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Smartphones’ ecosystem dilemma
Why is the Motorola Droid apparently gaining traction in the smartphone market, when Microsoft and Nokia are failing so miserably?
The Droid, built on Google’s Android mobile operating system, sold 250,000 in its first week on the market. That’s way behind the 1.6 million iPhone 3Gs sold in the first week after its launch, but it’s still enough for Motorola to see possible salvation after years of decline and for Google to feel self-congratulatory about its venture into mobile.
Some of the success of the Droid, and the increasing number of Android-based phones available, can be ascribed to its clean and versatile operating system. Reviewers and users agree that Android still lags the iPhone, but the gap is closing. In contrast, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile has stumbled through numerous iterations — it’s now on version 6.5 — and endless renamings. No one has ever liked it.
 Nokia once ruled the roost with its Symbian-based smartphones, but its market share has been declining steadily. Nokia still sells more mobile phones than anyone else in the world, but Apple — which sold 7 million phones versus 113 million for Nokia in Q3 — astoundingly makes more profit, $1.6 billion on handsets in Q3 this year against $1.1 billion for Nokia.
Apple defies gravity
Here’s how bullish Steve Jobs and his colleagues at Infinite Loop in Cupertino feel: After a blowout September quarter, the forward guidance they are offering for the December quarter is comically modest. In the tech world, people have long known that Jobs loves messing with the expectations of both competitors and his legions of Apple fanboys. He plays his games with the financial world as well.
In the middle of a global recession, Apple has reported its biggest ever quarterly net profit, $1.67 billion, on revenue of $9.87 billion, its second highest quarterly total ever. Gross margins of 36.6 percent were the highest ever. Apple sold more than 3 million Mac computers, up 17 percent in a global market that grew just 2 percent. It also sold 7.4 million iPhones. Apple’s cash pile grew to $34 billion, which it still plans to use for preservation of capital.
Humbled giants eye business phone market
LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Once they were warriors battling one another on the digital battlefield. Nowadays, Microsoft and Nokia are worriers, huddling together for comfort.
The world’s top phone and software companies need each other to compete with Apple, Google and Blackberry-maker Research in Motion (RIM), whose products increasingly define what users expect from phones and charge premium prices in consequence.
Revolution?
Video compression technology can be interesting, really.
Most people forget how online video worked before YouTube popularized the embedded Flash video player. Remember the frustration of making sure you had the right video player to play this or that web video? It was YouTube that popularized giving people one-click access to videos.
On Wednesday, Google said it had agreed to acquire On2 Technologies, a maker of video compression technology, in a deal that could have sweeping effects for how video works on the web. The Internet search leader has a bland blog post about how it intends to use On2 to innovate in how video working on the Web, but it isn’t at all clear how far it Google is ready to go.
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The Wall
