7 reasons why Apple’s I-Pad may fail

7 reasons why Apple’s I-Pad may fail

Amidst a lot of hype as always, today 27th January, 2010, Apple launches the I-Pad. While it is being viewed as the product that will rejuvenate Apple’s revenues for years to come, a question many staunch Apple fans (and those who are not fans of course) will ask, is it really worth the hype? Apple has always created a market even when there is none. Will it be successful yet again this time?

Image Source: http://tnmg4u.com/i-pad-launch/

1. While it looks sleek and captures the mind of all tech-enthusiasts, every one will admit that this product can not be the replacement of a smartphone or a palmtop due to its size.
2. It has the potential to be a great e-book reader and internet browser, but will users like a gadget only suited for that purpose, given that tablets of that size pack the same features (except the wireless carrier connectivity) and lots of processing power and data storage capacity. Also, colored screen may not increase the overall ebook reading experience on the i-Pad, given its shorter battery support, as compared to the other e-book readers
3. Is it worth the time for serious gamers, given its processing and memory configuration?
4. It does not sport a 16:9 aspect ratio, the standard for wide-screen entertainment, and by not doing so makes the iPad much less interesting for watching movies. This may affect sales.
5. I-phone’s huge list of applications will also run on the I-Pad. But will the usage of I-Pad revolutionize the development of applications as never before? Unless applications are developed custom made for I-Pad, the product will not see the meteoric success of the i-Phone.
6. The users would be keen to experience something radically different from the windows mobile, the Android sets and the ever stable Symbian phones. This the I-Pad may not be able to deliver, given its technical configuration.
7. Lastly, the price tag may appear too high even for the brand exclusivity, even for staunch Apple fans.

Apple has always been a great marketeer and has added value to the consumers even with products which were present before the “Apple way” became popular. What Apple provides its customers is the ooomph factor of being associated with the company, the exclusivity maybe. This positioning amongst its fans has always been the USP for the company.

Because of its size, processing capabilities and functionality, it may be rejected as yet another gadget which fall in between the mobile phones (iPhone) and the laptops (Macbook), and thus fails to meet both requirements.

But will that be enough to ensure a great reception of the i-Pad from the Apple’s fans? Will the early adopters be inclined to try out the hype? Only time will tell.

Source: tnmg4u.com

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Business Intelligence Solutions With Efficient And Powerful Business Intelligence Software

Business Intelligence Solutions With Efficient And Powerful Business Intelligence Software

Global recession accompanied with growing competition among businesses has forced various firms and organizations to squeeze their budget. This has lead to reduction in investment for business enhancement technology. But it is necessary for these companies and firms to realize that recession is a great time to give priority to investment in technology that can help their business to overcome the impact of recession and lead to the organization’s growth in future.

Every business or an organization is dependent on information and data. Cloud9analytics provides business intelligence software that can help an organization to access data that is crucial for an organization easily. The main role of business intelligence software is to collect all the necessary information and data that is relevant for the organization’s functioning and growth and make it available to the company when it is required.

The products offered by cloud9analytics help in achieving business intelligence solutions by providing right set of data and information when required. This kind of quickness and easy access to information and data, is essential for every organization in their decision making process. This will ultimately help in organization’s growth.

Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Suite helps a sales leader in an organization to become a “dynamic pipeline management” expert. This suite of tools helps in developing the sales force of an organization by providing them with certain key performance metrics. These applications help them to evaluate “what’s changed” that gives information about minute to minute update on what is happening. It also delivers views on future projections and historical trends. All this information and calculation help sales teams to plan their activities in such a manner that they can perform their job more effectively.

Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Suite includes Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator- This application helps sales leader to analyze the changes that are taking place in the pipeline.

Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Reports- This application provides all the management reports and dashboards as multi sheet, multi view excel workbooks.

Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Mobile- helps to keep track of all the key deals and changes that are being forced in them on any browser-enabled device.

Another ‘Business intelligence software’ as offered by cloud9analytics, is to give business intelligence solutions via the Cloud9 Analyst Suite. This suite is comprised of powerful dashboard and report building capabilities that compiles all the information, reports and data on the Cloud9 data warehouse.

