Archives: July 2009

iSuppli: Handset Shipments Return to Growth

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 31, Categories: wireless

Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola now have a reason to rejoice: Sales of handsets are starting to pick up. Global shipments of cell phones rose 4.7% in the second quarter, ending nine month of sales declines, according to consultant iSuppli.

MetroPCS Falls in User Satisfaction Rankings

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 30, Categories: wireless

Of all prepaid wireless services out there, consumers are least satisfied with MetroPCS's service, according to a new survey from J.D. Power & Associates. Last year, MetroPCS placed first among U.S. prepaid carriers in user satisfaction.

Yahoo's Bartz Got Her Boatload of Cash, Says Ballmer

Posted by: Peter Burrows on July 30, Categories: Yahoo

Normally, CEOs use their introductory remarks at their finanical analysts meetings to talk up their own rosy prospects. I'm watching Microsoft Steve Ballmer do just that--except for a lengthy aside...

"No Bull----": Ballmer & Bartz on Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 29, Categories: Google, Microsoft, Search, Yahoo, advertising

Soon after announcing their deal to combine forces on Internet search and search advertising, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked with BusinessWeek about how the deal...

Vonage Jumps on Your Mobile

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 29, Categories: wireless

Web-calling provider Vonage will come out with a version of its service for smartphones in the second half of 2009. "The time is right to take advantage of the penetration rate of smartphone devices and Wi-Fi by providing branded mobile applications," Vonage spokesman Charles Sahner tells BusinessWeek.com.Vonage's apps could prove to be a major wake-up call for Skype, Truphone and other companies that already offer cheap calling via the iPhone and other mobile devices.

Microsoft and Yahoo Announce 10-Year Search Deal

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 29, Categories: Google, Microsoft, Search, Yahoo, advertising

And so the deal is finally done: Microsoft and Yahoo early this morning announced a 10-year deal that provides a united front against search giant Google. As we wrote last...

Metatools Returns from the Dead with iPhone App

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on July 28, Categories: iPhone

MetaTools, a hot software company back in the early days of desktop computer graphics, has reappeared with Goo, an iPhone version of a once-popular desktop app that allows fun manipulation...

Greenpeace Knocks HP's Environmental Record

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on July 28, Categories: Hewlett-Packard

Is Hewlett-Packard dragging its feet on helping clean up the environment? Protesters from Greenpeace think so. Several scaled walls at the company's Palo Alto (Calif.) corporate headquarters early July 21,...

Microsoft Search Deal With Yahoo Finally Here?

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 28, Categories: Google, Microsoft, Search, Yahoo, advertising

At long last, Microsoft and Yahoo appear to be very close to a long-awaited deal on Internet search. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal and the Boomtown blog,...

Verizon, Qualcomm Mobile Venture Attacks Embedded Market

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on July 28, Categories: wireless

As all types of machines get "smarter" with wireless connections that allow for two-way communication, chipmaker Qualcomm thinks it has the right stuff to go after the burgeoning market. The...

A Sign of Hope for Online Ad Prices

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 23, Categories: Yahoo, advertising

Prices for display ads have been dropping for some time. The suspects are easy to identify: the poor economy, which is not only reducing ad budgets but also driving...

Amazon.com Acquires Shoe E-tailer Zappos

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 22, Categories: Amazon.com

In its largest acquisition to date, Amazon.com just bought Zappos.com, the celebrated online shoe store, for stock worth $807 million plus $40 million in cash and restricted stock to Zappos...

Pew: African Americans, Wireless Web's 'Pace Setters'

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 22, Categories: wireless

African Americans’ use of mobile Web has more than doubled in the past several years, according to a Pew Research Center survey released on July 22. Not only are African Americans the most active users of the wireless Internet, but their use of the mobile Web is also growing the fastest.

LIVE: Yahoo's Q2 Earnings, Q3 Outlook Disappoint

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 21, Categories: Bing, Google, Icahn, Microsoft, Search, Yahoo, advertising

Yahoo's second-quarter earnings are out now amid muted expectations. Its profit rose to $141 million, or 10 cents a share, from $131 million, or 9 cents a share a year...

Will Yahoo's Q2 Earnings Report Defy Low Expectations?

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 21, Categories: Bing, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, advertising

Yahoo will report its second-quarter earnings today, and few investors are looking for much cheer in the results. Yahoo is expected to report a profit before special charges of 8...

