BlackBerry out at U.S. climate agency

10th February, 2012

Weekly News Round – Up

06/2/12

Apple iPad 3 with Siri and larger screen may regain Android tablet market share


Stories have already been spreading about the upcoming iPad 3. It’s reported that Apple plans to introduce the iPad 3 during the first full week of March, and will start to sell it a week later. Sources said the company will introduce the tablet at a special event in San Francisco, most likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location.
Also, analyst Ezra Gottheil predicts that the company will launch a 7-inch iPad later in the year that may contain a wireless keyboard-case. "The next iPad will have a higher-resolution screen that Apple will call a Retina display, even if it's not," said Gottheil, according to Computerworld. "That's important to Apple because it means the iPad will work well in their home theater play, since it will display full HD."

Gottheil said he didn’t believe the iPad 3’s processor would be quad-core because of the power requirements, and thinks Apple is more likely to use a faster dual-core system. He expected Siri to be available, and predicts the company will continue to sell the iPad 2 with Wi-Fi only and 16GB of flash storage space for around $400.

Despite Apple's recent incredible sales numbers, the iPad is still losing market share to tablets on Androids. The Los Angeles Times reported that Apple sold 15.43 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011, but statistics show the iPad's share of the tablet market dropped from 68.2 percent to 57.6 percent in the fourth quarter, while Androids went from 29 percent in 2010 to 39.1 percent.

According to Apple Insider, images of the upcoming device have been showing up on the Internet. Reported back panel images showed different mounts for the logic board and a different camera and LCD display, along with a bigger battery. Pictures did not indicate any form changes, and there is a photo of a high-resolution LCD panel.


07/2/12
Toshiba AT200 tablet gets UK launch

The tablet comes in a choice of 16GB or 3GB versions and has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but no 3G option. It is being sold initially through Carphone Warehouse, priced at £399 for the 16GB model and £449 for the 32GB tablet. This is line with the prices of many Android tablets, but more expensive than the Apple iPad 2, the runaway market leader.

Powered by a 1.2GHz TI Omap 4430 processor twinned with 1GB of DDR2 RAM, the Toshiba Excite runs Google Android Honeycomb 3.2. A pair of 1.5 Watt speakers, a 5Mp main camera a 2Mp webcam are embedded in the 535g tablet’s 256x176x7.7mm chassis. The 16:10 ratio 10.1in touchscreen display supports a resolution of 1280x800 pixels.

Toshiba preinstalls the tablet with Adobe Flash 10.3. A battery life of eight hours even when playing video or musicis promised. Carphone Warehouse preorders are now being taken, with the official onsale date of 15 February.


08/2/12
Nokia job cut to benefit Taiwan firms

Nokia, the world's leading cellphone maker, plans to lay off about 4,000 workers at its plants in Hungary, Mexico and Finland and outsource to Asia to speed up its products delivery, according to local media reports.

Citing market sources, the reports said Nokia's new business strategy could benefit Taiwanese companies in its supply chain, such as Hon Hai Group, Compal Communications Inc. and Arima Communications. Meanwhile, media reports said Microsoft Corp. will launch its Windows 8 consumer preview at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona late this month, and while it may seem a bit strange to release a PC operating system at an event focused on phones and tablets, market sources said Windows 8 isn't just about desktops and laptops.

Taiwanese PC industry executives generally agree that Win8 launch, probably in late 2012 or early 2013, will help revive the PC industry which has been struggling to regain market dominance amid intense competition from Apple's Macbook Air and iPad, media reports said. The following are excerpts from local media coverage of the possible effects of Nokia's massive layoff plan and Microsoft's upcoming Win8 consumer preview.

Nokia announced two days ago that it plans to cut about 4,000 jobs at its three plants, or 8 percent of its total global staff. It will be the Finland-based conglomerate's largest-scale lay-off move to date. In the future, the company will outsource its assembling work to Asia, which would allow the company to develop even closer cooperation with its supply chian partners and accelerate launch of its mobile products.

Hon Hai's share price surged substantially on Wednesday following Nokia's announcement of job cut plan. Compal Communications Inc. (CCI) successfully forayed into Nokia's supply chain last year. Market analysts said CCI's 2012 sales may nearly double its 2011 volume to hit 9.6 million units and unit price would also post a 15 to 20 percent gain.

According to statistics released Wednesday, CCI's January sales reached NT$4.548 billion, up 442.67 percent from the amount recorded in the same month of last year. Other Taiwanese high-end components suppliers, including metal-casing maker Catcher Technology Co. and camera lens maker Largan Precision, will also benefit from Nokia's new Asian outsourcing plan.


09/2/12
HTC phones will get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of March


HTC has confirmed that a selection of its smartphones will be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of March.
Owners of the Sensation and Sensation XE will get the update to Google's latest mobile operating system first. The Sensation XL will then get it shortly after, which we assume means in April some time.

HTC said on its Facebook page, "HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we're excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation and HTC Sensation XE, followed soon thereafter by the HTC Sensation XL."

The post is good news for owners of older HTC handsets because it said four of them - one of which was released in 2010 - will be getting Android 4.0 ICS later in the year.
"In addition, we can confirm Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades will be coming later this year to the HTC Evo 3D, HTC Incredible S, HTC Desire S and HTC Desire HD. Stay tuned for more updates on Ice Cream Sandwich releases in the coming weeks," it said.
Unfortunately a device that hasn't been listed is the HTC Flyer, HTC's one and only tablet. It was upgraded to Android 3.2 Honeycomb before Christmas, so there's still a possibility that HTC will move it onto Android 4.0 ICS too.

The response to the news on Facebook has been mixed, with some users delighted and others asking why their handset has been left out of the list.



10/02/12
BlackBerry out at U.S. climate agency


"It all comes down to economics," Joe Klimavicz, NOAA's chief information officer, said in a phone interview on Friday. "I've got a lot of pressure to cut our operating costs.” RIM charges a fee for use of its servers and data centers, which compress and encrypt email and other sensitive data. The company's early success was due to a reliance on BlackBerry smartphones by lawyers, bankers, politicians and bureaucrats.

But with budgets under pressure and competitors improving their security bone fides, BlackBerry is no longer the only game in town. Earlier this week, oilfield services company Halliburton said it plans to switch 4,500 BlackBerry-toting employees to iPhones, saying that the Apple device is better suited to its needs. Several banks have already welcomed rival devices.

Klimavicz said NOAA's move was made possible after it switched its desktop-based software to Google Apps for Government last December. Another U.S. agency, the General Services Administration, has also moved to Google Apps, Klimavicz said. Google's enterprise business offers Web-based versions of word processing, spreadsheet and other common software applications in a direct challenge to Microsoft. For a set price Google includes mobile-device management capabilities similar to what RIM offers for its BlackBerrys.

When Google's mobile management is coupled with Apple's tightly controlled software, NOAA can enforce password policies and it can control who can gain access to what data, which is a major concern for a range of government bodies and corporations. Klimavicz said that in the future his agency will be able to use devices using Google's Android mobile software, but that it would have to approve each on an individual basis.
For now, the agency will buy iPhones to replace at least some of the 3,000 BlackBerrys used by its workers and is also using a small number of iPads, he said. Klimavicz's office oversees annual spending of around $600 million on information technology. He declined to specify how much money the move away from RIM would save.

In response to queries, RIM said its security remains unmatched and pointed out that its latest operating system for smartphones and the PlayBook tablet computer have received certification from U.S. and Canadian authorities. "RIM continues to work closely with its more than one million government customers in North America who rely on the unmatched security of the BlackBerry platform," spokeswoman Tenille Kennedy said in an email.