Cloud9 Analyst Suite includes applications such as:
Cloud9 Report Builder- This application enables sales professionals to share and create reports and dashboards from your cloud9 data warehouse.

Cloud9 Dashboard Administrator- This application helps to build dashboards that are meaningful, vital for the operation of the organization and ones that are compelling across any field available in your Cloud9 data warehouse.

Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator- This application helps managers to understand and analyze the changes that are taking place in the pipeline.

Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Reports- This application provides all the critical and essential information related to pipeline analysis and reports and dashboard to stakeholders automatically

Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Mobile - helps to keep track of all the key deals and changes that are being forced in them on any browser-enabled device

The products offered by Cloud9 Analytics are user friendly, efficient and powerful. They can be accessed anytime, anywhere through the Internet.

By: peter s.thomas
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Peter s. Thomas www.cloud9analytics.com business intelligence solutions

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China: We Are Biggest Victim of Cyberattacks

China: We Are Biggest Victim of Cyberattacks

China on Tuesday denied any role in alleged cyberattacks on Indian government offices, calling China itself the biggest victim of hackers.

When asked about Google's allegation that cyberattacks launched from China hit the U.S. search giant, foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Chinese companies were also often hit by cyberattacks.

"China is the biggest victim of hacking attacks," Ma said, citing the example of top Chinese search engine Baidu.com being hacked last week.

Google last week said it might exit China after being hit by recent hacking attempts largely aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. It also said it planned to hold talks with Chinese authorities about whether it could offer an uncensored version of its local search engine.

Ma said he did not know if Chinese authorities had started talks with Google. A Google spokeswoman did not confirm a Bloomberg news report that Google and China had already started the talks. "That's not what we've been saying," she said in an e-mail.

An Indian official has reportedly said local government offices including that of India's National Security Advisor were also targeted last month by hackers believed to be from China.

Ma said the allegation was baseless.

Source: pcworld.com

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TYPO3 version 4.3.1 released

TYPO3 version 4.3.1 released

Just now the Typo3 - Core Team for the stable version of TYPO3 version 4.3.1 released. Originally, the developers had planned the latest version of the popular Enterprise Content Management Systems on Tuesday made public, but deviated from the planned date in favor of some other improvements. The latest version of TYPO3 is both a bug fix release and security release. An update to the latest version is strongly recommended, but not for all users of Typo3 immediately and hastily mandatory. Mainly affected by a serious vulnerability is a system extension that does not always apply.

With version 4.3.0 we have introduced the CMS Typo3 several system extensions. Among these is the system whereby authentication openid extension for the back end with a general OpenID should be possible. This system extension, it had to be activated separately to be used at all. Who has actually done it, and uses this extension, should definitely upgrade to the latest version of Typo3. The vulnerability allows namely, that users can use an OpenID, unauthorized manner, and gain any access rights to the backend.

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Benefits of Outsourcing SEO Services to India

Benefits of Outsourcing SEO Services to India

Search engine optimization is technique that helps in advertising your business online to get customers. With the Business going online the world is rapidly changing with some latest and new advance techniques that is making the businesses surge. A business can adopt many ways that helps it to get popularity. Outsourcing SEO services to India is one such way that helps in making online presence for your. Outsourcing SEO services has become a trend and many businessmen follow it to get more return from their investment. India is one of the most preferred destinations for outsourcing services. It has become the most popular destination for outsourcing services among the others globally. One reason behind this is availability of large technical expertise and innovative, low cost business solutions.

Indian outsourcing SEO services can help both the clients and the service provider. The client can focus on more important business activities while outsourcing the SEO activities to a company that specializes in that work. India has great reputation in providing outsourcing services in the field of information technology. Companies can get business solutions at a nominal rate from India as compared to the other destinations of outsourcing around the world. The professionals here are trained in handling the client’s task efficiently and have experience in handling such work as India has been providing such services for more than a decade now. Here quality of the work is taken highest care as clients hire them for providing the best services. A company desiring to get a high rank in the search engine needs a lot of continues sincere hard work to bring perfection in the business.

