Palm revenue forecast lower than analysts’ estimates (tech)
NEW YORK () – Palm Inc ( PALM .O) warned that revenue for the current quarter would be far below Wall Street’s expectations, after tepid demand for its smartphones left wireless carriers with piles of excess inventory . The company’s shares fell 14 percent in after-hours trade on Thursday. Palm’s stock has fallen 40 percent since the start of 2010. Taking into account Thursday’s after-hours losses, Palm will have lost half its value since the year began. “The window is closing, there’s no question. They’ve got cash burn going against them and they’ve got competition going against them,” said Avian Securities analyst Matt Thornton. “I just don’t see what changes here.” Palm executives told analysts on a conference call that fourth-quarter revenue will be less than $150 million, as the company helps its carrier partners Sprint Nextel Corp ( S .N) and Verizon Wireless work through inventory overhang. Analysts had been expecting revenue of about $306 million, according to Thomson I/B/E/S . The company shipped a total of 960,000 smartphones during the third quarter ended February 26 , but sell-through — which reflects how many devices actually end up in consumers’ hands — totaled 408,000 units, lagging the 600,000 units or more many analysts expected. “The May quarter guidance is the key number; it’s very low indeed,” said Tero Kuittinen of MKM Partners, an institutional equity trading and research firm. Palm has struggled to generate interest in its Pre and Pixi smartphones and is facing competition from Apple Inc ( AL .O), Research in Motion Ltd ( RIM.TO ), Motorola Inc ( MOT .N) and Google Inc ( GOOG .O). It reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $22 million, or 13 cents a share, in the fiscal third quarter, versus a year-ago loss of $98 million, or 89 cents a share. Excluding items, the company’s loss was 61 cents a share, a bigger loss than the average analyst estimate of a loss of 42 cents a share, according to Thomson I/B/E/S. “VERY DISPOINTING” Despite expanding its carrier network to Verizon Wireless — a venture of Verizon Communications Inc ( VZ .N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L) — in addition to Sprint, Palm has failed to generate much sales momentum. Retailers have been heavily discounting the company’s devices, raising concerns about profitability. Third-quarter revenue came in at $349.9 million, above the company’s previous estimate of $300 million to $320 million. Non-GA revenue totaled $366 million, well above Wall Street ’s average estimate for sales of $316.2 million. Last month, the company slashed its third-quarter and full-year revenue targets on slower than expected consumer adoption. “Our recent underperformance has been extremely disappointing to me personally,” Chief Executive Jon Rubinstein said on a conference call with analysts. Shares of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Palm rose 5 percent to close at $5.65 on the Nasdaq on Thursday, but fell 14 percent to $4.86 in extended trading. (Editing by Edwin Chan, Gary Hill , Matthew Lewis and Carol Bishopric)
LTE May Heat up Mobile Net Neutrality Debate (tech)
Fine-grained network controls that are coming with next-generation mobile technology could make some demanding mobile applications such as video perform better but may also raise net neutrality concerns. LTE (Long-Term Evolution), the fourth-generation mobile technology expected to be most widely adopted by carriers around the world, is designed to boost wireless data speeds and more efficiently serve subscribers. But along with that standard come others that define the IP network behind the cell towers. One of them, called PCRF (Packet Core Routing Function), will give carriers much more fine-grained control over how well applications and services perform. PCRF has also been extended to 3G, and some vendors and carriers want to use the new technology to deal with growing demands on mobile data networks. On Thursday, Alcatel-Lucent extended its PCRF software, which was introduced last year, from LTE to 2.5G and 3G infrastructure. The company said Thursday that its 5780 Dynamic Services Controller, which can perform PCRF for both 3G and LTE networks, is in trials and will be available in the second half of this year. Alcatel is only the latest in a long line of vendors to offer PCRF software, which is part of a set of network management technologies called EPC (Evolved Packet Core). EPC is very new technology — it has generated no measurable revenue, according to market research firm Dell’Oro Group — but all the drivers are in place for it to be widely deployed over the coming years, said Dell’Oro analyst Greg Collins. Demand for mobile data is growing fast, and carriers would like to control how the applications offered on their mobile networks perform. PCRF could have a major impact on carriers’ businesses and subscribers’ mobile experiences. Among other things, the technology could be used to give certain applications and users better performance than others. Carriers could even sell preferential treatment to application providers, where that practice is legal, vendors and analysts say. But because the technology can define grades of service for both subscribers