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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

RIM shares rise on Icahn stake speculation (AP) : Technet

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RIM shares rise on Icahn stake speculation (AP) : Technet

RIM shares rise on Icahn stake speculation (AP)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 04:00 PM PDT

– Tue Sep 27, 7:00 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Shares of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. surged Tuesday amid speculation that billionaire investor Carl Icahn has taken a stake in the company.

Rumors that the activist investor was buying into the troubled smartphone maker caused shares to spike around 10:22 a.m. Eastern time.

Icahn is already set to cash in an 11.4 percent stake worth more than $1.3 billion in Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., after Google Inc. declared it was buying the cellphone maker, mainly for its trove of cellphone patents.

The market is hoping that Research in Motion is next in line to be acquired.

Brigantine Advisors analyst Kevin Dede said he had heard rumors of Icahn taking a stake but couldn't confirm them.

Icahn did not respond to a request for comment and a spokeswoman for Research in Motion declined to comment.

Research in Motion shares rose 97 cents, or 4.5 percent, to close at $22.65 on Tuesday, although they had been up as much as 8 percent earlier in the day.

Shares have been on an almost steady decline since hitting a recent peak of $70.54 in February and cresting slightly at $33.54 in early September.

Research in Motion is fighting to stay relevant amid two dominant mobile operating systems, iOS created by Apple Inc., and Google's Android, which it shares freely with handset makers. The company, based in Waterloo, Ontario, had dominated the corporate smartphone market but regular consumers have been drawn to phones with big touchscreens like the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy, which runs on the Android platform.

Earlier this month, Research in Motion shares plummeted nearly a fifth in one day, after the company reported a sharp decline in net income and missed analysts' estimates. It also sold fewer of its Playbook tablet computers than expected.

Research in Motion's prospects seem to be fading, as its competitors are shoring up their businesses. Google bought Motorola for its huge array of more than 17,000 patents related to cellphone technology to defend its Android system against a litany of lawsuits. Dede said Research in Motion does not have as strong a patent portfolio and therefore is not as attractive an acquisition.

Its latest phones running on the BlackBerry 7 operating system have had a lukewarm reception and Dede said he has doubts about whether its QNX tablet software platform will gain traction.

"I'm not saying (Icahn) made a wrong (decision) here. I just don't agree with it," Dede said.

The analyst maintained his "sell" rating on the shares with a $20 price target.

Amazon expected to launch tablet Wednesday (AP)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 01:32 PM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Sep 27, 4:32 pm ET

NEW YORK – Amazon is expected to unveil a tablet computer Wednesday, picking a fight with Apple Inc. and its iPad. The iPad has many challengers, but analysts say Amazon's could be different — it has a chance to be more than a wannabe.

Amazon.com Inc. is nearly unique in its ability to sell content such as e-books, movies and music suited for a tablet, just like Apple does. In addition, the "Kindle" tablet could be a reminder, right in the owner's hands, to buy general merchandise from Amazon. Running out of toilet paper? Just add it to your Amazon shopping cart.

"In essence, the Kindle is a Trojan horse for Amazon's retail and media brands," said Morgan Keegan analyst Justin Patterson.

Seattle-based Amazon hasn't confirmed that it's launching a tablet, but it's holding an event in New York on Wednesday morning, with its CEO Jeff Bezos speaking.

With the iPad, Apple has created a whole new product category of tablet computers. Many have tried to copy its success, but so far, the iPad is the only really successful product. Apple sold 28.7 million of them from April 2010 to June 2011. Analysts at research firm Gartner Inc. expect the iPad to account for three out of four tablet sales this year.

Analysts believe Amazon's new tablet will come in two sizes: one with a screen that's 7 inches on the diagonal, a bit larger than the Kindle e-reader, and one that's 10 inches, slightly bigger than the iPad.

They also expect Amazon to subsidize the cost of the tablet, on the expectation that it will make the money back when owners buy things through the tablet. That might allow the company to undercut Apple on price, something other manufacturers have had a hard time doing. Apple's profit margin on the iPad, which starts at $499, is lower than it is for many of its other products, particularly the iPhone.