Outsourcing SEO services involves lot of activities like maintaining the website uniqueness by providing fresh content and thus keeping it more useful than other competitor’s website. For a business to be successful it is very important to make an effective online presence. A search engine optimization technique helps to bring traffic to your website and so your business gets visibility and popularity. If moving your work to an outsourcing company helps to reduce burden off the owner then why not go for outsourcing? It normally requires huge efforts and finances along with correct business approach to run a business profitably. A business owner should look for outsourcing SEO services from the business aspect considering all its pros and cons. If you want your business to surge ahead in this competitive world then you do need to look for companies that provide outsourcing services at your demand.

Outsourcing SEO services always help you to lessen your workload and you can make business plans and focus on expanding your business. The outsourcing task is handled by people who are skilled and qualified to undertake your task. You might wonder that if s service is cheap then it might not be of good quality .The reason why outsourcing companies from India and other such countries provide low cost solution is due to the fact that labor cost is quite low in the outsourcing countries. There are two types of outsourcing techniques .Either you can outsource your work to an outsourcing company or outsource your work to freelance professional.

Source: goeshare.com

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Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'

Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'

China's most popular search engine, Baidu, has been targeted by the same hackers that took Twitter offline in December, according to reports.

A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army redirected Baidu users to a site displaying a political message.

The site was down for at least four hours on Tuesday, Chinese media said.

Last year's attack on micro-blogging service Twitter had the same hallmarks, sending users to a page with an Iranian flag and message in Farsi.

"This morning, Baidu's domain name registration in the United States was tampered with, leading to inaccessibility," Baidu said in a statement.

Visitors to the site were greeted with the message: "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army".

The message was accompanied by a picture of the national flag of Iran.

"In China, Baidu outranks Google as the search engine of choice, receiving millions of visits every day. That makes it an extremely attractive target for cybercriminals," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos.

Political graffiti

It is not yet clear whether the site itself was compromised or its so-called DNS records.

DNS records are like a telephone book, converting website names like baidu.com into a sequence of numbers understandable by the internet.

"It's possible someone changed the lookup, meaning whenever surfers entered baidu.com into their browsers they were instead taken to a website that wasn't under the search engine's control," explained Mr Cluley.

It seems as if the hackers used the attack as an opportunity to create political graffiti rather than inflict real damage.

"If that third party website had contained malware then millions of computers could have been infected and identities stolen," said Mr Cluley.

"Attacks like this are a reminder to everyone that you always need to have security scanning every webpage you visit, even if it's a well-known legitimate website," he added.

Source: BBC NEWS

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10 Search Engine Optimization Tips

10 Search Engine Optimization Tips

Anchor Text: This is basically the words used that link to another URL. For maximum benefit of any backlink you need to have the correct anchor text. The text needs to include keywords of whatever your linking to. An ideal example would be my website, if I was linking my homepage in a forum I would use “how to make money online” as the Anchor text. If you don’t do this the SEO benefit will be minimal

Blog Directories: Blog Directories can be useful but it depends on how much time you have whether it’s worthwhile doing or not. For the average person I would never recommend submitting to more than 30 sites simply because there are other actives that will have a far greater effect for your time. Firstly the PR is shared around each outbound link so if you have a directory with 200,000 sites indexed; your section of the PR pie is going to be minimal. Secondly even a PR8 directory will only give you a tiny amount of PR because the page you have your website linked is probably PR0. So it’s worthwhile as part of SEO is about variation but avoid doing more than 30.
Outgoing Links: The more outgoing links on your page the less Google will like you. If you stick to links that are good quality and relevant to your content, the better it will be. I see too many blogs with 100’s of outgoing links just for the sake of it that are not often content relevant and it’s a complete waste of time. Only create an outbound link when it’s necessary and not just for the sake of it.

