slate, Farhad Manjoo reiterates as much. Hit up the link for more. Continue reading The Shotgun
Poor HTC. The Taiwanese smartphone company released its dismal Q4 2012 results this morning, chalking up $34 million in profit, a tiny fraction compared to the $2 Billion in revenue it earned Q4 2011. Mashable reports that HTC’s share of the US smartphone market shrunk from 10.3% at this time last year to 4% today. … Continue reading HTC Could Use a Little TLC
Silicon Spatula 