"Amazon's willingness to sell hardware at a loss, combined with the strength of its brand, content, cloud infrastructure, and commerce assets, makes it the only credible iPad competitor in the market," wrote Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps.

Epps believes Amazon can sell 3 million to 5 million tablets in the fourth quarter. That compares with Apple selling 9.3 million iPads in the April to June period.

Two other companies are treading the same path as Amazon, but they don't have quite Amazon's heft. One is Barnes & Noble Inc., which launched a "Nook Color" e-reader last year that's nearly indistinguishable from a small tablet. It has a color screen, runs a version of Google Inc.'s Android operating system and accepts third-party apps. It's also modestly priced at $250. Yet Barnes & Noble sees it first and foremost as an e-reader, not as a springboard into competition with a full-blown tablet like the iPad.

Sony Corp.'s first iPad-style tablet, which started shipping two weeks ago, is linked to the company's online movie and music stores. It's set up to capitalize on Sony's library of PlayStation games as well, but so far, only plays a few of them. However, Sony doesn't come close to matching the breadth of content in Apple's iTunes store.

This year, Amazon started streaming movies for no extra charge to customers who've signed up for its Prime premium shipping program. On Monday, it added TV shows and movies from News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox studio, bringing the total number of streaming titles to 11,000 titles. That's about half of what Netflix's streaming library has.

Analysts also see Amazon as a possible bidder for Hulu, the TV-streaming website.

The question is: What unique features can Amazon bundle into its tablet that might compel consumers to choose it over an iPad? There's not that much an Amazon tablet could do that the iPad can't. The iPad can be used to read books from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, even if Apple's restrictions now make it harder to buy books directly from these stores. It can be used for general shopping from Amazon. The iPad plays movies and TV shows from Netflix and Hulu, and has access to tens of thousands of applications and games in the App Store.

On the application side, the Amazon tablet will start out at a big disadvantage, just like all the other iPad competitors. It might be able to run tablet apps from Google's marketplace, but both the selection and quality is lower than in Apple's store.

Groupon newest deal to reward customer loyalty (AP)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 09:07 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – 37 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Groupon has come up with another way for bargain hunters to save money as the online coupon distributor prepares to raise money from wary investors.

The additional savings will be offered through a customer loyalty program that Groupon plans to unveil Wednesday.

Merchants who join the service set a spending target for customers to hit before they qualify for an even steeper discount than Groupon usually offers through the millions of daily deals that it sells each week.

The new feature is meant to please consumers and merchants alike as Groupon tries to revive interest in its initial public offering of stock.

The IPO had Wall Street buzzing when Groupon first filed its plans in early June because of the company's sizzling growth rate. But interest as waned amid doubts about Groupon's accounting, leadership and ability to maintain its lead in a market now drowning in daily deals.

After drastically restating its revenue last week, Groupon signaled it still intends to complete an IPO that aims to raise up to $750 million. The company, which is based in Chicago, hasn't specified a timetable for pricing the IPO, but analysts now expect it to occur within the next month, unless the already shaky stock market gets even rockier.

If Groupon's new program works like company envisions, consumers who spend enough money to qualify for the reward would receive an 80 percent discount instead of the 50 percent markdown frequently given on its daily deals. For example, someone who spent $100 with a hair stylist might only need to spend another $20 to get the next $100 in service.

Merchants will have the final say on the size of the discounts.

Groupon's attempt to foster more customer loyalty addresses one of merchants' most common complaints about the daily deals that offer discounts on everything from manicures to meals. Many people who buy the deals from Groupon and similar services redeem the coupons without spending anything extra or returning again, leaving merchants with a loss after splitting the revenue with the coupon distributor.

The concept of offering the largest discounts to repeat customers is similar in concept to one of Groupon's many rivals, LevelUp, which requires its buyers to make three visits to a merchant to get a better deal each time. Other services offer better discounts to customers who notified their online friends and followers that they are shopping at a certain store or eating at a particular restaurant.

Groupon is promoting its rewards program as the easiest one around because consumers will only have to tie their spending to a single debit or credit card to start working toward a payoff from a merchant. The system also will make it simple for merchants to monitor customer loyalty, said Jeff Holden, Groupon's senior vice president of product.

The rewards program initially will be confined to the Philadelphia area, one of the first places where LevelUp introduced its service earlier this year. Merchants will be able to sign up for Groupon's rewards program starting Wednesday while consumers will have to wait to Oct. 14 to start getting the promotions.

Groupon's daily deals became such a hot commodity that Internet search leader Google Inc. unsuccessfully tried to buy the company last year for $6 billion. Google has since started its own deals service called "Offers" in an attempt to catch up to Groupon, which sold 32.5 million deals to 23 million customers in the April-June period alone.

Despite its popularity, Groupon hasn't been making money as management focused on expanding into new markets. The company now offers deals in 175 North American markets and 45 countries.

Groupon has lost a total of $623 million since its 2008 inception. Criticism of its accounting prompted Groupon to restate its revenue so it only records the amount of money that it keeps from its coupons. In the first six months of this year, Groupon now lists its revenue at $688 million, down from the previously reported $1.5 billion.

On the same day that Groupon shaved its revenue, the company also revealed that its chief operating officer, Margo Georgiadis, had left the company after just four months to return to her former employer, Google.

Why are women so excited about the new iPhone 5? (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 06:32 PM PDT

Artist creates minimalist motorbike concept that doesn’t want to be seen (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 06:17 PM PDT

Water Balloon + Face + Slow-Motion Camera = Art [VIDEO] (Mashable)

Posted: 26 Sep 2011 03:27 PM PDT

Christina Warren Christina Warren – Mon Sep 26, 6:27 pm ET

Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.


[More from Mashable: Andrew Belle Premieres "The Ladder" on Mashable [VIDEO]]

Summer may be over, but it's always the season for water balloon fights. Especially when those water balloons don't pop -- and are captured in super slow-motion.

The crew at Smarter Every Day made this video over the weekend at an art festival in Alabama. Using a Vision Research Phantom camera, they managed to slow down the point of impact enough to calculate the frequency at which the target's nose was vibrating.

And as an added bonus, what's cooler than a water balloon to the face in slow-motion? Answer: Two water balloons to the face in slow-motion. They don't pop, either.

[via The Daily What]

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tencent to cooperate with American Express for online (Reuters)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 08:10 PM PDT

– 1 hr 35 mins ago

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China's largest Internet company Tencent Holdings Ltd plans to cooperate with American Express Co to provide cross-border online payments, a source said on Wednesday, as the country's electronics commerce sector grows rapidly.

Under the agreement, users of Tencent's Tenpay will be able to shop on key U.S. and British websites and make online payments, the source said.

Tencent's shares were up by 1.9 percent in early trade on Wednesday, outperforming the Hang Seng Index's 0.6 percent fall.

Alibaba Group's Alipay is now the biggest online payment system in China, where there are more than 400 million Internet users -- more than the U.S. population.

As of the second quarter, Alipay now commands 45.5 percent of such third-party online payments in China, while Tenpay owns 21.2 percent market share, research data showed.

(Reporting by Huang Yuntao; Writing by Lee Chyen Yee; Editing by Chris Lewis and Jacqueline Wong)

Google plans start-up centre in London's East End (Reuters)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 05:06 PM PDT

By Paul Sandle Paul Sandle – Tue Sep 27, 8:06 pm ET

LONDON (Reuters) – Google has thrown its weight behind Tech City, East London's fast-growing hub for Internet companies, by signing a lease for a seven-floor building that will serve as a launch-pad for new start-ups and developers.

The center, due to open in 2012, will house advisers from Google and other organizations that support technology entrepreneurs, the U.S. company said on Wednesday.

It will be located close to Old Street roundabout, dubbed "Silicon Roundabout," in an area of London that has already attracted hundreds of new Internet start-ups.

The move supports British Prime Minister David Cameron's ambition, announced in November 2010, for London's East End to become a technology center to rival California's Silicon Valley.

The plan was backed by a host of technology companies, including Google, Vodafone, Facebook and Intel.

