Tag Archives: Google Android

Computers

Google retail stores might be a smart move, analysts say

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Opening its own brick-and-mortar retail stores could help Google sell more of its Chromebooks, Nexus tablets, and other hardware, analysts said, reacting to online reports that Google may soon be coming to the local shopping mall.

Google is in the process of building its own retail stores and hopes to have the first stores open in time for the holidays in major U.S. metropolitan areas, according to a report Friday in 9to5Google, which cited an unnamed, “extremely reliable” source.

“Google feels right now that many potential customers need to get hands-on experience with its products before they are willing to purchase,” the website reported.

Raising product profile

Google’s Android is already the dominant mobile operating system for smartphones, but the company is trying to make greater inroads with its laptop computers, known as Chromebooks, and its Nexus tablets.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Smartphone market leaders could lose their grip

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Just five years ago, the global epicenters of the mobile phone universe included Finland and Canada, where Nokia and Research In Motion are headquartered.

After the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007, and after Android phones started getting really good, iOS and Android devices began their sustained assault on market share, and today they dominate totally.

From the perspective of who is making the majority of physical smartphone handsets, the clear leader is South Korea’s Samsung, which sells more than one quarter of the world’s smartphone handsets, followed by Apple, which sells about 18%. No other company gets anywhere near a two-digit market share globally.

From the perspective of platforms — who makes the operating systems and controls both the functionality and the app ecosystem that powers the world’s smartphones — it’s clear that Google‘s Android is by far the world’s leader, followed distantly by Apple‘s iOS.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Microsoft can 'start printing money' once it launches Office for iOS

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“The day they introduce Office for iOS and Android, they’ll start printing money,” said Bob O’Donnell of research firm IDC. “But if they wait too long, they risk people finding alternatives, or workarounds.”Microsoft will reap a windfall of revenue as soon as it introduces versions of its Office productivity suite for iOS and Android, but that window of opportunity is quickly closing, an analyst said today.

Talk of Microsoft creating native apps for Apple’s iOS, which powers the iPad, and for Google’s Android, the operating system used by Samsung and most other tablet makers, has circulated for years. The speculation hit a high note last November when The Verge reported that Microsoft would release iOS apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint in late February or early March 2013, followed in May by software for Android.

According to the report, the apps, collectively dubbed Office Mobile, would be offered free of charge on the iOS App Store and Google Play, but would only let users view documents. To enable editing and other functions, such as printing, customers would have to link the apps to an Office 365 subscription.

tablets

Revamped Office 365 plans are to launch alongside Office 2013, which may debut as early as next week.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

News, Politics, Government

Calling China: How Mobile Startup Jolla Will Sell An Android Alternative

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By Parmy Olson, Forbes Staff Finland is no longer the suicide capital of the world–it lost that distinction in 2007. So why would a handful of ex-Nokia engineers decide to get into the murderous smartphone business, taking on Google’s Android platform, Apple and Samsung? Answer: China.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Computers

BlackBerry gets vote of confidence from monitoring-software maker

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There’s good news for a change for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, as monitoring-software vendor SpectorSoft today announced its first software support for BlackBerry in the enterprise.

“BlackBerry is very strong in certain places, like finance and government,” says Nick Cavalancia, vice president of marketing at SpectorSoft, which today announced Spector 360 7.5, an employee-monitoring package for centralized recording and alerting about what employees do on their Windows PCs, Apple Macs, and now company-issued BlackBerries. “The BlackBerry is still in 90% of the Fortune 500. And we do believe BlackBerry is a secure mobile-device platform.”

A recent study that Trend Micro did internally on mobile devices rated BlackBerry the most secure in comparison to Apple iOS or Google Android.

However, the latest SpectorSoft monitoring software for the enterprise, which costs $110 per computer and $57 per BlackBerry device, can’t do as much to track employee activity on the BlackBerry as on the PC or Mac due to constraints related to mobile-platform processing and bandwidth limit and costs.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Apple's iPhone, iPad in the lead as mobile business intelligence matures, says Ovum

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Apple and Google’s Android have the widest adoption among mobile BI (business intelligence) applications, as the platforms become more mature, according to a report from market research company Ovum.

Mobile BI is far from a new concept, but more bandwidth and better devices have helped propel the market.

All 12 vendors in Ovum’s report have applications for Apple’s iOS platform, followed closely by Android. Oracle is the only one that doesn’t officially support Android, but will according to its road map, said Ovum analyst Fredrik Tunvall.

Half the vendors have support for BlackBerry tablets and smartphones, while only four can accommodate Microsoft’s previous generation of tablets and smartphones. Ovum’s report doesn’t include applications for Windows 8, RTj, and Phone 8. Information Builders, JackBe and Yellowfin have clients for all operating systems.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

RIM at CES: 5 things to know about BlackBerry 10

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Research in Motion is at CES this week talking up BlackBerry 10, the company’s smartphone refresh set to debut January 30. Despite five years of floundering behind Apple’s iPhone and Google Android devices, RIM is generating interest in BlackBerry 10 with a slick, touch-centric smartphone OS with interesting features such as an adaptive keyboard and WebOS-like interface.

Many critics and analysts see BB10 as RIM‘s last chance to maintain relevance in the smartphone world. Once the top smartphone maker in the U.S., RIM‘s current market share has slipped to just 7.3 percent of American smartphone users, according to metrics firm comScore. That’s a loss of 9.3 percentage points from November 2011, when comScore reported the company had 16.6 percent of the U.S. market. RIM in December also said that for the first time in its history the company lost one million users in a single quarter.

But the gloom and doom of RIM‘s recent years may soon be behind it if the BlackBerry 10 rollout is a success later in January. It’s not yet clear when new BlackBerry devices will become available, how much they will cost, or which carriers will offer them, but that should all become clear on January 30. Until then, here’s a look at some of things RIM has been talking about at CES and what you should know before the BlackBerry 10 launch event.

Six handsets slated for 2013

We already know that RIM on January 30 will unveil the first two smartphones built for BB10: one touchscreen and one physical keyboard device. Later in the year, RIM has another four BB10 devices planned, reports Fierce Wireless after speaking with the company’s chief marketing officer, Frank Boulben, at CES. It’s not yet clear what the specs will be for the upcoming BB10 devices.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld