Tech wrap: Is Samsung buying RIM?
Shares of Research in Motion jumped 10 percent on Tuesday after a tech blog (The Boy Genius Report) said the BlackBerry maker was actively seeking to sell itself to South Korean smartphone rival Samsung Electronics.
This fall New York will open The Academy for Software Engineering, the city’s first public high school that will train kids to develop software, reports Mashable.
In protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act, popular Web sites such as Reddit, Boing Boing, and Wikipedia will go dark Wednesday, displaying only a message about their opposition to the controversial bill, reports The Washington Post.
Facebook and Google told the Delhi High Court Monday they cannot block offensive content that appears on their services, ZDNet reports. The two Internet giants are among 21 companies that have been asked to develop a mechanism to block objectionable material in India, and the Indian government has given the green light for their prosecution.
Research in (downward-spiraling) Motion
By Kevin Kelleher The opinions expressed are his own.
Failure is a funny thing in the tech world. An entrepreneur can get fired from a company he founded and his peers will watch to see what he does with the lesson. A young company can burn its cash like a Viking setting his ship on fire, but be remembered wistfully once it’s bankrupt. For startups, failure sometimes seems like a rite of passage – the painful second act of a three-act story with a happy ending.
But it’s different when a big company stumbles, losing its place at the top of the heap. Nobody cheers you on. You just seem like a stock character in someone else’s legend – the hoary old giant descending so that another can ascend. For big tech companies, failure is the grim final act that can stretch on for years and years. Until no one wants to watch anymore.
In the annals of tech brands that have risen and fallen – DEC and Wang in early computing, Sony in consumer electronics, AOL and Yahoo in the Internet – the declines have taken several years, at least. But few tech giants have fallen as quickly, or as dramatically, as Research in Motion.
By some measures, Research in Motion still appears healthy. Its Blackberry smartphones have 70 million subscribers around the world, and it’s far from losing money – analysts expect the company to post revenue of $19 billion and a per-share profit of $4.13 this year. But they also expect profit to fall 50% this year (even after 2000 layoffs since July) and another 30% next year. The key reason: Blackberries are quickly losing market share, which fell to 16.6% from 19.7% between August and November.
The severity of the decline is clearer in RIM’s stock, which ended 2011 near a seven-year low, having fallen more than 90% in the last two and a half years. In 2011 alone, RIM has lost $27 billion in market value – more than Nokia is worth and more than twice as much as Google is paying for Motorola Mobility.
And the highs from which RIM has fallen were high indeed. In 2009, Fortune magazine reckoned it was the fastest growing company in its survey of global companies. Back then, RIM commanded more than half of the U.S. market for smartphones. That was two years after the release of the iPhone, the Apple smartphone that would – along with the Android phones that followed – eventually eat into RIM’s dominating market share.
I am using Blackberry tour . I very satisfied as it fulfills my basic needs : daily mails ,messenger , social networking with some business apps ..
I think major factor which is responsible for the fall of RIM is that they forgot what their strength is . Concept of BBM and BB enterprise server is very unique . But in-spite of developing and improving it RIM focused on developing smartphones to compete against i phone . i phone has its own unique features ( not to mention SIRI in I phone 4s ) but on the other hand RIM has ( or used to have ) its own market segment .
This lead to a catastrophe . . which I think RIM is still figuring out how to get out of it !!
Five 2011 tech earthquakes
By John C Abell The opinions expressed are his own.
Pick a year: It’s easy to look back and convince yourself That Was The Year That Was in tech, partly because the pace of change is so rapid and partly because we so readily embrace and then quickly depend on things that are completely different. Consider this: When the class of 2012 was applying to college, there was no iPhone. Until those students were just about at the end of their junior years, there was no iPad. Both of these nascent devices now define the mobile Internet, which is where all the action is.
But 2011 had some pretty remarkable advances that seem to be the start of inexorable things to come, as well as some surprising and sad examples of demise, whose impact will surely be felt for years to come, in ways that are currently near-impossible to predict.