and content providers, it may run headlong into the growing debate in the U.S. over wireless net neutrality. For example, the idea of selling priority to certain providers of over-the-top applications and services, even if that priority were offered to any providers that could pay, has drawn the ire of some net neutrality advocates. The need for tighter network management is growing out of the rapid increase in demand for mobile data services, the same trend that made LTE itself necessary. As more wireless subscribers try to use ever more bandwidth-intensive applications, carriers want mechanisms to ensure that the most important or sensitive uses of the network don’t get trampled. EPC gives them tools to control, to some degree, the speed or QOS (quality of service) of individual applications. “I can allocate QOS to a voice channel, or a data channel … or a television service, for example,” said William Guinn, chief technology officer of Amdocs , which makes back-end systems for carriers. “If you’re downloading movies, for example, I might want to make sure you get [good] voice quality even if your downloads may take a couple of seconds longer.” Carriers could use PCRF in a variety of ways, according to Chetan Sharma , an independent mobile analyst. It defines nine levels of quality of service based on network delay and packet loss , four of which are guaranteed, he said. When the network is heavily loaded, users with a more expensive plan could get their Web pages and videos faster than those with lower-priced plans. In addition, the carrier could dial back performance for certain types of applications, no matter who was using them. And when subscribers reach the monthly download limit on a particular plan, their connection performance could be dialed back. Software vendors are developing a variety of tools for controlling services based on policy. Bridgewater, a mobile network management vendor that already offers PCRF software for both LTE and 3G, says it can extend policy-based controls out to the radio access network . Later this year, Bridgewater plans to introduce software that can selectively offload cellular traffic onto faster networks where they are available, said Joanne Steinberg, Bridgewater’s marketing director. Customers with higher-grade plans might find their data connections automatically shifting to Wi-Fi when the cellular network becomes congested, if the carrier considers that a benefit, she said. Managing users’ performance based on policies could allow carriers to smooth out the peaks in data demand, producing annual cost savings of more than 10 percent for U.S. operators by 2013, according to analyst Sharma. As long as the terms of those “gold, silver and bronze” plans were clearly spelled out, it would be legal to offer them in most places, Sharma said. The main barrier would be consumer expectations in countries such as the U.S., where all-you-can-eat service has been the norm. For that reason, shoppers are likely to find separate classes of service in Europe first, he said. Priority for over-the-top application providers could be a trickier proposition. Using PCRF, a carrier could put certain applications or services on a higher tier to ensure a smooth user experience even at busy times, Sharma said. For that assurance, carriers could charge a fee or a percentage of the application provider’s revenue, Alcatel and other vendors acknowledged. “I can negotiate with a carrier to get the type of service I’m looking for,” said Amdocs’ Guinn, giving the hypothetical example of a health-care company that gives patients medical monitors that send data over a mobile operator’s network. As long as the carrier didn’t use the policy tools to give its own applications an edge over those of third parties, it wouldn’t violate current net neutrality rules in the U.S., which involve blocking or impeding a particular company’s service, Guinn said. However, to some critics, this idea raises the specter of carriers as gatekeepers on what should be an open marketplace of online applications. “That has incredibly harmful impacts on competition and … consumer choice … and innovation,” said Chris Riley, policy counsel for Free Press, a U.S. media reform group that has fought against blocking of certain applications by service providers. Also, if a carrier can charge for priority access to a congested network, it has less incentive to invest in a fatter pipe, he said. “They are managing scarcity and creating an environment of scarcity to sell this enhanced access.” The FCC ’s net neutrality guidelines only cover wired networks today, but the agency is now considering stronger rules, including ones that would extend into the wireless world . The FCC is already proposing rules that would ban carriers from charging third-party service providers for better performance, Riley said. “There’s a good argument to be made that this kind of prioritization does basically disadvantage new entrants” to the mobile application world, said Fred von Lohmann , senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation . That argument and others about wireless net neutrality will probably play out over the next three years or more, von Lohmann said. “We’re not going to get a clear, final answer for some time,” he said.
HTC to ‘fully defend’ itself against techple patent suit (tech)
WASHINGTON () – Taiwan cellphone maker HTC, accused by Apple of infringing on iPhone patents, said Thursday it will “fully defend” itself against the charges. “HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself,” HTC chief executive Peter Chou said in a statement. “HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done,” Chou said. The HTC CEO did not directly address the charges from Apple, which filed suit against HTC, maker of the Nexus One smartphone from Google, on March 2 accusing the Taiwan company of infringing on 20 iPhone patents. Chou said that HTC “will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible. “From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone,” he said. Jason Mackenzie, vice president of HTC America, said “HTC has always taken a partnership-oriented, collaborative approach to business. “This has led to long-standing strategic partnerships with the top software, Internet and wireless technology companies in the industry as well as the top US, European and Asian mobile operators,” Mackenzie said. Apple accused HTC of infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the “user interface, underlying architecture and hardware” of the iPhone, the popular touchscreen device introduced in 2007 by the company behind the iPod and the Macintosh computer . Apple, which is based in Cupertino, California, filed the lawsuit in a US District Court in the state of Delaware and with the US International Trade Commission. In the suit, Apple, which has sold more than 40 million iPhones worldwide, is asking for unspecified damages and an injunction to prevent HTC from making or selling products using the patents in dispute. HTC, which stands for High Tech Computer Corp., is Taiwan’s leading smartphone maker. The company makes handsets for a number of leading US companies and is the manufacturer of the Nexus One unveiled by Apple rival Google in January. Apple did not specifically name Google in the lawsuit but many of the HTC smartphones cited in its filing are powered by Google’s open-source Android operating system . Google, in a recent statement, threw its backing behind HTC. “We are not a party to this lawsuit,” the Mountain View, California, company said. “However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it.” Patent lawsuits are a fairly regular occurrence among technology giants and Apple is currently being sued by Nokia for patent infringement . Apple has fired back a countersuit against the Finnish mobile phone giant . Canada’s Research in Motion , maker of the Blackberry, has also had its share of patent woes and was accused of patent infringement by US mobile phone maker Motorola in a suit filed in January. Eastman Kodak Co . filed lawsuits against Apple and RIM that same month alleging they infringed Kodak digital imaging technology.
Pricey Nexus One Moving To AT&T, Sprint Networks (NewsFactor)
Google’s Nexus One may have gotten off to a rocky start with consumers, but the “superphone” is making fast inroads with wireless carriers. Google this week started selling a Nexus One that will run on AT&T ’s 3G network, and has also inked a deal with Sprint Nextel . Google previously struck deals with T-Mobile, Vodafone and Verizon Wireless . Sprint hasn’t announced pricing or the availability date, but the carrier is already priming the competitive pump with marketing messages that proclaim its network has twice the coverage of AT&T and 10 times the coverage of T-Mobile. Meanwhile, the Nexus One is going head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone on the AT&T network. AT&T recently started adding Android-based phones in anticipation of its exclusive relationship with Apple ending. Sprint got into the Android market recently with the Samsung Moment and the HTC Hero . Sprint also offers Palm’s latest devices. “Google struck deals with the carriers, but not really. There’s no carrier services being offered. The carriers are not selling the phone,” said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at Altimeter Group. “The best we are seeing is some degree of subsidy for the device for new users, but that’s not overly interesting.” The Unsubsidized Factor AT&T and Sprint customers have to access the Nexus One online store to purchase the phone. Despite a large volume of complaints about customer service, Google insists that its online experience is designed with a focus on simplicity, allowing consumers to match a phone with the service plan that best meets their needs. In addition to not selling the phone, it doesn’t appear that either AT&T or Sprint will subsidize the Nexus One. Consumers who want to use a Nexus One on AT&T’s network will pay the full price of $529 for an unlocked model, and that could hurt the Nexus One’s chances on AT&T. Consumers can get into an iPhone for $99. T-Mobile, meanwhile, does subsidize the Nexus One, making it the most affordable carrier from an upfront-investment standpoint. T-Mobile customers pay $170 for the Nexus One with a two-year contract. “It’s smart for Google to go beyond T-Mobile as an initial carrier and get on to some of these other carriers,” Gartenberg said. “But at the end of the day, it is not clear that this is the way consumers want to buy their phones. We’ve seen reports coming in that have shown that since its launch the Nexus One has sold about 100,000 units, which is pretty poor for a phone from Google with that amount of buzz behind it.” The iPad Exception As Gartenberg sees it, most consumers want to see and feel a new device before they buy it. However, one recent exception is Apple’s iPad, which has presold more than 100,000 units. The difference, Gartenberg said, is consumers have confidence in Apple’s track record, whereas Google is new to the consumer electronics landscape. “Buying an unsubsidized phone out of contract hasn’t worked for anyone in the U.S. phone market, and there’s no reason to think it’s going to work for Google,” Gartenberg said. “You’ve got to really be willing to buy into the whole Nexus One decision and dream, and so far that doesn’t appear that this is what the mass market of consumers is looking to do.”
Google and Partners Working on Web-Based TV Service (NewsFactor)
Taking one more step into the broadcasting world, Google is planning a web-based TV service in partnership with tech giants like Intel, Logitech and Sony. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal , the Google TV effort is in its preliminary stages. The industry behemoths are reportedly collaborating on software that will help users navigate web-based video programming on traditional television sets . The software would offer a platform on which other developers could launch programs, the Journal reported. The technology could show up in future TVs, Blu-ray players or set-top boxes. “The movement of web content to TV or the emergence of TV as a platform for accessing the web is already happening and will continue to gain momentum,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “Google as well its partners want to be a part of that movement as it goes mainstream.” Google vs Apple The Journal report is further evidence that Google is moving to dominate on yet another screen: The television. Google is also reportedly testing a service that runs on TV set-top boxes that host its software and enables viewers to find shows on Dish Network and video on web sites like YouTube. Google’s experiment offers the search giant access to 14 million Dish viewers, signaling the potential to yield valuable results. With 168 million U.S. Internet users watching online videos in September, according to comScore, and nearly 26 billion videos viewed during a month, the opportunity is clear. And with the convergence of broadcast and Internet video , the opportunity is drawing plenty of attention from startups and industry giants alike. Apple launched Apple TV in January 2007 as a way to let consumers wirelessly play iTunes content from a Mac or PC on a widescreen TV, including movies, TV shows, music, photos and podcasts. The Apple TV interface lets viewers browse and view their entire collection of digital media with a remote control. Apple CEO Steve Jobs called it a DVD player for the 21st century , but it only connects to other computers, not the Internet. TiVo Ahead It’s unclear if Apple will revamp its product to include Internet television capabilities as Google proceeds with its plans. But TiVo is ahead of both Google and Apple in multimedia. Earlier this month, TiVo announced DVRs that blend television and Internet viewing experiences. The TiVo Premiere and Premiere XL combine access to cable programming, movies, web videos, and music. TiVo is positioning the new devices as a one-stop shop for entertainment, offering viewers broadband and broadcast integration that lets them search for YouTube clips, Netflix movies, Amazon Video On Demand , Blockbuster On Demand, and more from one interface. The new offering uses pictures and graphics to make the television guide more interactive as users search through millions of pieces of content. Google TV Ads “Google already has a significant project in Google TV Ads, which tries to bring web-style targeted ads to cable TV. That project would obviously be helped and symbiotic with the one discussed here,” Sterling said. “This could become a major new growth area for Google if it succeeds.”
China Mobile hopes to agree iPhone deal (tech)
HONG KONG () – China Mobile said on Thursday it hopes to soon reach a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone, several months after rival China Unicom launched the iconic smartphone in the country. The world’s biggest telecom operator also said it was interested in selling Apple’s new iPad tablet computer in the fast-growing Chinese market. Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile’s chairman and chief executive, did not elaborate on why talks over selling the handsets in China had not yet resulted in a deal. “We’re hoping we’ll come to an agreement (with Apple) on the iPhone as soon as possible,” he told a news conference in Hong Kong to release the company’s 2009 results. “We will continue to express our interest in the iPhone. But not just the iPhone, also the iPad.” Wang said China Mobile still had room to grow by rolling out new products and tapping the country’s vast rural market, despite the fact that it surpassed half a billion users in 2009. “China Mobile is still a growing company,” he said. “There are a lot of new areas (of business) that have been opened up to us. There is a lot of potential for growth… Agricultural users, students, they are new users — a lot of the new business will be from this area.” Wang confirmed that Hong Kong-listed China Mobile was still eyeing floating its shares in mainland China, while dismissing concerns about the prospect of Google leaving the country over a high-profile censorship spat. If the search engine left, China Mobile customers could still search the Internet on Yahoo! or China-based Baidu , Wang said. China Mobile said it added 65 million new customers in 2009 — bringing the total to 522 million — with annual revenues up 9.8 percent to 452 billion yuan (66.2 billion US dollars). Profits rose 2.3 percent to 115.2 billion yuan in 2009, it said. The firm said sales of so-called value-added products such as handset Internet access and a wireless music club grew 16 percent year on year, accounting for almost 30 percent of overall revenue. Last week, the company said it was paying 5.8 billion-US-dollars for a 20 percent stake in mid-sized Shanghai Pudong Development Bank in a bid to break into the wireless banking market. “We can see a lot of other services that we can add on,” said Li Yue, a China Mobile executive director and vice-president. “That will bring up our future growth.” But Li also warned that the company’s profit margin may shrink in the future amid intense competition and customer demands for price cuts. China Mobile shares closed up 1.2 percent to 76.4 Hong Kong dollars (9.84 US dollars).
HTC says confident can defend against techple suit (tech)
NEW YORK () – Cellphone developer HTC Corp said it is confident it can fight off a recent technology patent infringement lawsuit from iPhone maker Apple Inc and promised to issue a formal response in the next few weeks. The comments released on Thursday follow a lawsuit from Apple earlier this month, accusing HTC of infringing on 20 iPhone related technology patents. HTC makes phones based on software from Apple’s archrivals Google Inc and from Microsoft Corp . Taiwan’s HTC said it would use every means possible to fight off the suit. “We feel confident in our innovation and our ability to defend ourselves in this case,” Jason Mackenzie, vice president for HTC’s U.S. business said in an interview. Mackenzie declined to go into detail about how HTC will defend itself except to say the company would issue a formal response in the next few weeks. “HTC strongly disagrees with Apple’s actions. We plan to use all the legal tools we have at our disposal to both defend ourselves and set the record straight,” Mackenzie said. While Apple’s lawsuit did not name Google as a defendant, the case was viewed by many analysts as a proxy for an attack on Google, whose operating system powers many phones made by HTC, including Nexus One, which Google sells directly. Mackenzie declined comment on this aspect of the case and suggested directing such questions at Apple. Apple’s suit was filed with both the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court in Delaware on March 2, and seeks to prohibit HTC from selling, marketing or distributing infringing products in the United States. The complaint filed with the International Trade Commission said infringing products include Nexus One, which was launched in January, and other HTC phones such as the Hero, Dream and myTouch — which run on Google’s Android mobile software. The executive said product innovation was one of the cornerstones around with HTC was founded in 1997. He said the company had been first to market new product categories, including its 2002 Pocket PC and a phone it introduced last year for WiMax, an emerging high-speed wireless technology. HTC issued a statement from its Chief Executive Peter Chou listing the company’s history of innovation. “From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone,” Chou said. “In 1999 we started designing the XDA and T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition , our first touch-screen smartphones, and they both shipped in 2002 with more than 50 additional HTC smartphone models shipping since then.” (Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Andre Grenon)
FTC Member Rips into Google’s Privacy Efforts (tech)
Several major U.S. Internet companies, including Google and Facebook , need to “step up” and better protect consumer privacy or face tougher penalties from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a commissioner said Wednesday. Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour , who is leaving the FTC next month, ripped into Google for the launch of its Buzz social-networking tool in February, and she complained that many other Internet firms, including Facebook and Microsoft , aren’t encrypting the consumer data that lives in their clouds. “I am especially concerned that technology companies are learning harmful lessons from each other’s attempts to push the privacy envelop,” she said during an FTC privacy workshop. “Even the most respected and popular online companies, the ones who claim to respect privacy, continue to launch products where the guiding privacy policy seems to be, ‘Throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks.’” Wednesday’s forum was the third about consumer privacy that the FTC has hosted since December. The agency wants to shape the debate about what are appropriate consumer privacy protections , but it will also take action against companies it believes not lived up to the privacy promises, Harbour said. “I realize that companies continue to take a testing-the-water approach to privacy because no regulatory agency has sent a clear message that this behavior is unacceptable,” she said. “I would like to see the commission take the position of intolerance toward companies that push the privacy envelop, then backtrack and modify their offerings after facing consumer and regulator backlash.” Harbour targeted Google in particular for criticism, saying its launch of Buzz in February constituted “irresponsible conduct.” In the original public version of Buzz, the program compiled a list of the Gmail contacts the users most frequently e-mailed or chatted with and automatically started following those people. Those lists were made public, giving strangers access to the contacts of Buzz users. There was an immediate outcry from Gmail users, and Google made changes to Buzz within a couple of days. But Harbour said Google seems not to have learned from similar privacy controversies with past product launches, including the Google Talk instant-messaging service. Google users have high expectations of the company, Harbour said. “Google consistently tells the public to ‘just trust us,’” she said. “But based on my observations, I do not believe consumer privacy played any significant role in the release of Buzz.” A reasonable consumer would conclude that the launch of Buzz was a “material change” their relationship with Google’s Gmail, she said. “When users created Gmail accounts, they signed up for e-mail services,” she said. “Their expectations did not include social networking.” Consumers should have the “ultimate decision” to sign up for new features, Harbour added. Google spokesman Brian Richardson , who listened to Harbour’s speech, noted that the company made changes to Buzz’s privacy settings within 48 hours of its launch. “User choice and transparency are top of mind for us,” he said. “When we realized that we had unintentionally made users unhappy, we worked quickly to make immediate changes.” Google tested Buzz with more than 20,000 employees, but the company now recognizes that its employees and the general public may have different reactions to a product, Richardson added. “You cannot incubate social products in a Petri dish, or suddenly announce a fully baked product,” he added. “If you look at any c ompany that’s been successful in this space, it’s because they have been able to iterate, refine, listen, stumble, get back up, and dust themselves off.” Harbour also criticized Facebook for some of the changes it has made in its privacy settings, and she called on social-networking sites, e-mail service providers and other cloud computing vendors to begin encrypting consumer data. Many providers of Web-based services don’t use the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) cryptographic protocol for most data, she said. Facebook , Microsoft ’s Hotmail service and Flickr don’t use SSL after the initial log-on information is sent, Harbour said. Without SSL, consumer data is put at “significant risk” when people use public wireless networks, she said. “These vulnerabilities are easily preventable,” she added. “Security needs to be a default in the cloud.” Security is a top priority for Facebook, said spokesman Andrew Noyes, contacted after Harbour’s speech. “We devote significant resources to helping our users protect their accounts and information,” he said. “We don’t take this for granted, however, and we’re constantly exploring new ways to safeguard the privacy of our users and their communications.” Facebook is also confident that recent changes in it privacy settings were “transparent, consistent with people’s expectations, and well within the law,” Noyes added. “Specifically, the announcement and education campaign by Facebook around the changes was unprecedented in its scope.”
