Apple

Apple's iPhone jumped to the top spot on the AdMob Network for the month of October, with 4.1 percent of the mobile ads requested from the network, according to the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report released Wednesday.

Requests from advertisers for mobile ads targeted to iPhone users rose to 236 million in October, more than doubling from the 103 million requests recorded in the previous month. Worldwide, AdMob's mobile-ad requests for all device makers grew 13.8 percent in October, to 5.8 billion.

AdMob delivers banner and text ads to mobile devices, and these figures were analyzed and aggregated as part of its monthly Mobile Metrics report. AdMob-served ads are seen by people visiting clients' Web sites with their mobile phone. Advertisers can choose to have their ads appear on a certain type of device, or region of the world, and then AdMob places the ads on partner publishers' mobile sites.

Mobile advertising is on a fast track, with research firms projecting market revenue to reach $19 billion per year by 2011, up from the approximately $3 billion seen for last year.

Fueling the iPhone's October performance was particularly strong traffic outside the United States, which accounted for 37 percent of its ad requests, according to the AdMob report. Western Europe represented 17 percent of the iPhone ad requests, and Asia represented 8 percent.

Other handset players following close behind included the Motorola Razr V3, which received 3.4 percent of the requests; Nokia's N70, with 3.2 percent; and the Motorola Krzr K1c, with 1.8 percent.

But in the U.S. market alone, the iPhone ranked No. 2, with 6.9 percent of the requests, while Motorola's Razr V3 led the market, with 7.7 percent. The U.S. market accounted for 62.8 percent of the iPhone's ad requests in October.

Requests from advertisers for mobile ads targeted to iPhone users more than doubled from September to October.

(Credit: AdMob)

Motorola's Good Technology group hopes its latest update will eliminate the moment of terror experienced by a traveling salesperson who realizes the slide deck got left back at the office.

Good's smartphone e-mail software, shown here, will now let you access corporate applications and files without third-party VPN software.

(Credit: Motorola Good Technology Group)

Good 6.0 will now allow Windows Mobile smartphone users to access corporate applications and their companies' shared network resources over the same secure connection that delivers their e-mail. This would eliminate the need for VPN (virtual private network) software on smartphones, said Dan Rudolph, director of product marketing for Good.

Good's software allows Windows Mobile and Palm users to get their corporate e-mail on their handhelds, as an alternative to Research in Motion's BlackBerry experience. Despite its affiliation with Motorola, Good doesn't do the soup-to-nuts smartphone experience that RIM provides; it just makes the software.

The e-mail portion of Good 6.0 hasn't changed all that much since the 5.0 release, Rudolph said, although the IT department can now customize the home screen as it sees fit. The real change is the addition of the Good Mobile Connection technology, which allows smartphone users to tap into the same secure pipe that transmits their e-mail to access files and applications behind the firewall. Rudolph promises this experience is transparent to the user, without requiring any sort of log-in procedure.

The new version also allows IT managers to use a Web application to track and control the Good-equipped devices on their network, and improves the reporting capabilities available to those managers, Rudolph said.

Motorola's phone business has at least one suitor: India's Videocon.

IDG News Service reported Wednesday that Videocon, which sells consumer electronics devices in India, is interested in bidding on the phone portion of Motorola's cell phone business, which is destined to become a separate company one way or another. Videocon is building its own GSM network in India, and might want a ready-made slate of phones to put in its retail stores and run on its network.

It seemed that selling the division was Motorola CEO Greg Brown's first choice, when faced with the dilemma of cleaning up the mess at Motorola. But no one stepped forward with a bid (at least publicly) after Brown declared Motorola was considering "strategic alternatives" for the business in January.

After Motorola went public with its plans to get rid of mobile phones one way or another, my colleague Maggie Reardon noted that move could bring potential buyers forward enticed by Brown's decision to put "lipstick on a pig," or to make the phone business look more attractive by hiding the set-top boxes and industrial communication equipment.