Some may argue that 2011 was the year of the tablet (redux), because of the spritely launch of Amazon’s Fire and Barnes & Noble’s reboot of the Nook color. I say, it was bound to happen, and that the only really interesting thing is that content companies are giving Apple a bit of competition, and not the hardware bigwigs.
The cloud was big in 2011, but in a way it just seemed to finally achieve escape velocity after Apple created iCloud within its rigorously controlled ecosystem.
Here are five tech events from 2011 that may not seem entirely obvious but which I think will resonate for years.
Siri
@Vidya3049 You are correct, sir. We will all be looking for early cracks. I think, however, that there is enough in the secret Apple pipeline to stay on the crest of the wave for many years to come — we’ll be seeing what was in Steve’s cupboard well past 2013, I would venture to say.
Tech wrap: D.Telekom may be forced to play with Sprint
Deutsche Telekom may be forced into a tie-up of its sub-scale U.S. wireless unit with Sprint Nextel after a $39 billion deal with AT&T collapsed.
AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its bid for T-Mobile USA, bowing to fierce regulatory opposition and leaving both companies scrambling for alternatives.
The collapse of AT&T’s deal to buy D.Telekom’s U.S. wireless unit may be welcome news for network equipment makers, as money earmarked for the merger will be freed up for investments.
Research In Motion’s woes continued as sales in the United States fell for a fifth straight quarter in Q3 even as the BlackBerry maker’s overall revenue jumped by $1 billion from a year earlier, a regulatory filing released on Tuesday showed.
Financial advisers in the U.S. are seeing fewer benefits from their use of social media, a survey by Aite Group showed on Tuesday.
“Social media has been over-hyped and the benefits just aren’t there for a lot of advisers,” said Aite senior analyst Ron Shevlin in an interview.
Electronic Arts invested more money and firepower into “Star Wars: The Old Republic” than it has on any game in its 30-year history. Starting today, the company will find out if the bet pays off.
Tech wrap: Is RIM circling the drain?
A months-long delay in Research in Motion’s new BlackBerrys and a dreary quarterly report sent RIM shares tumbling again on Friday and pushed some analysts to sound the death knell for the mobile device that once defined the industry.
Zynga shares opened as much as 10 percent above their offer price on Friday but then rolled back below the IPO price, showing that investors were still concerned about its dependence on Facebook and its growth prospects and that demand for hot tech IPOs may be waning.
The news has not deterred the creators of “Angry Birds,” who are said to be considering a stock market flotation in Hong Kong.
Staying with the creator of “FarmVille”, tech editor Peter Lauria, social media editor Anthony DeRosa and reporter Liana Baker spill the secrets to Zynga’s addictive gaming platforms.
Finally, TechNewsWorld is reporting that the U.S. Patent Office has granted Google a patent that covers the way in which cars could transfer from human-driver mode to autonomous-driving mode. Google has already conducted many driverless-car experiments, claiming it’s logged 200,000 miles of driver-free travel.
Tech wrap: RIM under fire ahead of results
Research In Motion faced renewed calls for a change in its leadership on Thursday, hours ahead of the quarterly results that could fuel criticism over the BlackBerry maker’s poor performance and sagging share price.
Jaguar Financial, an activist shareholder that has asked the BlackBerry maker to sell itself in whole or parts, once again called on two of RIM’s independent directors to push for a separation of the roles of chairman and chief executive.
Bloomberg reports that Zynga updated its initial public offering filing to expand on the risks of losing its chief executive officer after Google Chairman Eric Schmidt called him a “a fearsome, strong negotiator.”
Amazon.com said on Thursday it is selling more than one million Kindle devices a week, an unusual disclosure from the largest Internet retailer that comes in the wake of some negative reviews of its new Kindle Fire tablet.
Chris Maxcer of MacNews World has a look at the most momentous moments the past year at Apple.
Finally, U.S. soldiers facing emotional problems and contemplating suicide may soon be able to use a smart phone application to connect them to help.