RIM Lashes Out at Nortel

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 21, Categories: Nortel

On July 20, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion disclosed that "it has effectively been prevented from submitting an offer for the Nortel Networks Wireless Business." But why does RIM want the assets in the first place?

Can E-Books Save Barnes & Noble?

Posted by: Douglas MacMillan on July 20, Categories: books

Digital downloads doomed brick-and-mortar music retailers like Tower Records and Virgin MegaStore. Now, booksellers are trying to stave off a similar fate by getting in the budding business of e-books....

Yahoo to Launch New, Customizable Home Page

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 20, Categories: Yahoo

Yahoo will debut a new home page on Tuesday that it's pitching as the most sweeping change in its main site since the company began. The site, which will...

Barnes & Noble: Who Needs Amazon's Kindle?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on July 20, Categories: books

Move over Amazon, the race to electronically deliver books is heating up. Barnes & Noble, the largest bookstore chain by revenue, just became the latest company to launch its own...

Nortel: Bidders, Please Stand Up

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 20, Categories: Nortel

On July 20, bankrupt telecom gearmaker Nortel announced that it will sell its enterprise solutions business to Avaya for $475 million. But will the deal actually go through?

Verizon to Curb Handset Exclusivity

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 17, Categories: wireless

On July 17, Verizon Wireless announced that it will voluntarily start limiting the terms of its exclusive deals for handsets to six months. Is this a big deal? Well, sort of.

Nokia Dumps Symbian Services Unit

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 17, Categories: wireless

Is this the beginning of the end for Symbian? On July 17, Nokia announced it will sell its Symbian professional services unit to Accenture.

Verizon Communications: You Can Take the Boy Out of the Bell System but...

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on July 17, Categories: Curmudgeonly

The surviving pieces of the old AT&T empire--Verizon Communications, the new AT&T, Qwest Communications--have spent the last quarter-century trying to transform themselves from dinosaurs that could only survive in a...

Google Beats Earnings Forecast But Investors Unimpressed

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 16, Categories: Bing, Google, Microsoft, Search, Yahoo, YouTube, advertising

Google managed to beat expectations for its second-quarter results. Here's the release, but on first glance, it looks like Google met expectations on revenues but beat handily on profits. All...

All Eyes on Google As Second-Quarter Earnings Report Looms

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 16, Categories: Google, Microsoft, Search, Yahoo, advertising

Search giant Google will report its second-quarter earnings shortly after 1 p.m. Pacific time today, at a time when investors will be wondering which way online advertising is going. While...

Macrovision Becomes ROVI, Launches New TV Menu System

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on July 16, Categories: TV

Macrovision is the kind of company you don't often think about, because most of the things it does are in the background. When you insert a CD into your computer...

Symbian Horizon: Dialing Developers

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 16, Categories: wireless

Late on July 15, mobile software maker Symbian previewed Symbian Horizon, an application-publishing program that would make it easier for developers to publish apps in multiple carrier and handset makers' app stores. In effect, Symbian is trying to come up with an alternative to creating its own app store. Will it work?

Xobni Charges for Outlook Add-On

Posted by: Douglas MacMillan on July 15, Categories: startups

If you're an e-mail pack rat like me, you let your inbox fill up with thousands of messages of varying degrees of importance knowing you will need to refer to...

Pandora Surpasses Sirius XM

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 15, Categories: radio

For a while there, Sirius XM's iPhone application left alternative radio services in the dust on the iTunes charts. Well, no more. Music discovery app from Pandora has just surpassed it.

Apple's $800 Tablet: Is The Price Right?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 13, Categories: Apple

Rumor has it that Apple might be close to releasing its own tablet computer as early as October. The device may cost $800. Would you buy the tablet for this price?

This Week, Microsoft Makes Its Case For Windows 7 and Office 2010

Posted by: Peter Burrows on July 13, Categories: Microsoft

It's going to be a big week for Microsoft. Thousands of distributors, systems integrators and software developers, among others, have convened in New Orleans for the company's annual Worldwide Partners...

Google's Chrome Operating System: We've Got It All Wrong

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 11, Categories: Chrome, Cloud Computing, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Personal Computers, Web, Web browser, open source software, software, software as service

"A real rival to Windows." "Google drops a nuclear bomb on Microsoft." It all sounds so dramatic and exciting, the kind of story we journalists love. But I can't help...

