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Motorola’s Choices
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| Advisory Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Feb 08, 2008]
What the heck is going on at Motorola?
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Apple Quietly Broadens iPhone, iPod touch Product Lines
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| Competitive Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Feb 07, 2008]
Apple quietly introduced new iPhone and
iPod touch models with
double the flash memory. The $499 16-
GB iPhone is the highest-
capacity phone on the market, and with
iTunes movie rentals,
there is ample content to fill the space.
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Nokia Buys TrollTech, But not for the Obvious Reason
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Jan 30, 2008]
Nokia’s purchase of TrollTech, a maker of mobile Linux
platforms and tools, could serve as a hedge against Google’s
Android while it adds to mobile Linux fragmentation. For now,
Nokia plans to use the tools to fragment its own software
strategy.
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Sanyo Sells Mobile Phone Business to Kyocera
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Jan 23, 2008]
Sanyo and Kyocera couldn’t go it alone in the mobile phone
business, and Sanyo has been spinning off divisions to focus on
batteries. The problem for Kyocera is that adding a second
struggling handset line could make things worse, not better.
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MacWorld 2008: Apple Launches iTunes Movie Rentals, but No 3G or GPS
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| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Jan 16, 2008]
iTunes Movie Rentals keeps the iPhone
well ahead of rivals in
regards to mobile entertainment, but
Apple’s pace of innovation
appears to be slowing, leaving an
opening for rivals to
announce touchscreen phones with 3G
and GPS at 3GSM next month.
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CES 2008 Mobile Devices Wrap-Up
|
| Advisory Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Jan 14, 2008]
While there was no earth-shattering news at CES this year – and
all eyes are quickly moving to San Francisco to see what Apple
has planned – there was still plenty of mobile device news at
the big show in Las Vegas.
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CES 2008: Motorola Announces Video and Music Phones
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| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Jan 10, 2008]
Motorola’s new phones launched at CES
fill the gaps in its
portfolio; however, rivals already have
similar, if not better,
devices catering to the same target
markets. Neither the Z10
nor the ROKR E8 is strong enough to
create a new RAZR effect.
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CES 2008: Sony Ericsson Launches Three New Phones for the U.S.
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Jan 09, 2008]
Sony Ericsson launched three new
phones at CES. All should hit
the U.S. market with carrier distribution.
Two feature new
gesture-based interface actions and all
should be quite
competitive at their price points.
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CES 2008: Nokia to Create U.S. Version of N95 8GB
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Jan 08, 2008]
Nokia corrects its mistake of keeping the U.S. version of the
N95 a version behind its European equivalent and announces the
N95 8GB with U.S. 3G frequencies. It’s welcome, but hardly an
earth-shattering CES launch.
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HTC Advantage
|
| Product Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Dec 19, 2007]
The HTC Advantage is enormous in every respect: enormously
sized, enormously priced, and blessed with an enormous spec
list. Unfortunately, without a clear purpose, what could have
been a hot halo product is instead an enormous mistake.
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Nokia World 2007: Nokia “Comes With Music”– Seems Too Good to be True, and for U.S. Customers, It Is
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Dec 04, 2007]
Nokia “Comes With Music” demonstrates just how aggressive Nokia
is prepared to be as a hybrid device manufacturer / content
services provider. Too bad the devices it is tied to are
basically unavailable where most U.S. consumers buy phones.
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LG’s Venus Doesn’t Live Up to Promise
|
| Product Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 30, 2007]
Featurephones have been getting more touch sensitive all the
time. First there were touch sensitive media controls, then
full touchscreens. Someone at LG thought that it would be neat
to split the difference and created the Venus.
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Verizon Wireless Says BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 29, 2007]
Verizon Wireless is opening up its network to ‘any device, any
app’ in H2 2008. It’s too early to tell whether this will
change what mobile devices are available and how they are sold,
but even as a public relations move it is rather brilliant.
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Apple Forced to Offer Unlocked iPhone in Germany
|
| Advisory Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 28, 2007]
The iPhone’s European launch has hit a
bit of a snag, as the
requirement to offer unlocked versions
tests Apple’s ability to
define its own business model in
heterogeneous European
regulatory environments. U.S.
implications are minimal.