Internal Links: This is an absolute must yet very few people do it. Having a good internal link system will be very effective search engine optimization. Every link you create is internally is like having a good backlink. Just make sure you use the right anchor text as mentioned in point 1, otherwise this exercise is pointless. (Think Wikipedia...internal links = 2 trillion gazillion)

Keywords: This is not an absolute definite but generally believed that you should include your keywords no more than 7 times per 100 words. The reason for this is because Google’s spider will thing you are spamming for the sake of SEO. I am unsure of how accurate those numbers are but be wary of it.

Subject Relevant Link Exchange: Link Exchanges are a great way to get your blog/site off the ground and also for the more established ones as well. For best effect be sure to exchange with subject relevant sites otherwise it’s pointless and Google wont respect you for it. Take your time when finding the right exchange and it will benefit you greatly.

Quality Link Exchange: As I mentioned in point 2 about blog directories. PR “juice” will be shared between every outbound link on a site. With that in mind, when acquiring a link exchange be sure to trade with someone with a blogroll bigger than the empire state building. Otherwise your backlink will count for much less than your much more respectable size 10 of the most blogroll.

Good Traffic: When going on a quest to gain more site traffic, it is important to try and get “good” traffic. This may sound obvious but so many people will spam sites with their URL and get a few clicks, but it will bare rare that any bookmark the site because they just don’t care about what you have to say. Try to focus your precious time on gaining good quality traffic by submitting your link to places where they will find your site of interest.

DoFollow: DoFollow basically means it will most likely have a positive effect on your Search Engine Rank. NoFollow means the chances are it won’t have a positive effect on your Search Engine Rank. With that in mind if you want to post your link on forums/blogs ensure they have the status “DoFollow” otherwise it’s most likely your efforts will be futile.

Your Reputation: Although this is not directly Search Engine Optimization, it is still very relevant. Your site reputation is everything, be sure you keep it as high as possible. Avoid link dropping just for the sake of gaining a cheap backlink; take your time to give a positive input with quality info. This will gain you much better results and have a much higher chance in people wanting to view that link in your signature or give you higher forum reputation.

Source From Digital Point Forum

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Hobbled Word Goes on Sale as Microsoft Challenges Court Ruling Again

Hobbled Word Goes on Sale as Microsoft Challenges Court Ruling Again

Tony Bradley Tony Bradley – Mon Jan 11, 12:56 pm ET

D-day has arrived. Per court order, Microsoft has removed technology from Microsoft Word which has been judged to infringe on concepts patented by Canadian software firm i4i from the software effective today. Compliance does not equal surrender, though, as Microsoft also continues legal efforts to overturn the ruling.

The dispute relates to an i4i patent entitled Method and System for Manipulating the Architecture and the Content of a Document Separately from Each Other. The crux of the challenge lies with the way Microsoft separates the XML properties from the actual document content in Word.

Like many patents for technical concepts, the wording of the i4i patent seems too broad and general. The way Microsoft has implemented XML in Word does appear to fit the description of the i4i technology in the patent, but so do a lot of XML implementations. The issue goes deeper than Word, to whether or not the U.S. Patent Office should have issued the patent to begin with.

However, my opinion holds little weight with the United States court system, which apparently doesn't agree with me. i4i has prevailed repeatedly in its legal battle against Microsoft, winning a $290 million judgment and a court order that Microsoft either remove the offending technology or make arrangements with i4i to legally license it.

Microsoft won a temporary injunction of the ban on selling copies of Word with infringing technology, but ultimately lost its appeal of the original judgment. On December 22, 2009 Microsoft was ordered to pay the $290 million judgment, and a new deadline of January 11, 2010 was set to cease sales of the offending software.

In compliance with that order, Microsoft has modified the Word 2007 and Office 2007 software being sold as of today. Microsoft has also issued patches which remove the infringing technology from existing copies of Word for both Windows and Mac, but users who purchased the software prior to January 11, 2010 are not obligated to download or apply the update.

However, late last week it also filed a new legal challenge asking the court to review...again...the appeal ruling.

Kevin Kutz, director of public affairs for Microsoft, said in a statement "The petition details significant conflicts we believe the December 22 decision creates with established precedents governing trial procedure and the determination of damages, and we are concerned that the decision weakens judges' authority to apply appropriate safeguards in future patent trials."