Google, which will retain its central London offices, said the center would be the first initiative of its kind for the company anywhere in the world.

"Finding a suitable building is the first major step, and we hope to announce more details about the organizations we'll work with and how they will use the space in the coming months," said David Singleton, Google UK's engineering director.

"East London is already home to hundreds of innovative British start-ups, and has huge potential for economic growth and new jobs over the coming years."

(Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

Toshiba unveils the Thrive 7 - hands-on pics of the new 7-inch Android tablet (Digital Trends)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 06:11 PM PDT

Jeffrey Van Camp Jeffrey Van Camp – Tue Sep 27, 9:11 pm ET

Toshiba Thrive 7 - hands on - front


Toshiba has unveiled its second tablet: the Thrive 7. Joining the original 10.1-inch Thrive, the new 7-inch tablet looks identical to its older brother, and internally is pretty much is the same. It has the highest resolution we've seen in a 7-inch tablet yet, cramming an 1280×800 pixel screen (that's the resolution 10.1-inch devices have) into its compact shell. In addition, it runs on the same dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, Android Honeycomb operating system, and 1GB of RAM that power the original Thrive.

The first thing we noticed when holding the Thrive 7 was how solid it feels and looks. At just about a half-inch thick, it's the most sturdy looking 7-inch tablet we've seen since the BlackBerry PlayBook. Though it is styled almost identically to the Thrive, the rugged rubberized backing felt quite firm and the silver camera area looked more natural in this diminished size. The cameras are identical too, with a 2MP front and 5MP rear. Unfortunately, there are no full-size ports on the Thrive 7, but Toshiba has included a microSD card slot, Micro HDMI port, headphone audio jack, and a Mini USB port (for some reason). And like rival PC-maker Acer, Toshiba has chosen to compete on its hardware instead of modifying Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) itself. Samsung has taken the opposite route.

The big difference is in audio. Toshiba has moved the speakers and proprietary charging port to the bottom of the unit when held vertically. This makes sense as most people will be holding it more like a book than a computer, due to its size. This new default orientation has the added benefit of making the shiny silver camera look like a better design choice, as it has remained in the same location. The speakers aren't going to fill a room, but thanks to SRS technology and a boost from some custom Toshiba software, sound was pretty loud compared to other tablets we've used.

The only big downside to the Thrive 7 is the same one that afflicted its predecessor. Like the 10.1-inch model, the Thrive 7′s screen is a fingerprint magnet. After using it for a bit, it just gets covered in them. Not that other tablets are fingerprint free, but hopefully Toshiba employs a better fingerprint coating in future tablets. With that said, the tablet will hit shelves in December and will be priced "competitively" (less than $400, we think) so if the fingerprints turn you off, maybe the price will turn you back on.

Cell service arrives in NYC holdout — the subway (AP)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 03:54 PM PDT

By CHRIS HAWLEY, Associated Press Chris Hawley, Associated Press – Tue Sep 27, 6:54 pm ET

NEW YORK – It was the one place that New Yorkers could go to get away from singing cellphones, beeping BlackBerries and torrents of tweets. And now it's disappearing.

The New York City subway turned on its first cellphone antennas Tuesday, allowing AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers to make calls and surf the Internet from underground platforms and corridors at six stations in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. The service will expand to 271 other stations over the next five years.

City officials say the service was long overdue, since travelers in other cities have been making calls underground for years. But in a city that never sleeps, or uses its "sleep" mode, reaction among passengers was mixed.

"I'm not too happy about that," said Helen Wekony, 84. "Some people's voices are very strident."

Other passengers greeted the prospect of added chatter with a solid fuhgeddaboutit.

"Deal with it," said George Perez, 44. "That's New York."

The move comes as other commuter railroads in the region are cracking down on such Chatty Kathies. The Metro-North Railroad to suburban points is designating phone-free "quiet cars" on 31 rush-hour trains next month, and New Jersey Transit has two quiet cars per train.

But officials say the subway is different: The signal covers only station areas, not train tunnels, so it's unlikely that riders will be pinned against their 5.2 million fellow weekly passengers while they ramble on about their foot problems or love lives.