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T-Mobile Suspends Sales of Motorola’s Slidekick Slide
|
| Competitive Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 21, 2007]
Deliberately choosing a time to get the least media coverage
(Friday night), T-Mobile recalled Motorola’s Sidekick Slide
because opening and closing it causes random hard resets.
Didn’t Motorola fix its QC problems two years ago? Apparently
not.
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LG Voyager at Verizon Wireless Ready to Take on the iPhone
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 21, 2007]
The LG Voyager will not dent the iPhone’s
sales, but it should
sell briskly on its own at Verizon
Wireless, and if LG ever
concentrates on building one really good
product rather than a
dozen interesting ones, Apple could be in
trouble.
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$99 Is the New $49 This Holiday Season
|
| Advisory Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 20, 2007]
Around this time each year, we publish a
report about holiday pricing trends. This
year, a key development is the re-
emergence of feature phones selling for
$49 to $99 (many of which do not have
3G) that focus on music or messaging.
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Nokia Adds Innovation, a Huge Price Tag, and Some Bling to 8800 Line
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 15, 2007]
There is a market for outrageously expensive fashionphones, and
Nokia’s 8800 Arte and 8800 Sapphire Arte fit the bill. Perhaps
more importantly, both phones show off new usability
innovations that should appear at lower price points as well.
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Google Breathes Life into Android with 34 Partners and a Press Release
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 06, 2007]
Google’s Android and Open Handset
Alliance are generating a lot
of noise over a press release in advance
of an SDK for an OS
that will be used in phones not scheduled
to be available until
H2 2008; still, it is Google, so some hype
is warranted.
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HTC Shadow Brightens T-Mobile’s Lineup
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Nov 01, 2007]
With the launch of the Shadow, T-Mobile now has one of the
richest lineups of smartphones targeting young adults and
prosumers. The $149 Shadow is more sophisticated than a
Sidekick and less corporate than a BlackBerry.
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Pantech duo Brings Dual-slide Smartphone to AT&T
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 31, 2007]
Pantech’s $199 duo at AT&T should
appeal to those who need a
Windows Mobile QWERTY device for work,
but also want the
ability to hold it and dial like a feature
phone. However,
there is a lot of competition at and
around that price point.
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CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2007: AT&T Doubles Down on Samsung BlackJack II
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 25, 2007]
The original BlackJack was a hit at AT&T
despite battery life
so poor that two batteries had to be
included in the box. For
the BlackJack II, Samsung has made
improvements to nearly every
aspect of the device while actually
dropping the price.
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CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2007: Microsoft Aims Mobile Device Management Server at RIM
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 24, 2007]
Microsoft has long claimed its Windows Mobile/Exchange
ActiveSync solution is cheaper than the RIM/BES combination,
but is now moving to fill the security and manageability gaps
with an extra cost server option of its own.
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HTC Brings a Touch of, Well, Touch to Sprint
|
| Product Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 23, 2007]
Every carrier needs a touchscreen phone
as an alternative to the iPhone. Sprint’s
version of the Touch is better than the
European model and it should sell well,
but it still leaves users stuck somewhere
between their finger and a stylus.
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Web 2.0: Nokia N810 Improves Internet Tablet at Great Cost
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 19, 2007]
Nokia has improved the N800 Internet Tablet in almost every way
but one – it is smaller, has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, GPS,
more memory, and the software UI has been improved. However, at
$479, its value proposition no longer makes sense.
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Motorola Takes Half the Burden of UIQ from Sony Ericsson
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 18, 2007]
Motorola bought 50% of UIQ (the other provider besides Nokia of
a user interface layer for Symbian), sharing the burden with
Sony Ericsson, greatly enhancing UIQ’s ISV prospects, and
admitting its Linux/Java OS is not ready for prime time.
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Symbian Smartphone Show: Nokia Reaches Out and Touches S60
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 18, 2007]
Nokia sure can spread some nifty FUD; at the Symbian Smartphone
Show it showed a video of an iPhone-like Nokia phone and
promised touch-based API extensions for S60 developers. It may
be vaporware, but it could be an effective strategy.
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The Apple MVNO Experience
|
| Advisory Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 12, 2007]
One company has bucked the MVNO death trend, and is redefining
what it means to be a virtual operator: not Virgin Mobile –
Apple. With Apple’s European iPhone launches, it is clear that
Apple is also an MVNO, and an almost risk-free MVNO at that.