Happy Birthday, App Store!

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 10, Categories: Apple

On July 11, Apple's App Store hits another milestone: It turns one year old. What do you like about the App Store, and what would you like to see changed?

Hands-on with the BlackBerry Tour

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on July 10, Categories: blackberry

I've been using a BlackBerry Tour, Research In Motion's answer to the BlackBerry Bold for Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other CDMA carriers. They a similar handsets, with some small but...

Why Is the Government Vulnerable to a Simple Cyber Attack?

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on July 09, Categories: Cybersecurity

A wide-ranging attack on government and corporate Web sites that began last weekend and is continuing seems, at least so far, to be causing more confusion than damage. A denial...

AT&T: Wireless Industry "A Model" of Competitiveness

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 08, Categories: wireless

In a July 8 letter, AT&T fires back at allegations of anti-competitive conduct. Some of the company's arguments don't quite add up.

Chrome OS: What Is Google's Goal?

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on July 08, Categories: Google

Google's announcement that it is working on a lightweight, Web-based operating system for netbooks, to be called Chrome OS, is a surprise only in its timing. As I wrote last...

Google Announces Plans for PC Operating System

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 08, Categories: Google

Google announced plans late Tuesday night to develop operating software for personal computers, initially the downsized PCs called Netbooks. An outgrowth of the Internet search giant's Chrome Web browser, Chrome...

Now For Something Completely Different: Cisco John Chambers Shows Off His Duck-Calling Skills

Posted by: Peter Burrows on July 07, Categories: Cisco

I'm told Cisco PR staffer John Earnhardt heard laughter coming from Chambers' office, grabbed his Flip video camera and set out to check it out. Here's what he saw:...

Made Men: Why Venture Capitalists Sponsor Other VCs

Posted by: Spencer Ante on July 07, Categories: venture capital

The big news out this week in the venture capital market is the launch of Andreessen Horowitz, a new $300 million venture capital fund co-founded by Marc Andreeseen, a tech...

Facebook Flight? No, Graduation Season

Posted by: Douglas MacMillan on July 07, Categories: Facebook

As more baby boomers take to the world's most popular social network, the average age of Facebook users has risen steadily. But the site's bread and butter, kids in college...

Why DoJ Won't Get You a Verizon iPhone

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on July 07, Categories: wireless

News (subscription required for full article) that the Justice Dept. has launched an antitrust investigation into wireless phone carriers probing, among other things, whether handset exclusivity arrangements violate antitrust laws,...

Sirius XM's iPhone App Surpasses 1 Million Downloads

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 06, Categories: wireless

Today, Sirius XM announced that, in two weeks of availability, its iPhone app has surpassed 1 million downloads on iTunes. That's quite impressive, considering that Sirius only has 18.6 million subscribers, and that shock jock Howard Stern's talks shows haven't even been made available through the app.

Mobile Media Mergers Jump 46%

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 02, Categories: wireless

According to a new report from investment banker JEGI, mobile media and technology sector had seen a 46% increase in mergers and acquisitions in the second quarter of 2009. In the first half of the year, the mobile industry had struck 16 deals valued at a total of $146 million. That's up from 11 deals valued at $107 million in the first half of 2008. What is going on?

Microsoft Adds Some Twitter Updates to Bing Search

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 01, Categories: Bing, Google, Greasemonkey, Microsoft, Search, Twitter

In a nod to the increasing importance of real-time search, Microsoft has started adding Twitter updates to its Bing search engine. For now, the Twitter-related results are limited only to...

Sirius XM's Mel Karmazin Gets A Pay Raise

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 01, Categories: Sirius XM

Despite all the tribulations Sirius XM has gone through in the past year, the company's board has just voted to extend the contract of CEO Mel Karmazin through 2012. As part of the new package, Karmazin receives a pay increase and a bunch of options exercisable at 43 cents a share.

Survey: Americans Confused by Smartphone Offers

Posted by: Olga Kharif on July 01, Categories: wireless

A survey of 1,000 American adults that was commissioned by Best Buy Mobile reveals consumers' confusion over smartphones, which are souped-up cell phones able to download applications and to surf the Web.

Facebook To Introduce New, Simpler Privacy Settings

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 01, Categories: Facebook, Privacy, Twitter, social networks

Facebook today introduced a test of new ways for its members to set and adjust their privacy settings for any piece of content they post on the site. The changes...