Any likely suitor will probably get a decent deal on Motorola's phone business: Fortune noted a blog post by Chad Brand of Peridot Capital Management valuing Motorola's non-phone businesses at $8 a share. The company's stock is currently trading in the mid-$9 range.

The assistant to Motorola's former chief marketing officer has accused former CEO Ed Zander of working his boss to death--literally--and declared that current CEO Greg Brown is "actively killing the company."

Engadget obtained a letter written by Numair Faraz, who was a personal adviser to former Motorola Chief Marketing Officer Geoffrey Frost, sent to Motorola's top executives earlier this year.

In the letter, released the same day Motorola announced plans to separate into two companies, Faraz outlines Motorola's downfall from the heights it reached during the success of the Razr.

"I've always considered it Motorola's dirty little secret that the strategy for their entire profit machine was run by the company's CMO--not the rest of the company's executives, who are as inept now as they have ever been," Faraz wrote. Frost was widely credited as the force behind the development of the Razr, the superslim phone that became one of the hottest-selling phones ever to emerge from Motorola.

"Many close to Geoffrey believed Ed Zander worked him to death, putting the pressure of the fate of the company in his hands," Faraz wrote. Frost died suddenly in 2005, and with him died Motorola's Razr strategy.

The company was never able to come up with a successor to the product and flogged it mightily around the world, even after its trademark thin design had been copied and bested by other mobile-phone makers. As a result, Zander no longer runs Motorola.

The letter is quite scathing, going on to accuse current CEO Greg Brown of giving into to the demands of activist investor Carl Icahn without good reason.

"Your lack of understanding of the consumer side of Motorola doesn't give you a valid reason for selling the handset business; moreover, publicly disclosing your explorations of such a move, in an attempt to keep Carl Icahn off your back, shows how much you value the safety of your incompetence," Faraz wrote.

It's hard to say how much of this is true and how much of this is the emotional release of a disgruntled Motorola employee who also suffered the loss of someone close. Clearly, though, by any measure, Motorola has completely and totally screwed up its mobile-phone business in the years since Frost's death by failing to move past the Razr.

Accusing Zander of overworking Frost is hard to prove, from where I sit. Life at the top of a huge technology company is not for the squeamish; pressure, travel, and long hours are mandatory. But Zander obviously depended heavily on others to run the consumer side of Motorola's business; this is a guy who dismissed the iPod Nano by saying "Who listens to 1,000 songs?" Well, apparently tens of millions of people do.

A Motorola representative declined to comment on the letter to Engadget and did not immediately return a call and an e-mail seeking comment on the letter, though it's been quite a busy day over there.

If CNET News.com's readers are any indication, Microsoft's Windows Mobile has a better base of support than one might think, but all the winds are blowing toward Apple.

The results of our first annual (maybe) smartphone survey are in, and thanks to everyone who left comments here on One More Thing or over on Crave, and those who flooded my inbox with responses. Yes, I know we should have a survey tool, but we're working on other stuff right now that's more important. (You'll have to trust me on that one.)

Between the comments and the e-mails, we received 159 responses. I must note that this is not a scientific study; we're not going to be putting market research firms out of business anytime soon. But I thought it was time for a look at what some of our readers are using, and I was surprised at some of the results.

Windows Mobile-based smartphones were by far the choice of survey respondents. Of the 130 people who said they owned a smartphone, 42.3 percent said they were using a Windows Mobile-based smartphone. That category includes the carrier-branded models, mostly from HTC, as well as the Motorola Q and the Samsung BlackJack, the two most-popular "tier 1" brands cited in the responses using Windows Mobile.

"This past weekend I traded in my BlackBerry Pearl for the HTC Tilt on AT&T's service," said a Crave reader with the screen name Yieeman. "So far it has been great. I like the fact that it works more like a computer for the organization of e-mails and documents, but also has amazing call clarity."