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Nokia Seeks Treasure in Maps, Offers $8.1 Billion for Navteq
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 03, 2007]
Nokia has been saying it is moving beyond handsets and into
services, and it certainly put its wallet where its mouth is,
ponying up $8 billion to buy NAVTEQ’s mapping, traffic, and POI
data rather than just licensing it as it did in the past.
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DigitalLife Expo 2007: Palm's Centro at Sprint Is Its First Truly New Hardware in Years
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Oct 01, 2007]
The Centro is a device Palm should have
launched two years ago,
but it is coming to Sprint now, and not a
moment too soon. It
does not solve Palm’s OS problem, but it
should help sales and
attract new customers to the brand.
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The iPhone Goes to Europe: Lessons from the U.S. Launch
|
| Advisory Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Sep 25, 2007]
AT&T’s iPhone launch didn’t quite go off without a hitch, but
the two companies did sell over 250,000 iPhones over just the
first weekend, with a million sold in the first 74 days. Here’s
what European operators can learn from AT&T’s experience.
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AT&T Launches BlackBerry 8820, a WiFi Upgrade to the 8800
|
| Competitive Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Sep 19, 2007]
AT&T’s version of the BlackBerry 8820
adds WiFi to the 8800, but only for data.
At $299, it will sell well, but CDMA/EV-DO
versions of the 8800 series provide
broader wireless broadband coverage
and they are less expensive at some
carriers.
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Nokia Advertises Its Intentions to Acquire Enpocket
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Sep 18, 2007]
Purchasing Enpocket takes Nokia another step away from its core
business, and risks alienating carriers and consumers alike.
Still, if mobile content is a big part of Nokia’s future,
advertising could fund that, and possibly fend off Google, too.
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Apple Hits One Million iPhone Sales
|
| Competitive Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Sep 11, 2007]
Steve Jobs has another winner on his hands as Apple hit its
self-appointed iPhone sales goal a few weeks early, proving
that it was close to the million mark before dropping the
price. A million $400-$600 phones on just one carrier is
impressive.
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Apple Launches Phone-less iPhone and Drops Price on the Real Thing
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Sep 07, 2007]
Apple has long commanded the MP3 player market, and the iPhone
is off to a fast start. With a phone-less iPhone (the iPod
touch) and a $200 price break on the iPhone, Apple is
exceptionally well positioned for the holiday sales season.
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IFA 2007: LG Viewty Points Camera at Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Apple
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Sep 06, 2007]
LG’s 5.1MP KU990 touch-screen camera
phone has everything going
for it except the name (hopefully “Viewty”
means something
intelligible in Korean), providing
competition for Nokia’s
Nseries, Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot line,
and Apple’s iPhone.
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Nokia Go Play: Nokia Promises iPhone-like UI, Launches New Nseries Without It
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Aug 30, 2007]
Nokia is promising to mimic the iPhone’s
user interface some time in 2008. In the
meantime, the U.S. gets a 3G version of
the N95, and everyone else gets an
improved N95 and the new N81, a high-
end smartphone that does a little of
everything.
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Nokia Go Play: Nokia Unveils New XpressMusic Phones
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Aug 30, 2007]
Unlike Nokia’s Nseries, its XpressMusic
brand is not supposed
to be revolutionary. However, Nokia just
introduced its
thinnest and most impressively balanced
music phone under that
brand.
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Verizon Wireless Joins with MTV and RealNetworks for… Something
|
| Competitive Intelligence Report |
Mobile Devices
- [Aug 23, 2007]
Verizon Wireless, RealNetworks, and MTV
got together to issue a
press release. While it is clear URGE is
being folded into
Rhapsody and some sort of wireless
service is under development
that could have a major impact,
everything else is unclear.
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Sprint Ahead Technology Summit: Sprint Brands WiMAX: “XOHM” and PTT: “Nextel Direct Connect”
|
| Show Update |
Mobile Devices
- [Aug 17, 2007]
Sprint used a Technology Summit to brand two of its key assets:
PTT (now known as “Nextel Direct Connect” regardless of
technology), and WiMAX (“XOHM”). Sprint has been under siege
lately - can two branding initiatives help? Surprisingly, yes.
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