And with train brakes screeching, express trains roaring and the occasional steel-drum player making a ruckus, most callers on the platforms won't want to talk long anyway, they said.

"In this environment there will certainly be some phone calls, but on a platform it'll really be tweets and texts and emails," said William Bayne, chief executive of Transit Wireless LLC, the company building the network. "So really, the noise pollution will not increase."

Some riders worried how the arrival of the Internet would affect the subway experience. Part of the fun of New York is people-watching in the subway, and it's harder when everyone is bent over their BlackBerries, said Edith Lawrence, a pediatrician.

"It disrupts a lot of that social contact that you can have with people, that eye contact or a smile," Lawrence said.

Officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway, say such intangibles are outweighed by the security benefits.

For years posters in the subway have been urging passengers to call police if they see anything suspicious — but without cell service, they couldn't actually do it. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security launched a service this year to alert travelers of terror threats via text messages, but subway riders could not receive them.

Expanding cell service might enable terrorists to use cellphones to detonate bombs — as the terrorists did in the Madrid train attacks of 2004 — but planners felt it was a gamble worth taking, said Carmen Bianco, vice president of subways for the MTA.

Extending cellphone service to the subways was "very, very complex engineering feat," Bayne said.

Most of New York's subway stations were built 100 years ago out of heavy steel girders that block radio signals. Even the steps are covered in steel for durability.

Crews had to route fiber optic cables along city streets and install dozens of antennas. One of the trickiest tasks was ensuring the handoff between underground and aboveground antennas as a caller walks out of a station, Bayne said.

The business side was equally tricky, said Mark Bienstock, a planner in the transportation authority's systems office. Rather than let several cellphone companies all put antennas in the subway, MTA officials decided to contract with New York-based Transit Wireless to build the system and rent bandwidth to cell providers. The company is majority owned by Broadcast Australia of Chatswood, Australia.

Building the system will cost Transit Wireless and the cell carriers between $100 million and $200 million, officials said. The MTA will get a share of the profits, a minimum $3.3 million annually, once the network is in all the stations.

Transit Wireless said it plans to expand service to 30 other stations within a year, including the busy hubs at Times Square, Herald Square and Columbus Circle.

Video: Mad Men's Don Draper sells Facebook's Timeline (Digital Trends)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 04:21 PM PDT

Mike Dunn Mike Dunn – Tue Sep 27, 7:21 pm ET

Don Draper Mad MenIf you watched Mark Zuckerberg's presentation at this year's f8 you might have been left underwhelmed by his sales pitch. Luckily for us Mad Men's creative genius Don Draper has decided to help, thanks to some fancy editing by Mad Men so that Don Draper is pitching Timeline to some clients.

The video, below, really isn̢۪t modified much at all. The pitch made my Draper is kept intact, and none of the words are changed in the new video. In the original scene Draper is trying to pitch an advertising idea for Kodak̢۪s slide carousal. In the presentation he uses the slide projector to show images of his family and evokes the nostalgia that comes from remembering the past.

This presentation really lines up perfectly for Timeline, which is really selling the same thing. It's still Facebook, it's just a new more nostalgic way of viewing the same content you already have. Zuckerberg should have taken some notes from Draper because we think this pitch is a lot more effective than Facebook's.

Timeline still isn't officially available for the general public, but if you want early access we can show you how. If Don's slideshow didn't answer all of your burning questions about what Timeline is, or does, you can read our FAQ to clear up any remaining questions you might have.

Google wants to protect Android plans in AT&T case (AP)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 04:26 PM PDT

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Nedra Pickler, Associated Press – Tue Sep 27, 7:26 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Google Inc. wants to protect confidential information about its business plans related to Android smartphone operating system in the upcoming antitrust trial against AT&T and T-Mobile.

Google filed a motion in Washington federal court Tuesday evening asking a judge for prior disclosure so it can contest the disclosure of confidential information in the case.

Google says it turned over competitively sensitive documents to the Justice Department in the investigation of the merger between the two phone companies. The company says that information includes but is not limited to product development and launch plans related to Android.