With 19.2 percent of the responses, the BlackBerry was the second most popular device among readers when the data was sorted by operating system. Apple's iPhone came in third, with 17.7 percent. Palm and Symbian tied for fourth place with 10 percent each.

Most of News.com's readers come from the United States (Thursday, 70.7 percent of our readers were in the U.S.), and most of the Windows Mobile phones claimed by respondents were carrier-branded models, with the AT&T/Cingular 8525 and 8515 popping up the most often. Symbian is by far the leading smartphone operating system provider in the world, but its phones are generally harder to find in the U.S., where RIM dominates the smartphone market.

Sorted by manufacturer, RIM and the HTC models were tied, with 19.2 percent of the survey respondents. I counted most of the carrier branded models as HTC models, in the cases where the carrier-branded model was a carbon copy of the HTC-branded model. Most people referred to their HTC designs with the carrier brand, AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint.

Apple was just behind RIM and HTC, sorted by manufacturer, with 17.7 percent of the survey responses. Apple was followed by Motorola, Palm, and Samsung, in that order, each with around 10 percent of the responses. Surprisingly, Nokia, the worldwide leader in smartphone shipments, was used by only 4.6 percent of respondents. Sony Ericsson was used by 5.4 percent.

And it's clear that while Apple's iPhone isn't the smartphone of choice just yet among survey respondents, it hasn't escaped their notice. When asked which smartphone might be their next model, survey respondents cited the iPhone most often by far.

Of the 159 total responses, 66 people said they would consider an iPhone as their next (or first) smartphone. That was three times as many mentions as the second most desired smartphone, the BlackBerry.

"If I were in the market for a phone today, especially in light of the coming apps and integration with Exchange servers, I would likely get an iPhone," Ryan Hendley said over e-mail. "My current phone, Samsung Sync, does not integrate well with my MacBook calendar and contacts. In fact, it doesn't sync at all."

All those Windows Mobile users appear to be considering a switch, as HTC's models were cited by 10 respondents, but no other major manufacturer, including Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, or Palm, received more than 5 mentions. Several people cited multiple phones on their potential wish lists, so I just counted everything that was mentioned.

Most of the people looking at the iPhone were waiting for either a 3G version or a version that worked with their carrier, citing a desire to avoid AT&T. They were also intrigued by the business features slated to roll out in June, which gives them the option of using their iPhone at work.

The statistics were interesting, but I had also asked people to share the reasons they bought a smartphone in the first place, and whether they liked their current model. Most people did in fact like their current phone. The Windows Mobile users probably grumbled the most about their devices, but still, more than half of them were happy with their experience.

Most people bought their smartphones because they wanted to access e-mail, Web browsing, and telephone calls on a single device, as might be expected. I had thought going in to this survey that most respondents would mostly be using their phones for business, but an overwhelming number of people said they used their devices both for business and pleasure.

The BlackBerry users might have obtained their phone to check their corporate e-mail, but that doesn't mean they don't check sports scores in between meetings, or plot directions to the campground on the weekend. This will be the next big source of growth for smartphones, devices that can balance multimedia consumer desires with business needs. People aren't going to want to carry multiple devices for fun and work: that's why they got a smartphone in the first place.

So, again, thanks to all who participated. Stay tuned for the big CTIA Wireless conference at the beginning of April, which should bring new smartphones, new operating system news, and tons of coverage from both News.com and our colleagues at CNET Reviews.

Motorola late on Friday announced the "immediate" departure of the former head of its troubled mobile-devices division, a day after confirming that its marketing chief was no longer with the company.

Former Motorola cell phone chief Stu Reed

(Credit: Motorola)

"Motorola, Inc. today announced that Stu Reed, formerly the president of Motorola's Mobile Devices business, has decided to leave the company, effective immediately," the company said in a statement. No further details on the nature of Reed's departure were provided, and his bio has been purged from Motorola's site. Reed's role had been uncertain since CEO Greg Brown assumed control of the mobile phone division in February.