The statement implies some level of altruism and concern for the future of the United States legal system, but it's hard to believe the challenge has any meaning to Microsoft beyond continued persistence in defending its position in this case, or simply an attempt to further delay paying the judgment and dragging i4i through court as long as possible.

The new Microsoft appeal challenges the methods used by the court for calculating damages and expresses concern that the calculation could be used as a precedent for future lawsuits, leading to excessive damage awards. Microsoft is a frequent target of legal challenges and certainly has a vested interest in maintaining damage calculations at the most reasonable level possible.

If Microsoft loses this latest challenge, it can pursue the appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Tony Bradley tweets as @PCSecurityNews, and can be contacted at his Facebook page .

Source: news.yahoo.com

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Progress Scoops up BPM Vendor Savvion

Progress Scoops up BPM Vendor Savvion

Chris Kanaracus, IDG News Service Chris Kanaracus, Idg News Service – Mon Jan 11, 12:14 pm ET

Middleware vendor Progress Software announced Monday it has purchased BPM (business process management) vendor Savvion for approximately US$49 million.

Savvion, based in Santa Clara, California, has been in business for 15 years. Its software is used to map out business processes, such as how orders are fulfilled or employees are hired. The company also has developed BPM offerings for health care, energy, financial services and other verticals.

The Savvion technology will work alongside Progress's BEP (business event processing) middleware, which monitors system activity in real time, looking for certain patterns or correlations and triggering corrective actions.

Also known as CEP (complex event processing), such software is also sold by IBM, Tibco and other vendors. A financial institution might use it to detect fraud, whereas a utility could monitor its delivery systems.

Progress chose Savvion for a number of reasons, including the fact it is "event-enabled," according to Progress CTO John Bates. In addition, "Savvion can orchestrate processes but can also involve human users in workflow," he wrote in a blog post.

Savvion has also developed a rules engine for its BPM software, which Bates dubbed "a powerful capability"; real-time analytics; and document management functionality.

The acquisition comes only weeks after IBM announced plans to purchase a Savvion rival, Lombardi.

Buying Savvion was a smart move for Progress, according to analyst Sandy Kemsley.

"The existing suite of Progress products allows for determining what happened within an organization -- a rear-view mirror approach -- but not much that allows the organization to quickly change how they're doing things," she wrote in a blog post. "Bringing BPM into the fold allows them to change that."

But a fair amount of integration work will need to be done in order "to really sell this as an integrated suite of tools rather than a 'solution' patched together with professional services," Kemsley added.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20100111/tc_pcworld/progressscoopsupbpmvendorsavvion

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5 Mozilla Unique Tips: Internet Browser Tips

5 Mozilla Unique Tips: Internet Browser Tips

Mozila Firefox is my favorite browser and with the amount of plugins available for it, you can do all that you need to do. I will come up with another post on my list of favorite Firefox add-ons. For time being read the below article on “5 Mozilla Unique Tips Revealed Today : Internet Browser Tips”

• On Page Search – Simple but Very Useful. Go to the edit menu on the top and click on find. A small search bar will come out at the bottom of your browser. Just type a few things that you want to find out and Firefox will high light that text on the current page. Now you won’t have to search through tons of lines on a big wiki page, just type in and get what you need to read.
• Trace Download Location – go to tools menu on the top and click on downloads. Right click on any download that you have already done, it will give you a few options like, open containing folder. Just click on it and the folder with your downloaded stuff in it will open up.
• Easy Find Search bookmarks – if you are someone like me who bookmarks every second web page that one visits then you will certainly need to search bookmarks to retrieve the ones you need. To do that, just click on organize bookmarks and a window will open with a search bookmarks option on it.
• Frequently visited sites – for example, google.com, your blog, your email etc. are a few websites that you want to open with a click of a button. For that, just open the website on aFirefox tab and click on the tab. Then keep the click pressed and drag it to the toolbar on the Firefox window. You will see a bottom has been made with the name of the site.
• Watch full screen – I love this feature, specially when a site’s design attracts me, I press f11 or view menu – full screen. That way you can see the full site with out the browser details.