T-Mobile had the first handset using the Android operating system

Google could be the first of many companies to request such a protection in the case scheduled for trial in February.

Major magazine publishers sign on to Amazon tablet launch (Appolicious)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 04:30 PM PDT

Microsoft begins its slow, confusing roll-out of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango (Digital Trends)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 02:52 PM PDT

Andrew Couts Andrew Couts – Tue Sep 27, 5:52 pm ET

Microsoft_Mango_WP7.5

Microsoft announced today that its latest mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango," is now available for download for select customers. Nearly all existing Windows Phone users will be able to download the OS update soon, though the company says it plans to roll out the software update "gradually" over the next few weeks, so some customers will have to wait a significant period of time for the upgrade.

As you might have noticed, Microsoft is somewhat vague about which customers will receive the update when. According to the Windows Phone blog, the roll-out is a "simultaneous, coordinated, global update that cuts across carriers, phone models and countries." Then, about two sentences down, they say that they're "not making Mango available to everyone at once. So it could be a few weeks before an update message for Windows Phone 7.5 appears on your phone." Uh, okay…. we're totally confused.

Guessing as much, Microsoft has set up a "Where's My Phone Update?" website, which is supposed to tell users approximately when their update is coming. But a quick look at the website has a message telling users to wait for an alert on their phone to appear. Great, thanks for that.

Regardless of the nonsensical gibberish about the roll-out timing, a gradual software release makes perfect sense, as it lowers the risk of things going awry. Besides, it worked for Android, so it must be good.

The wait for Mango, whatever that may be, should be worth it. Included in the features updates are visual voicemail, Twitter integration and an impressive IE9-based mobile browser. Microsoft will also launch a web-based Marketplace for app downloads, with a current total of about 30,000 apps to choose from. And we'll see some third-party apps for Mango, as well.

All-in-all, the Mango update is a highly-anticipated one. As soon as we get an update notice, we'll have an in-depth hand-on for you to chew on. Until then, we wait.

Hands-on photos of Samsung's Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 - two iPod Touch competitors (Digital Trends)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 08:06 AM PDT

Jeffrey Van Camp Jeffrey Van Camp – Tue Sep 27, 11:06 am ET

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA


Samsung re-revealed its Galaxy Player line of Wi-Fi-only Android devices in New York last night and we were on hand to check them out. The numbers correspond directly to screen sizes, meaning Samsung is releasing 4-inch and 5-inch Android handsets to compete with the iPod Touch. The units on hand were still running an older version of TouchWiz, still with the iPhone-like square buttons and no motion gestures, but they did the job well enough. Both units are nearly identical. They both run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and come with 8GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot that can hold up to 32GB of additional storage. Both have 3.2MP rear cameras and VGA front cameras, though the 5.0 has an LED flash as well. If you're looking for a $250-$400 Android player for music, media, and apps at home, these appear to do the trick.

iPad Still Dominates with 81% of Market (NewsFactor)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 03:45 PM PDT

Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com – Tue Sep 27, 6:45 pm ET

The Tab has just a tad of the market, the PlayBook isn't much of a player, and it's touch-and-go for the TouchPad.

But Apple's iPad is still going strong, dominating North American tablet computer sales with a solid 81 percent share of consumers in the second quarter, according to a new report that comes a little more than 18 months after its unveiling by then-CEO Steve Jobs sparked a revolution in media consumption and mobile Internet browsing.

Tight Grip

Boston-based Strategy Analytics said Apple controls four-fifths of the tablet market, "a tight grip that Amazon and others will find difficult, but not impossible to break."

The report comes as Amazon is believed to be on the verge of launching the Kindle Fire, an upgraded version of its successful e-reader that will be able to access magazines and newspapers, possibly powered by Google's Android operating system. The price is believed to be in the $300 range, cheaper than Apple's lowest priced, 16-gigabyte iPad at $499. A launch event is scheduled Wednesday in New York.

And on Monday, Research In Motion lowered the price of its QNX-powered PlayBook tablet to $249 for its 16 GB model. New tablets, mostly Android-based, seem to be hitting the market on a regular basis, attempting to steal the iPad's thunder.