The last six months or so haven't exactly been the best period in the history of Motorola's mobile-phone business. The company has shed significant market share, and it announced earlier this year that it would explore "strategic alternatives" for its mobile-phone division. At the time, that sounded like Motorola was getting ready to offload the group, although CEO Greg Brown told reporters at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that he was "fully committed" to the Mobile Devices group.

No replacement was named, leaving the Mobile Devices group without a leader for the time being. On Thursday, Motorola confirmed that Casey Keller, the former chief marketing officer for the company, had also left.

Having floated a spinoff trial balloon for its struggling mobile phone business, has Motorola reconsidered?

Motorola sent a ripple through the mobile phone industry a few weeks ago when it released a statement saying it was "exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses" that "may include the separation of Mobile Devices from its other businesses." The company has lost significant market share in the mobile phone business after failing to come up with an Act 2 following the success of the Razr.

Motorola CEO Greg Brown

(Credit: Motorola)

But in Barcelona on Monday for the World Mobile Congress, new Motorola CEO Greg Brown told Reuters that the company is "fully committed" to its mobile device business. "I don't want there to be any confusion," he said, as he caused confusion.

At first glance, it sounds like Brown has made his peace with keeping the mobile phone business in-house, despite the demands of investor Carl Icahn that Motorola separate phones from the rest of its activities. "Motorola is fully committed to the mobile devices business and I am fully committed to mobile devices," he told Reuters.

But an analyst interviewed by Reuters noted that Motorola would have to be committed to the business in order to sell it. Most executives aren't going to just casually mention on-the-record to a reporter at a cocktail party, "Yeah, I'm looking to unload this thing the first chance I get. Do you know anybody?"

It's hard to imagine why Motorola would dump the mobile phone business because, despite its struggles, it still has pretty good brand recognition. And given the speed at which the phone industry moves, the company could be back firing on all cylinders just as quickly as its downfall led to the departure of former CEO Ed Zander.

But spinning off the unit could give investors a nice return from both the spinoff itself and the remaining company, which would be profitable. Few consumers realize that Motorola makes a host of wireless gear for businesses, as well as set-top boxes, but investors are familiar with those businesses.

Padmasree Warrior found a new job very quickly, moving from Motorola to Cisco in just a day, Cisco confirmed Tuesday.

Although Warrior's departure from Motorola was only announced Monday, this move was likely in the works for some time. It comes just days after Motorola CEO Ed Zander announced his own plans to leave the company by the end of the year. Warrior will report to Cisco CEO John Chambers, who called her a "technology visionary."

Warrior also announced her arrival in a blog post on Cisco's site, which is apparently the new way of doing these things.

I have no doubt that Warrior is a professional technologist, but I beg you, can we stop calling things "paradigms?" With her 23 years at Motorola, Warrior fits right in with Cisco's bid to try and become more and more of a consumer company, but also has the enterprise and networking expertise that's still a huge part of Cisco's business.

Motorola's chief technology officer has resigned her position, just days after CEO Ed Zander announced his own plans to move on.

Gizmodo reported Monday that Padmasree Warrior's departure was announced via a company-wide e-mail Monday, and a Motorola representative confirmed that Warrior is no longer with the company. Rich Nottenburg, Motorola's chief strategy officer, will assume the role of CTO.

Padmasree Warrior, the former CTO of Motorola.

(Credit: Motorola)

The representative declined to comment on the timing of Warrior's announcement, following Friday's news that CEO Ed Zander would be stepping down at the end of the year following a disappointing year for Motorola's mobile phone business. Following the runaway success of the Razr, Motorola was unable to come up with a second act that would have kept the business rolling, and it slipped into third place overall among the world's mobile phone makers.

That would have been Warrior's responsibility, as head of Motorola Labs and the company's "early-stage accelerators," which were responsible for coming up with new ideas. The technology organization at Motorola had already started to change before Warrior's departure, with the software group moving into Nottenburg's domain.