But MS don’t need RIM
RIM is a software company, it live on SW, if it live on device manufacturing like MOTO, it has been died 10 death, that is why RIM quick down whenever their SW got problem, RIM got problem,
Device manufacturing need abilities like efficient process, low cost high performance design,….., when new hired employee introduce efficient concept to RIM, they lay them off, they don’t think those is important for a device producer in their mind, they dont want to change, they are software student from university,
google is a software company, they want hardware like moto, nokia, they dont want RIM, so will microsoft want RI
Tech wrap: Will switch to QNX save RIM?
Research In Motion has already doled out a big helping of bad news ahead of its financial results on Thursday, but surprises could still await investors hungry for details about what many see as a new, make-or-break BlackBerry.
Investors are desperate to know whether RIM will stand by its current timetable to switch its smartphones to the new QNX operating system by early next year. The transition is considered the Canadian company’s last, best chance to reverse its declining fortunes.
T-Mobile USA plans to market the Lumia 710 phone from Nokia to first-time smartphone buyers as the two companies push to recoup market share losses of recent years.
CNET’s Roger Cheng doesn’t hold any punches about the move.
Bloomberg reports that eBay’s PayPal business, aiming to challenge Groupon and LivingSocial.com in the market for online daily deals, plans to start offering coupons tailored to users’ buying habits and mobile-phone locations.
Google is making $11.5 million in grants to fight modern slavery and its hold on 27 million people worldwide, the technology company said on Wednesday.
Tech wrap: “DingleBerry” rings RIM’s security bell
Three hackers said they had exploited a vulnerability in Research In Motion’s PlayBook tablet to gain root access to the device, a claim that could damage the BlackBerry maker’s hard-won reputation for security. The hackers plan to release their data within a week as a tool called DingleBerry. In a response to queries, RIM said it is investigating the claim, and if a jailbreak is confirmed will release a patch to plug the hole. The PlayBook runs on a different operating system than RIM’s current BlackBerry smartphones. However, the QNX system will be incorporated into its smartphones starting next year. The PlayBook in July became the first tablet device to win a security certification approving it for U.S. government use.
Samsung is set to resume selling its Galaxy tablet computer in Australia as early as Friday, after it won a rare legal victory in a long-running global patent war with Apple. An Australian federal court unanimously decided to lift a preliminary injunction, imposed by a lower court, on sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 — but granted Apple a stay on lifting the sales ban until Friday afternoon.
Groupon’s shares rose after CEO Andrew Mason emerged from the company’s post-IPO quiet period to share holiday sales numbers. Groupon sold more than 650,000 holiday deals between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, an increase of 500 percent compared with last year, Mason said in a blog post. Groupon closed the trading day up 9.3 percent $17.50.
Japanese authorities may take weeks to make any arrests over the accounting scandal at Olympus, though initial findings by an investigative panel of experts are due to be released in days, lawyers said. Even if criminal complaints are filed against former executives or others involved in the scam, which dates back two decades, arrests might not take place by end-year. This is partly to allow both suspects and prosecutors to spend the new year’s holidays at home, since the turn of the new year is Japan’s biggest traditional holiday, akin to Christmas in the West. Suspects can be held for a total of 22 days before either being indicted or released.
Toshiba said it would close three of its six discrete chip-making facilities in Japan and also trim output of certain types of chips over the year-end as demand for PCs and TVs slides in the U.S. and Europe. Discrete chips are relatively simple semiconductors used in a wide range of electronic products from audio-visual equipment to cars and mobile phones. The three plants are scheduled to be closed in the first half of the fiscal year starting in April 2012, in a bid to slash costs, with Japanese makers at a disadvantage because of strength in the yen.
Tech wrap: Microsoft allowed looks at Yahoo’s books
Microsoft has signed a confidentiality agreement with Yahoo, allowing the software giant to take a closer look at Yahoo’s business, according to a source familiar with the matter. Microsoft joins several private equity firms that are also poring over Yahoo’s books and operations, as they explore various options for striking a deal with the struggling Internet company. Microsoft’s signing of a nondisclosure agreement with Yahoo occurred “recently,” according to the source.