Source: sagarrai.com

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Ashi Software on DIGG - Follow Me

Ashi Software on DIGG - Follow Me

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Austin-based Phurnace Software acquired by Houston company

Austin-based Phurnace Software acquired by Houston company

Phurnace says BMC's global reach will speed its growth

By Lori Hawkins
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Austin-based Phurnace Software, which began as a class assignment by a University of Texas MBA student, has been acquired by BMC Software of Houston.

Financial terms of the deal, announced Thursday, were not disclosed.

Phurnace sells software that simplifies the installation of applications based on the Java programming language.

The company was started in 2006 by Daniel Nelson as a class project. He and Robert Reeves, a UT economics major, teamed up to pursue the idea, and their business plan won the 2006 Moot Corp competition at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business.

"This is truly a Texas-grown company, from winning Moot Corp to being a member of the Austin Technology Incubator to raising money from Texas investors," Phurnace chief executive Larry Warnock said . "Now we're excited to be acquired by another Texas company, which is going to rapidly accelerate our growth."

Phurnace is the latest in a string of acquisitions of Austin tech companies by bigger players.

Last month, Lombardi Software Inc., an Austin developer of business process management software, was acquired by IBM Corp. for an undisclosed sum. In November, LifeSize Communications Inc., which sells videoconferencing equipment, agreed to be bought in an all-cash deal by Swiss company Logitech International for $405 million, one of the highest prices paid for a local company in recent years.

Phurnace has raised $5 million from backers including Austin investor John Hime, S3 Ventures of Austin and DFJ Mercury , a Texas-based venture fund affiliated with Draper Fisher Jurvetson of Menlo Park, Calif.

BMC said Phurnace's 21 employees will remain on board. In addition, BMC plans to expand both the product and staff, said Scott Fulton , BMC vice president of service automation products.

"This is a small company with a brand-new, powerful technology, and to the best of our assessment, this is the only one out there that's really proven with large enterprise customers," Fulton said.

Phurnace significantly reduces the time that large companies spend rolling out and upgrading Java applications, he said. "What used to take weeks or months to accomplish, Phurnace can achieve in minutes or hours," Fulton said. "Considering that some companies, like banks, upgrade custom applications every few weeks, that's a dramatic difference."

BMC plans to invest in the Austin team, including adding development positions, Fulton said.

"In addition to the technology, the thing we liked about the company is the DNA of their technical team, and we want to build on that," he said.

Phurnace, which doesn't disclose revenue, has two dozen customers, including Discover Financial Services, American Airlines, Union Bank of California and the State of Texas.

BMC, which sells information management software and services to corporate customers, has 5,800 employees worldwide — including 264 in Austin — and posted revenue of $1.9 billion in fiscal 2009.

Warnock said BMC provides access to a global sales force and customer base as well as product development resources.

"People might wonder if this will take the wind out of our sails and eliminate jobs. In fact, it's just the opposite. BMC is keeping everyone, and we're going to keep our location downtown (on Rio Grande Street) — and we're going to be growing a lot faster than we would have been able to as a private venture-backed company," said Warnock, who will join BMC as senior director of corporate development.

Although the sales price was not disclosed, Warnock called it "a very strong above-market return for all of our investors. They are happy, our employees are happy and our acquirers are happy. The team is staying in place to fulfill this vision that we've always had."

Source: statesman.com

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Magento Development, Magento Integration, eCommerce Magento Customization

Magento Development, Magento Integration, eCommerce Magento Customization

Magento Development, Magento Integration, eCommerce Magento Customization

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Google revamps its mobile strategy with new phone

Google revamps its mobile strategy with new phone

Google Inc took the wraps off a new smartphone that it will sell directly to consumers, aiming to boost its position in the emerging mobile Internet market by exerting greater control over the new generation of Web-surfing devices.

The sleek touchscreen phone, dubbed the Nexus One, is Google's boldest foray outside its traditional Internet home turf and represents the first time the 11-year-old company will sell a consumer electronics device bearing its well-known brand.