Nexus One Rival Droid Gets Android 2.1 Update (NewsFactor)
After rolling out its latest operating system on its exclusive Nexus One smartphone in January, Google will now release Android 2.1 for a top competitor: the Motorola Droid, which is distributed by Verizon Wireless . The over-the-air update will be available in batches of 250,000 beginning Thursday, March 18, Verizon Wireless announced. A blog dedicated to Android posted the official software update notice on Wednesday. The fast-selling Droid is estimated to make up 15 percent of all Android smartphones sold. According to the analytics firm Flurry, which measures access to key web sites by various smartphones, the Droid reached an estimated 1,050,000 users in its first 74 days on the market — the same period of time it took Apple to sell one million of its first-generation iPhone in 2007. In the same post-launch period beginning Jan. 5 of this year, the Nexus One sold only 135,000 handsets through its online store and T-Mobile outlets. Multitouch, Voice Text The Android update will add to the Droid user experience by allowing limited multitouch, a feature pioneered by the iPhone. Android 2.1 allows pinch-and-zoom interaction with photo galleries, Google Maps and web browsing. A weather and news widget will allow users to receive weekly or hourly updates based on their location and the type of news they prefer, and there is greater support for Yahoo mail accounts. Android 2.1 also allows users to make more use of text entry by voice, simply by touching the microphone whenever a text window appears. Another dazzling feature is interactive animated wallpaper for backgrounds, and it will be easier to use Google Maps Navigation after dark with a new night-mode illumination feature. While Android 2.1 and its successors can be an immediate selling point for Verizon Wireless in marketing the Droid, the impact is unclear. “I don’t think it will have a great impact on sales other than trying to keep current with all the iPhone applications already available,” says Kirk Parsons, an analyst with J.D. Power and Associates . “Android is updating its OS platform to make it more appealing to a broader audience, and to be more competitive in the marketplace, especially versus the iPhone.” Speed and Flash Advantages Even with its operating system on rival phones, the Nexus One still has a few advantages. “The big selling point with the Nexus One is its openness with various software application services via the OS platform and some features that the iPhone still does not have, like being able to open up flash-based web sites,” Parsons explained. The Nexus One can also boast of its speed, with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, compared with Droid’s 550MHz processor. Later this spring, Google will reportedly sell a Nexus One model compatible with the Verizon network, as it did this week with AT&T , although T-Mobile is currently the only carrier selling the device subsidized, at $179 with a two-year plan. The unlocked version of the phone, for $529, can be placed on most carrier networks. In another development, Google’s bid to trademark the term “Nexus One” was reportedly rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office because it is too similar to products patented by Integra Telecom . That means the search giant may have to license the moniker from Integra or find a new name, if it can’t appeal the ruling. In 2007, Apple faced a similar dispute with Cisco over the iPhone name, but negotiated a settlement.
Sprint to support Google’s Nexus One smartphone (tech)
NEW YORK () – Google Inc’s Nexus One smartphone will soon be available to subscribers of Sprint Nextel Corp , the second U.S. wireless service provider to announce an agreement to support the touchscreen phone. Sprint said on Wednesday it will announce pricing and the availability date soon for the Nexus One. The smartphone is the first that Google is selling directly to consumers and is sold exclusively through the Internet company’s website. The Nexus One is currently available for $179 with a two-year contract on Deutsche Telekom ’s T-Mobile USA, or $529 without a service plan . Google launched sales of the phone in January, and sales in the first 74 days have greatly lagged the pace of other handsets such as Motorola Inc’s Droid and Apple Inc’s iPhone during their initial rollouts, according to a recent report by analytics firm Flurry. Sprint already carries phones that run Google’s Android software made by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and HTC Corp. (Reporting by Tiffany Wu and Alexei Oreskovic; editing by John Wallace)
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