Shares of Groupon fell for a third day , sinking below the company’s initial public offering price of $20 less than three weeks after the daily deal company went public. Groupon raised more than $700 million in an IPO in early November, making it the biggest IPO by a U.S. Internet company since Google raised $1.7 billion in 2004. Analysts have cited concerns about increased competition, a greater availability of the company’s stock for short-selling, and a sharp reversal of market sentiment that is taking down more speculative companies. Groupon shares ended the day down 15.5 percent at $16.96.
Big-Box retailer Best Buy has no regrets about stocking Research In Motion’s PlayBook tablet, despite the product’s poor reception and subsequent sharp discounting. RIM says it has shipped 700,000 PlayBooks since its launch, a figure dwarfed by the millions of iPads Apple sells each quarter. “When a product is less successful, you do what you need to do, and you move to the next thing,” Best Buy’s president for the Americas, Mike Vitelli, told Reuters. “That kind of quick reaction by the suppliers, whether it is BlackBerry or HP with their product, I actually think that is good for consumers too,” Vitelli said.
Nokia Siemens Networks, the world’s second-largest maker of mobile phone network equipment, is axing 17,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of its workforce, to help save about 1 billion euros ($1.35 billion) a year. NSN, which has struggled to make a profit since being set up in 2007, did not say where it would make the cuts, part of wider changes that analysts said looked aimed at gearing up the company for an initial public offering.
Google said on Tuesday that it was pulling the plug on seven projects, including Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal as well as a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia service known as Knol. The plans, which Google announced on its corporate blog, represent the third so-called “spring cleaning” announcement that Google has made since Google co-founder Page took the reins in April.
Apple’s Black Friday deals were revealed ahead of time by tech blog 9to5Mac. The blog said Apple’s offerings were similar to those of years past, but gave better discounts on higher capacities of iPads and iPods. Apple’s Macs will cost $101 less, iPads discounts will range from $41 to $61 discounts and the iPod nano will $11 less for both the 8GB and 16GB versions, the blog wrote. The biggest discount will be on the base level MacBook Air, which will now start at $898 in the U.S.
Tech wrap: Adobe scraps Flash for mobile browsers
Score a point for Apple. Software maker Adobe scrapped its Flash Player for mobile devices after a mutli-year battle with Apple over the merits of the technology, which is used to view videos and play games on the Web. Take a look back at the legendary tech spat in this blow-by-blow timeline that stretches back to January 2007 when Apple launched its iPhone with a browser that was not compatible with Adobe’s Flash player. The company said in a blog post it plans to focus its future mobile browsing efforts on HTML5, a competing technology that is now universally supported on all major mobile devices.
Online business reviews site Yelp has hired bankers to lead an intitial public offering that could value the company at up to $2 billion, several people familiar with the matter told DealBook’s Evelyn M. Rusli. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup will participate in the offering, which is expected in the first quarter of next year, one of the sources said.
Cisco Systems singaled a turnaround on Wednesday when it raised its forecast revenue and earnings above Wall Street expectations as demand from government and enterprises for its network equipment remained resilient despite global economic troubles. Earlier, the company reported quarterly earnings per share that beat estimates, signaling that efforts to revive growth are beginning to pay off.
Delays were being reported by some BlackBerry customers on Wednesday, but Research in Motion said it’s not experiencing problems on the scale of an outage last month that knocked out service for four days. “There is no system-wide outage,” a company spokesman told Reuters, adding that the delays being reported are limited to Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa.
Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt reassured its Android partners embroiled in lawsuits that it will continue to support them in their disputes with other firms. That support takes the form of information sharing, industry expertise and access to Google’s patents for licensing and legal purposes, Schmidt said during a visit to Tapei on Wednesday.
Reuters tech correspondent Bill Rigby strolls the streets in Seattle’s South Lake Union district, an emerging technology hub that calls to mind Silicon Valley to the south. In addition to long-time tenant Amazon.com, the neighbourhood has seen a rush of newercomers setting up shop, including cloud computing firm Salesforce.com and online gaming company Zynga. Facebook also recently set up its new Seattle offices nearby.
(This post’s original headline was changed to make it clearer)
