Business News Holding

Tag: palm

  • Palm Unveils New Pre smartphone


    Palm finally revealed its new smartphone, the Pre, along with an exclusive partnership with Sprint to distribute it.

    The new touch-screen device and operating system, WebOS, received a positive welcome at CES in Las Vegas.

    Much has been made of the importance of the new device’s success if Palm is to resurrect its fortunes in the highly competitive smartphone market.

    Initial positives for the Pre include its emphasis on fast Web browsing and efficient multitasking.

    The handset will be available in the first half of the year. No pricing information is available as yet.

    The Pre has a sophisticated interface and can be charged on a special platform without the need to attach a cable.

    It comes comes with eight gigabytes of storage, GPS navigational capabilities, Wi-Fi networking and a slide-out keyboard.

    A possible hurdle in Palm’s path to renewed success could be apps for its new device.

    Software developers are now concentrating on RIM’s BlackBerry devices and the iPhone because they represent a large and growing market.

    Apps are seen as crucial to the success of smartphones because of the functions such as games and navigation services that they provide.

  • Keyboard and Touchscreen For Palm's New Handset


    Details are emerging about Palm’s expected launch of its latest smartphone and operating system at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show.

    The new handset is to have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen.

    This, and the new Nova operating system, are to be launched Thursday, according to CrunchGear.

    Faced with mounting losses and weak smartphone sales, the success of the new phone and Linux-based operating system could very well decide the company’s fate.

    It should be clearer by the end of the week whether Palm’s offerings will enable it to succeed with its plan to position itself somewhere between RIM’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone.

  • Palm Announces Successor To CFO Andy Brown


    Palm has announced that Douglas C. Jeffries has been appointed as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.

    Previously chief accounting officer at eBay, Jeffries will join Palm in January as replacement for Andy Brown.

    In addition to his role as chief accounting officer at eBay, Jeffries has held financial and information technology leadership roles at GenCorp, Red Herring Communications and Cardinal Health. Jeffries began his career at Price Waterhouse, is a CPA and holds an MBA from the University of Southern California.

    The executive changes come as Palm is about to launch what is being widely seen as the key to its future – a smartphone platform called Nova.

    It is also releasing an App Store for its Palm OS and Windows Mobile-based smartphones along the lines of Apple and Google’s software ventures.

    The beleaguered handset maker is beset by falling sales as it struggles in the smartphone market.

    In mid-2007, Palm hired Jon Rubenstein, formerly an Apple product development specialist who led development on the iMac and iPod, to help revive its fortunes.

    Rubenstein has said that Nova will bridge the market between enterprise-oriented BlackBerry devices from Research In Motion and more consumer-centric ones like Apple’s iPhone 3G.

  • iSkoot is First VoIP Application in Android Market


    iSkoot has announced that its mobile application, iSkoot for Skype, is launching in the Android Market.

    It is the first VoIP solution available on Google’s new mobile application store.

    Available immediately for download, iSkoot for Skype also runs on nearly all major mobile platforms, including J2ME, S60v3, UIQ, Palm, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry.

    iSkoot’s solution supports the Skype software, offering Android users on any cellular network the ability to make Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls on their mobile phone. Users can also receive Skype calls and use Skype text chat.

    Although the service offers greatly reduced prices, the calls are not free. See iSkoot’s website for pricing details.

    Jim Hudak, iSkoot vice president of business development, said: "iSkoot continues to work on delivering innovative products that give people a rich mobile experience so that they can cut the cord from their desktop."

    San Francisco-based iSkoot has built significant momentum during the past year with the recent acquisition of Social.IM, the social network IM client.

  • Smartphone demand undented by economic woes

    Global demand for mobile devices still expected to reach 1.3 billion units in 2008 despite financial uncertainties, according to ABI Research

    The fact many global economies are teetering on the brink of recession doesn’t appear to have diminished consumer demand for top-end mobile phones.

    As the recent launch of the 3G iPhone demonstrated, the public appetite for the latest, most sophisticated smartphones is strong.

    Now a report by ABI Research suggests that while handset sales in developed markets were flat, those that did purchase were willing to pay more for the newest smartphones.

    As a result of this, it estimates that the mobile device market will deliver 13 per cent growth to take 2008 annual shipments to 1.3 billion units.

    It shows that in the second quarter of 2008, Tier One handset vendors enjoyed year-over-year unit shipment growth of between 15 and 22 per cent.

    An estimated 301 million units were shipped during the quarter, according to the analysts.

    Jake Saunders, vice president of ABI Research, said: “If there is an economic slowdown, no one bothered to tell the mobile device buying public.

    “In particular, consumers in emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America shrugged off inflation fears to sign up as mobile phone users.

    “These healthy gains in net subscriber additions are stimulating replacement and upgrade sales.
    “In developed markets handset purchases tended to be flat, but those consumers who did purchase dug deeper and paid out more for coveted higher-end handsets and smartphones.”

    In terms of market share, the report Mobile Devices Market Sizing and Share, shows that Nokia has passed the 40 per cent threshold for the first time (40.3%).

    Samsung secured second place with 15.2 per cent, while Motorola barely managed to keep ahead of LG with its 9.3 per cent versus LG’s 9.2 per cent, and both edged out Sony Ericsson (8.3 per cent).

    There is a distinct possibility that LG might overtake Motorola by the end of 3Q 2008, putting Motorola into fourth place.

    “There is admittedly turmoil in the global economy, but the mass market’s fascination with getting the latest and greatest handset shows no sign of abating,” said ABI’s research director Kevin Burden.

    However, even with the expected 1H 2008 success of Tier One handset vendors – with Apple’s latest iPhone leading the charge – Nokia’s overall market share is likely to hold.

    This is in large part down to it refreshing its portfolio in the mid-tier and high end categories and pretty much cornering the ultra-low cost handset market.

  • Smartphone isn't spelt A-P-P-L-E?

    As the iPhone notches up one million sales Palm and HP launch their latest smartphones with a little less fanfare

    With hardly a whimper Palm’s Treo 800w and Hewlett-Packard’s iPaQ 910 have been released on to a smartphone market still largely focussed on Friday’s iPhone launch.

    Sprint and Palm have unveiled the Treo 800w, a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone targeted at business users.
    With integrated Wi-Fi, GPS, EV-DO Rev. A, and a slimmer design, the Treo 800w is available US$249.99 with a two-year contract and after rebates and discounts.

    Elsewhere, HP made available its new Windows Mobile smarthphone, the HP iPaQ 910, which is now available for US$499.99 from HP’s website.
    It’s loaded with high-end features, including a 2.4-inch touchscreen display, full QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA for connecting to the web at 7.2 Mbps, 3.0-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, built-in Google Maps and GPS, 128MB of RAM, and a 416 MHz Marvell PXA270 processor.

    Aimed at the business market, the iPaQ 910 runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and is loaded with various Microsoft programs including Office Mobile, Office Outlook Mobile and Internet Explorer Mobile.

    While Apple has made no secret of the fact that it would like a share of the corporate pie, no-one at the company will be complaining about its new handset’s initial sales figures.

    Three days after launching, the iPhone 3G is now available in 21 countries and will go on sale in France on July 17.
    Despite the outages, shortages, and related hand-wringing associated with the launch and release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware, Apple said there were nevertheless 10 million downloads from its new App Store in its first weekend of existence.

    Apple founder, Steve Jobs, said the 3G phone had got off to a ·great start” and described the App Store as a “grand slam”.
    “Developers have created some extraordinary applications, and the App Store can wirelessly deliver them to every iPhone and iPod touch user instantly,” he said.