But analysts say the phone is not as revolutionary in design as Apple Inc's iPhone was. Tech websites and forums gave Google favorable reviews but also noted the new phone was not that different from others in the market that run Google's Android software, such as Motorola's Droid.

The Nexus One ships immediately and exclusively from Google's online store for $179 with a two-year contract from Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA, or $529 without a service plan.

The more expensive unlocked phone, analysts say, is priced too high to dramatically alter the relationship between carriers and hardware vendors in which wireless service providers have traditionally controlled handset distribution in the U.S.

It "wasn't the game-changer people thought it could be," Canaccord Adams analyst Jeff Rath said. Google could have shaken up the industry by offering the device for free, but instead chose more traditional pricing, he said.

(For Reuters Insider coverage, click http://link.reuters.com/wek89g)

Executives said the phone could be profitable for Google, though analysts are not forecasting a revenue windfall in the short term.

But the move, which Google announced at a press event at its Mountain View, California headquarters on Tuesday, raises the stakes in the fast-growing smartphone business which it entered two years ago by developing the free Android software for smartphones made by other companies.

The highly anticipated Nexus One, which Google designed in close collaboration with hardware maker HTC, could provide Google with a viable challenge to the iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

Google's decision to sell its own Google-branded phones is "a sea change in terms of Google now owning the customer, making the carrier a little bit less relevant to the conversation and maintaining more control over the hardware and software experience because they realize they're competing with players like Apple and the iPhone," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis at market research firm Interpret.

The Nexus One is the first of a variety of smartphones that Google said were in the pipeline as the company seeks to expand its reach from the PC to the mobile world and ensure its online products and ads get prominent placement on a new breed of wireless Internet devices.

Executives said that in the spring Google will sell phones that use Verizon Wireless's network in the United States and Vodafone's in Europe. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone.

WAIT AND SEE

According to Forrester research, 17 percent of U.S. mobile phone users had smartphones at the end of 2009, up from 11 percent a year earlier.

Investors are taking a wait-and-see view on Google's first effort to sell a hardware product directly to consumers.

Google's stock has risen about 7 percent since the start of December, setting a 52-week high of $629.51 on Monday. But analysts say that was driven by improvements in its core business of Internet search advertising, rather than the prospect of tapping a new pool of revenue selling smartphones.

Its shares closed 0.44 percent down at $623.99.

Google executives declined to provide financial targets for the new phone, though Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin said the company would not lose money by selling the phone.

By selling the phone directly to consumers, Rubin said that Google would be able to cut out extra retailing costs and ultimately deliver phones with lower price tags.

"There's a lot of people in the value chain who don't need to be there," said Rubin. "And then prices can go down, iteration can happen quicker, distribution can be wider."

Some analysts were positive on Google's effort to continue to establish the Android as a popular operating system for smartphones and wireless devices.

"It will help them keep consistency for Android platform," said Jim McGregor, Chief Technology Strategist for In-Stat.

The new phone helps Google "get their partners all on developing a single platform that applications can be developed on."

The Nexus One is 11.5 millimeters (0.5 inch) thick and weighs 130 grams (4.6 ounces) -- which executives said was lighter than a Swiss Army knife and no thicker than a No. 2 pencil.

The phone will feature a 3.7-inch (9.4 centimeter) touchscreen display. It will run the 2.1 version of the Android operating system and feature OLED display technology, a trackball for user interface control, an accelerometer chip, and a 5 megapixel camera.

Forrester analyst Charles Golvin said the Nexus One was an impressive looking device, even if it doesn't represent the kind of "quantum leap" forward in terms of technology as the iPhone did when it was first released in 2007.

Google worked closely with HTC to develop its phone, which uses a 1 gigahertz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm Inc.

Motorola, which is banking on the Android system to power a new generation of smartphones to revitalize a flagging business, said it welcomed the competition. Co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha told Google's audience he did not see the Nexus One as a threat, but as an expansion of the market.

(Additional reporting by Gabriel Madway and Ian Sherr; Editing by Edwin Chan, Phil Berlowitz and Tiffany Wu)

Alexei Oreskovic

Source: Yahoo NEWS

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