"Apple's share in North America was a strong 81 percent in Q2 2011, and the combined sales of mega-vendors like Motorola and Samsung, as well as emerging Asian vendors like Asus and HTC, have been unable to dislodge Apple from a strong No. 1 spot," said Strategy Analytics senior analyst Alex Spektor.

Strategy Analytics did not release to the press figures for other regions of the world, including Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Central and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East from its report, "Global Tablet Vendor Market Share by Region: Q2 2011." Those details are in the full report the firm sells to its clients, including manufacturers, wireless carriers and others.

But Strategy Analytics said the iPad dominates every major region, particularly North America because its brand and distribution networks are best established here. Meanwhile, it said, "HTC's tablet strategy struggled to make an impact in Western Europe and elsewhere."

What's Next?

Apple released the second incarnation of the iPad in March, making the device slimmer and lighter, with a faster dual-core A5 processor and front and back cameras. The Wall Street Journal reported that the iPad 3 is likely to debut early next year.

So what could Apple add to the device to keep it competitive?

"There's only so much they can add to it now," Spektor said. "Apple has succeeded in the laptop and music player spaces by offering devices at different price points and with varied capabilities, to target consumers of different budgets and needs. Perhaps some future iPad growth can come from further segmentation beyond different memory capacities."

Oracle Rolls Out New SparcT4 Servers (NewsFactor)

Posted: 27 Sep 2011 11:34 AM PDT

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Jennifer Leclaire, newsfactor.com – Tue Sep 27, 2:34 pm ET

Hoping to stem the tide of reported customer losses, Oracle on Tuesday rolled out its new Sparc T4 server line. Oracle claims the new line offers one of the largest generational performance increases in its history.

Oracle's Sparc T4 servers come preloaded with Oracle Solaris. The line is designed for enterprise users that run single-threaded and highly concurrent workloads. Sparc T4 servers let customers consolidate multiple application tiers onto a single server to reduce the complexity of systems.

"The Sparc T4 and the advanced clustering technologies it is offering is Oracle's answer to the need for a general-purpose computing platform," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "From an engineering standpoint the performance is impressive if it proves to be accurate."

Stop the Bleeding

Oracle claims the Sparc T4 sets a record in enterprise Java environments and offers a 20 percent performance advantage per socket across the entire configuration.

What's more, the company said its Sparc T4 servers perform better than IBM Power7 and HP Itanium-based systems. Specifically, in data warehousing, Oracle said its new line delivered 2.4 times better performance per socket than the IBM Power 780, with 33 percent better price performance, and 5.7 times better performance and 2.6 times better price performance than HP Superdome 2 with 16 Itanium processors. However, those claims have not been verified by independent parties.

There's a subtext behind all these numbers, King said. Namely, convincing Sun customers to remain with Oracle. Although one might think Sun's acquisition by a firm with deep pocket would stem the tide of migrations away from its product lines, King said the movement away from Solaris and Sparc has accelerated since Oracle took over.

"Oracle needs to do something to stop the bleeding. The marketing jargon around T4 is all about offering better performance than IBM Power7 and HP Superdome," King said. "Certainly, I think Oracle would love to get some migrations heading back their way, but personally I think the realization for that goal is quite a way down the line."

Evaluating Server Systems

Beyond speed, the new Oracle Sparc T4 servers offer built-in virtualization, security and dynamic threads. Sparc T4 servers offer a framework for virtualizing both instances of Oracle Solaris, as well as lightweight virtualization for applications.

Oracle also announced new versions of three Sparc T4 server-based Oracle Optimized Solutions: Oracle Database, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle WebLogic Suite. All three solutions promise either faster data warehousing or better performance than competing products in in-house tests.

"Performance is one thing, but as with any product that is tied up with a vendor's software, customers will need to be very careful to see exactly how software licensing impacts the overall cost of the system," King said. "That's an issue that's come up with Oracle in the past and it's one that other existing or potential clients will need to keep in mind as they begin evaluating these systems for purchase."
at 9:57 PM

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