News Blog

With the planned acquisition of mobile software maker Symbian, Nokia has decided to grab its future and run with it.

Nokia's decision to acquire the remaining stake in Symbian that it doesn't already own is designed to accelerate the mobile phone giant's product development--and serve as an open-source operating system platform to other handset makers, wireless carriers, software developers, and chipmakers, analysts say.

As a result, Nokia and other industry players hope to create a stronger defense against Apple's popular iPhone, Google's pending Android phone, and Microsoft's mobile operating system, analysts say.

"Nokia realized that under the current structure (where they owned only a minority stake), they could only hope Symbian would unlock their operating system and open it up to developers, handset makers, chipmakers, and carriers," said Jim Kelleher, an analyst with Argus Research.

Nokia and other electronics makers have formed the Symbian Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to create an ecosystem. The foundation is backed by carriers AT&T, Vodafone, and NTT DoCoMo and hardware competitors LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Ericsson. Also joining the foundation are STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.

"By being a 100 percent owner, Nokia can push the Symbian Foundation initiative forward without the potential of dissenting stakeholders," said James Faucette, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. "Nokia wants to attract more development input from other sources and develop a reasonably good alternative to other operating systems that are being developed."

Of course, Nokia is also looking to bolster its own performance with the Symbian acquisition.

"Nokia is trying to accelerate its product development by acquiring Symbian and bringing development in-house," said Mark Sue, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

Nokia has seen its worldwide market share steadily erode over the recent quarters from roughly 50 percent of the handset market to around 45 percent, Sue noted.

Three to four years ago, Nokia faced a steep challenge as its competitors launched spiffy, colorful slider cell phones, Kelleher said. Nokia had no such offerings in the works.

"Nokia was guilty of having hardware with no slick, no color. It was just a lump...Nokia was caught short," Kelleher said. "But Nokia has since come back fast and fierce, with new changes to their phones."

He added that the cell phone maker has come to the realization it needs more than just hardware to keep customers interested and up-to-date.

This year, for example, Nokia launched such products as its Xpress Music Phones, the Nokia Tube, in response to Apple's iPhone, and its Prism clamshell phone with triangular buttons.

Six technology heavyweights came together Monday to announce an alliance to jointly license patents for the broadband wireless technology WiMax.

The group, which calls itself the Open Patent Alliance, includes Intel, Cisco Systems, Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, and Alcatel-Lucent. The intent of the group is to gather rights to WiMax patents and license them to makers of consumer electronics devices, networking equipment, and computers.

During a Webcast Monday, executives from each of the six companies emphasized the openness of the alliance that was being created. And the companies said they hoped other companies would join the group.

"As a founding member of the alliance, our role is to work with different vendors and evangelize the benefits of an open model," said Sriram Viswanathan, general manager for WiMax at Intel Capital. "We will invite others to join and try to influence players who are whetted to other models to understand the benefits of openness."

WiMax is an IP-based wireless technology that offers high-speed Internet access similar to speeds delivered through Wi-Fi, a short-range wireless technology that uses unlicensed spectrum. So far the technology, which was standardized a couple of years ago, has been used mostly in the developing world to provide fixed wireless broadband.

Now companies such as Intel, Sprint Nextel, and Clearwire are pushing mobile WiMax to bring true broadband wireless to MP3 music players, gaming devices, smartphones, and a plethora of other consumer electronics devices.

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire announced earlier this year they are joining forces to complete the construction of a nationwide WiMax network in the U.S. And Intel already has plans to embed WiMax chips into its Centrino laptop chips. Samsung, Cisco, and Alcatel-Lucent have already been developing infrastructure equipment for WiMax networks.

But these companies all agree that for WiMax to be successful a more robust ecosystem is needed. The OPA is meant to encourage this ecosystem primarily by making WiMax-related patents inexpensive and accessible to anyone.

This is different than the cellular model, in which companies such as Qualcomm, Nokia, and Ericsson have separately developed technology and charged patent royalties for 3G products.

Cell phone makers can spend more than 25 percent of developing a new product on licensing underlying wireless technologies, according to a Wall Street Journal article. Intel's Viswanathan said these high royalties are to blame for stifling innovation. He said that cellular chips have not expanded to other devices such as cameras, music players, or gaming devices because of the high cost of licensing patents.

