Aug 24, 2011 | Wireless
It is being reported that Sprint will be selling the newest Apple iphone in mid October which would give Sprit the number three spot for sure in this battle that has only really been 2 big cell markets. This also gives Apple another carrier to sell their phones. This report does seem to shed some light on when the Phone will be coming out which is later than expected from most. Many thought September was the month since the fourth quarter closes for Apple in September. The reports also say that Sprint will also carry the iPhone 4 on top of it. Richard Doherty, director of the research firm Envisioneering Group, said that the addition of the iPhone would help Sprint retain many of its customers itching to upgrade. The iPhone will also increase foot traffic in Sprint stores, which should help the company to sell high-margin iPhone accessories. “Sprint needs it,” said Mr. Doherty. “There are a lot of families that will embrace the iPhone.” It looks like Apple really wants to stick it to the droid and seems to be carried in the three major cell markets now.
Aug 22, 2011 | News
It has been reported that Skype has agreed to purchase GroupMe, which is a company that developed ways for groups of people to send messages to others via multiple smart phone platforms. This is an interesting buy seeing as though Microsoft is currently in the process of buying Skype. The price tag is a modest 85 million dollars, at least that is what is being reported, a solid figure has not been released but I am certain this number is going to be fairly close. It is thought that this purchase is part of the grand scheme of the Microsoft purchase, that the purchase of group me will further help the development of the Windows phone. It is obvious Microsoft is going to work as hard as it can to get their phones straight and trying to one up Apple and Android. The thought is with the Skype purchase they will have a better face to face phone service than Apple with their facetime, which is a video chat via apple PC’s and/or iPhones. All I can say is Microsoft has a long uphill battle to win this phone war.
Aug 20, 2011 | News
Now that HP is moving away from the webOS they have decided it would be a good idea to make the touchpad’s sell like hot cakes. How do you do that? Sell them for as low as $99.99. That’s right, the HP touchpad 16GB is going for $99 and the 32GB is going for $149.
In a memo sent to HP affiliates, the company issued the declaration to begin liquidating TouchPad inventories, with a price cut of $300 or more:
HP will be lowering the price of the TouchPad beginning Saturday 8/20/11. This is the lowest price ever for the TouchPad so please post it as soon as it goes live.
16GB TouchPad- $99; 32GB TouchPad – $149
This is live as of today so happy shopping people!
Aug 19, 2011 | News
So it looks like HP is going off the beaten path and starting to move towards software development. HP is buying Autonomy Corp. which is a software development company. With this purchase the CEO Leo Apotheker, is trying to lessen the company’s reliance on the PC market as they feel the demand will fall closer to Apple with the iPad. They are also going to try and expand their cloud services.
?Their focus is on being more of a software and services company and not dependent on the hardware businesses,? said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc. ?The hardware business has become a difficult business. In many ways it?s a commodity-driven business. This is a major strategic shift for HP.?
So now we shall see what happens, will HP scrap the touchpad and just focus mainly on the software development side? What will this mean for other divisions of HP? Could we be looking at no more PC’s from HP? Lots of questions not enough answers right now.
Aug 18, 2011 | News, Wireless
It has been less than six months but it looks like Apple is really moving in on the phone market of Verizon. The Android share of phones sold went from 51.4% to 41.1% which shows a major shift amongst many Verizon users. Chitika Insights has shown a breakdown of the end of March in which Verizon was the biggest Android carrier. Now the newest study which is about 5 months later shows that major decrease in Verizon’s slice of the US Android pie just after the launch of the iPhone 4. This might not bold well for Android in the coming months with a new iPhone 4 and 5 coming out in the September/October. It looks like the Droid will have to make a strong push in the coming months with better phones and the ice-cream sandwich OS which should be a very special OS.
Aug 17, 2011 | News
I have wrote a few articles about the HP touchpad being discounted $100. First it was just a discount that was supposed to be over a weekend and then they made it permanent. Well it looks like those price cuts didn’t help much. A source has reported that Best Buy has received 270,000 Touchpads and they have only sold 25,000 which is less than 10% of the stock. Best Buy has also said that they not willing to pay for all of them because of the space it is taking up in the warehouse and in the stores. They have even reported to want to send them back to HP. The problem just isn’t Best Buy apparently other retailers are struggling as well. Wal-Mart, Fry’s and Microcenter are also having problems selling them and now with these price cuts of the HP tablet it is said people are willing to wait to see if HP makes them even cheaper.
Aug 16, 2011 | News
So as you may know Apple and Starbucks have had a long time partnership which gives Starbucks customers a way to download free music from the Apple iTunes Music store. Now Starbucks and Apple are working together to give people a paid application for free. Now when you go to the register you can find free cards at the cash register that have codes that can be entered at the app store or iTunes to get the free application. Shazam Encore is scheduled to be the first app to be given away, and this app sells for $5.99. That is a very good deal considering the fact that most music $1.29. So I am sure this will be even more successful than the music giveaways.
Aug 15, 2011 | News
It seems Anonymous is keeping busy after a letter about the Facebook attack on November 5th they have taken on the San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit open data services. They have released thousands of names, email addresses, home addresses and phone numbers from what is believed to be the myBart.org website. This hack is said to be part of a planned effort by Anonymous to bring BART down in retaliation for its shutdown of cell service on Thursday night at some of the stations to disrupt planned demonstrations over police shootings. Here is a press release from Anonymous from Saturday:
1. Begin a ?Black Fax and E-Mail Bomb action?, where it would fill every inbox and fax machine at BART with thousands of copies of its message claiming the outage was unacceptable. A list of those email addresses just been posted to Pastebin, a site commonly used by hackers to share text anonymously.
2. It would remove BART?s website for exactly six hours. Intended to be twice as long as BART shut off cell phones for. This has yet to materialize.
3. A ?physical protest? will take place at the Civic Center Bart Station at 5PM Pacific Time. BART has issued a statement warning users of possible disruption to its train services on the day.
As per usual Anonymous is serious about keeping peoples rights in hand and if they are infringed upon in any way they most likely will strike and this is another showing that they will.
Aug 12, 2011 | News
Facebook and Google+ have been battle against each since the newest social site Google+ launched. This new battle is over the games people love to play on Facebook. Facebook is making some enhancements to these games to battle Google’s games. The biggest enhancement is to post announcements about particular user achievements on your friends? Facebook pages. If you pass up your friend?s score in a game, you can easily brag about that and make your friends more competitive. You can also boast about your movement up a game leader board. Facebook users can also utilize new bookmarks on the home page to see their top apps more easily. Plus on top of it I have heard that Google+ takes a lot less commissions on the games they you purchase content for which is nice for developers. I think Google+ is really taking advantage of the other revenue streams that they have vs. Facebook and with better developers most likely developing for the Google+ platform maybe what Facebook has added won’t be enough.
Aug 11, 2011 | News
So over the weekend I informed everyone if they didn’t already know it that there was going to be a price cut of $100 dollars on both the 16GB and 32GB touchpad. So the HP brass thought it would be a good idea to make a permanent price cut of $100 to the 16GB and 32GB model which in my opinion is where the thing should of been priced in the first place. This is going to make the HP run extremely strong now, with these price points they have a chance of putting a dent in the market and making HP the number 2 sold tablet behind the iPad 2. This is a good deal for someone looking for a tablet but can’t afford that extra $100 for the iPad 2. I will keep my eye on the HP tablet and see what other moves it will have instore but right now they are making the right moves to penetrate the market better.