"We haven't seen a broad proliferation of cellular technology in anything other than handsets because the model is closely held and restrictive," he said.

A similar open patent strategy was devised in the video industry for video compression technology.

That said, WiMax faces many challenges. For one, Sprint Nextel and Clearwire are the only major carriers building a WiMax network in the U.S. The nation's two largest cell phone operators, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, have already said they plan to use a competing technology known as LTE.

Still, WiMax backers say that WiMax has at least a three-year time to market advantage since LTE hasn't even been standardized yet. Intel, which plans to include WiMax in its Centrino platform, says it expects to seed the market quickly.

Sony signed an agreement with the country's six largest cable companies Tuesday to develop a TV that will receive cable services without the need for a set-top box.

The Japanese electronics giant will make an LCD set based on the Tru2way cable platform introduced in January at CES by Comcast. Tru2way allows interactive cable services to be integrated directly into devices.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision, and Bright House Networks have all agreed to develop the technology behind Tru2way.

Sony's not the first consumer electronics company to announce a device based on the platform, however. At CES, Panasonic announced two high-definition televisions and a portable digital video recorder that use Tru2Way.

And last month Samsung, the world's largest producer of HDTVs, announced its own Tru2way TV and high-definition DVR.

Samsung has developed one of the largest-capacity and highest-speed solid state drives to date.

Samsung 256GB solid state drive

(Credit: Samsung)

CNET site ZDNet Korea reports that Samsung announced the development of a 2.5-inch, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum in Taipei, Taiwan.

Typical solid state drives shipping in notebook PCs today have a storage capacity of 64GB.

With a sequential read speed of 200 megabytes per second and sequential write speed of 160MBps, Samsung is claiming some of the fastest SSD data transfer rates to date.

Like upcoming Intel SSDs, Samsung's drive will use multi-level cell (MLC) technology and a high-speed Serial ATA (SATA) II interface. Later this year, Intel is planning to announce high-capacity SSDs, which select PC vendors are expected to adopt in forthcoming notebook PCs based on the Centrino 2 "Montevina" mobile processor.

Samsung is slated to begin commercial production of the SSD by year's end, with customer samples available in September. A 1.8-inch version of the 256GB SSD is expected to be available in the fourth quarter, ZDNet Korea reported.

SSDs have no moving parts, which means they avoid both the risk of mechanical failure and the mechanical delays of hard disk drives.

(Credit: Steve Tobak)

Here's the first installment of Train Wreck's first recurring post: Dysfunctional Executive Watch. It'll show up whenever there's enough material. Enjoy the lunacy, and let us know if you've got something to report.

You've got fraud
On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against eight former executives of AOL Time Warner for fraudulently inflating online advertising revenue by more than $1 billion. Four of the executives agreed to pay millions in fines and return ill-gotten gains. Charges against the other four, including former CFO John Michael Kelly, are still pending.

The company had previously agreed to fork over $500 million to settle civil and criminal charges brought by the SEC and the Justice Department. ... Read more

(Credit: Samsung)

This picture of a Samsung OLED laptop prototype raises more questions than it answers. Just how thin and light is it? Is touch-typing possible on that keyboard? Where's the mouse pad? What's that panel behind the display? Why is the woman pictured on the display checking her pulse? When can I have one?

What a translated-from-the Korean Samsung page does reveal is that it's an AMOLED (active matrix organic light-emitting diode) laptop prototype that Samsung's display division developed for the Society for Information Display's gathering in Los Angeles next week. According to Samsung, the prototype features a 12.1-inch screen with a 1,280x768 resolution. Perhaps we'll be able to glean more information next week when the display scientists, engineers, and manufacturers get together. As for when we might see this product on store shelves, Samsung has previously stated it'll start rolling out OLED TVs, monitors, and laptops in 2009.

(Via Engadget)

(Credit: Crave UK)

Samsung will cease operation of its laptop division if it doesn't improve its market share by 2011, according to one of the company's senior managers.

The news was broken to Crave UK while on a visit to Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, South Korea. Sukyong Hong, the senior manager of overseas sales and marketing for the company's computer division, said an additional 11 million units must be sold worldwide by the year 2011 in order to reach 5.7 percent market share--a massive task, considering Samsung's worldwide market share has only grown from 1.2 percent in 2005 to 1.7 percent in 2007.

To stay afloat, Samsung says it will have to--at least--overtake Sony, which currently lays claim to 6 percent of the laptop market. The rest of its primary competitors seem out of reach. Toshiba has 10 percent, Dell is on 14 percent, Acer has 16 percent, and Hewlett-Packard tops the charts on 23 percent.

One of the most obvious ways of increasing market share is to venture into the mini-PC market along with the likes of Asus, HP, and MSI, but Samsung seems reluctant to do so. The company fears that making a low-cost laptop will jeopardize sales of its existing machines.

Another alternative is to enter the U.S. market. Currently the only Samsung laptop being sold in the U.S. is the Q1 UMPC, which isn't a consumer favorite due to its high price and questionable usability.

The irony of this story is that Samsung provides many of the components used inside Sony laptops, including the LCD panels--so even if Sony does kick its proverbial backside, it's not exactly the end of the world.

(Source: Crave UK)

Presenting the Samsung Glyde...

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Samsung and Verizon Wireless on Thursday announced the Samsung Glyde (aka the SCH-U940), a touch-screen cell phone based on the Samsung SGH-F700. All signs originally pointed to a May 9 release date, but Samsung and Verizon had an itchy trigger finger. But no matter what the reason, sooner is always better, particularly if it involves putting a high-profile device through its paces with a review.

Offering a touch screen and a slider design that hides a full alphabetic keyboard, the Glyde is a powerful phone with a full set of features. Inside you'll find Bluetooth, a full HTML browser, GPS, and 3G support. In many ways it rivals the iPhone and Verizon's LG Voyager, but at the end of the day it can't quite match those devices. We really wanted to like its touch interface but the Glyde's small display didn't do it or the Web browser justice. The resulting effect was not only crowded, but also clunky. Fortunately, the QWERTY keyboard fares better.

On the upside, call quality was excellent and the 3G features performed reasonably well. We wouldn't keep the photos from the 2-megapixel camera as keepsakes, but the Glyde's multimedia capabilities measure up well against other Verizon 3G phones. For a full analysis, check out our Samsung Glyde review and be sure to take a look at our Samsung Glyde photo gallery.

After a dramatic rise to the top of the LCD TV market last summer, Vizio seemed to have gotten a taste of reality as it settled back down to the No. 3 spot through the end of the 2007.

But it appears Vizio is ratcheting up the price pressure again on its closest competitors, according to new figures from iSuppli, a market research firm that monitors the LCD industry.

For the first quarter of 2008, the top vendors' share of unit shipments, led by Samsung with 13.9 percent of units shipped, and followed by Sony (13.7 percent) and Vizio (13.5 percent), remain separated by 0.3 of a percentage point. The three were separated by 1.8 points in the fourth quarter of last year.

As the economy worsens, and consumers have less discretionary income for luxury purchases like a flat-panel TV, lower-priced sets are going to sell better. Vizio is in a better position than most in its industry to do that because of its distribution channels, which are mainly bargain-friendly outlets like club stores, and Wal-Mart Stores, and because it saves money by not building and maintaining multi-billion-dollar fabs, or panel manufacturing plants. Instead, it buys its panels from those that do.

Both Sony and Samsung have already responded to Vizio's price pressure with lower-cost LCD TVs of their own. But those TV manufacturers that haven't responded similarly to the Vizio threat are finding the North American flat-panel market an increasingly difficult place to do business.

Philips was the first to buckle under the pressure, announcing last month that it would no longer make or distribute its own TVs in North America. Instead, it arranged for low-cost TV vendor Funai to do so on its behalf.

Shipments of LCD TVs were down across the board in the first quarter, reaching 5.6 million units, versus the same quarter a year ago when 7.96 million LCD TVs shipped, iSuppli said. Although the first quarter is always the weakest for the industry, it appears the second quarter may not fare much better.

iSuppli says unit shipments in North America are expected to grow just 26.6 percent overall this year, to 27.4 million units. That's a far cry from the 88.8 percent growth in 2007 and the 92.6 percent seen in 2006.