Google exec: Android was “best deal ever”

Buying Android Inc., the wireless-software startup founded by Andy Rubin, was Google’s “best deal ever,” said David Lawee, vice president of corporate development at the search giant.

Google acquired Android in 2005 for an undisclosed price which has been estimated at $50 million.

Google exec: Android was “best deal ever” | VentureBeat

Microsoft Says Tablets Are Not A Threat to PCs

Microsoft CFO Peter Klein says he is “confident” that the rise of tablets will expand the market for PCs, saying he was “enthusiastic about our opportunity” and insisting that consumers will continue to turn to Windows for “choice and value.”

Executives also said that to date they had not seen a “material” shift from low-end PCs to tablets. Some will not agree with Klein or Microsoft, but so far the iPad might be a new device category, rather than a full replacement for a PC. What might happen later, when early adopter market is satiated, and tablets start to be available at lower cost, in different configurations, remains to be seen.

Some light users who rely on email and ebook reading might find a tablet a perfectly workable substitute.

Microsoft Says Tablets Are Not A Threat | paidContent

Appcelerator, PayPal Team for Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce is a huge business opportunity because, at least in the United States, there is not much infrastructure to support it, though that appears to be changing fast. One example is Appcelerator's recent integration with PayPal, which will allow smartphone apps to use PayPal more easily as a mobile payment mechanism.

Now iPhone, Android and iPad developers using the paid version of the company’s Titanium framework get the ability to conduct mobile commerce.

Virgin Media Prepares for 100 Mbps Service Launch

Virgin Media has announced the rollout timetable of its 100 Mbps broadband access service, which will priced between £35 a month (about $56) when bought in a bundle, or just £45 per month (about $72) when bought as a stand-alone product.

The 100 Mbps service will go on sale from December.

The average download speed in the United Kingdom was 5.2Mbps in May 2010, up from 4.1Mbps in April 2009. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of U.K. residential broadband connections had a headline speed of above 10Mbps in May 2010, compared to eight percent in April 2009, according to Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator.

Virgin Media

Why Don't All Users Buy the Broadband Equivalent of a Lexus?

Faster is better, where it comes to broadband. But so is a Lexus, right? But there's a reason we have vehicles in all sizes, optimized for different applications, at different price points.

We do different things with vehicles, and for most of us, money is not unlimited. Were it not so, perhaps most people would drive a Lexus. If one assumes there is very little a single cannot do with 15 Mbps, then a family can well benefit from 50 Mbps, if it believes it will have three or four users online, all at the same time, all watching video at the same time.

Lots of households will find that overkill, at least for the moment. In some cases, users can buy 50 Mbps service from Comcast, for about $100 a month. That's a better deal than $145 a month. But the issue for many users will be how much those users really want to spend for service, when they are paying their own money.

Just for Fun: Time Traveler Using Mobile Phone in 1928 Chaplin Film

Just because we all need a break from serious pursuits....

Mobile Gmail Now "Feels" More Like an App

Google has improved the performance of Gmail on an iPhone, suggesting that the performance gap between native mobile apps and web apps will grow smaller over time.

The new improvements make scrolling faster. In fact scrolling speed seems to match swipe gestures. This is helpful for long conversations where a few quick flicks will get you to the information you need much faster than before.

Also, toolbars stay on screen while users are scrolling, rather than moving down after each scroll. Being able to access toolbars from any point on the page should make it easier to triage email and move around the app.

Gmail in mobile Safari: now even more like a native app - Official Google Mobile Blog

Aro Mobile Launches in Beta, Unifies Mobile Contact, Social, Email Information

Aro Mobile , a mobile application now in beta mode, aims to simplify mobile use by unifying information stored in the mobile that relate to people and contacts. It's another example of consumer "unified communications" that illustrates why it has been harder than many thought for business-oriented UC solutions to take root: there are lots of ways to unify specific parts of the communication environment, without unifying "everything."

Accelerating Hosted PBX Services

Steve Gleave talks about accelerating sales of hosted PBX services

Many service providers I talk to would often prefer their sales teams to sell hosted PBXs over premises based alternatives. But the reality is that market adoption for hosted business services can be hindered by sales strategies, pricing models and marketing pitches that don't stack up when compared next to premises-based solutions.

If this is your dilemma you may find that:

* your existing sales teams are too familiar with premises PBXs' familiar features, benefits, and pricing
* there is a much stronger organisational structure built to sell and support in-house PBXs than for hosted services
* individual salespeople have deep, field-level relationships with PBX vendors, many of which provide sales incentives
* general suspicion towards hosted PBX as an inferior product.

Read the full article here: Overheard: Water cooler talk from the Metaswitch office, July 2010

Verizon Business Adds Global Managed Ethernet Services

Verizon Business is expanding its Managed Services portfolio with the addition of "Global Managed Ethernet." Now, multinational organizations can use Verizon Ethernet services in a managed network environment containing just those services, or in combination with other network services for a complete end-to-end, global managed network solution.

New managed offerings include Ethernet Private Line Service, Ethernet Virtual Private Line Service and Virtual Private LAN Service. Customers who employ Private IP Layer 2 will also be able to choose a managed service.

'For the first time, our customers can combine the power of MPLS and Ethernet in a fully managed end-end-to-end global networking solution,' said Anthony Recine, vice president of networking and communications solutions for Verizon Business. 'Together our Private IP and Ethernet services deliver an ideal business communications platform to handle big-bandwidth applications in a similar fashion, no matter where they are located around the world.'

These managed services support a variety of applications including VoIP, storage and business continuity, large file transfers, distance learning, content delivery and unified communications.

Verizon | Verizon Business Adds Global Managed Ethernet to Managed Network Services Portfolio

10% of Mobile Users Check Social Network Status Daily

Social networking is a logical and growing activity for mobile phone users, especially those with smartphones, but also feature phone users to an extent. That said, 73 percent of respondents to a recent Forrester Research survey say they "never" use social networks on their phones, reflecting the relatively small percentage of smart phones in the installed base.

That's one reason about half of users say they never use mobile apps, either. Most phones being used today do not support app downloads.

Average Fixed Line Broadband Connection Represents 15 Gbytes a Month of Demand

The average fixed-line broadband connection generates 14.9 GBytes of Internet traffic per month, up from 11.4 GBytes per month in 2009, an increase of 31 percent, Cisco Systems says, in its latest "Visual Networking Index." As you might expect, video consumption is driving the growth.

In North America, nearly 60 percent of the top 100 sites for the last year were video and gaming sites. Video streaming and downloads (including gaming), social networking, and software updates dominate the top 10 sites in North America. Approximately 29 percent of the traffic from the top 100 sites in this region comes from the top 10 sites.

see the full results here

$1 Billion Mobile Video Calling Market in 2015

In-Stat projects mobile video calling revenue will exceed $1 billion by 2015, and also expects "Facetime," the iPhone 4 app for video calling, will be among the key drivers.

In-Stat predicts the number of mobile video calling users will grow at a 115 percent compound annual growth rate through 2015, with Asia/Pacific consumers representing 53 percent of the mobile video calling minutes used by 2015.

Apple, Fring, OoVoo, Qik and Skype are among firms In-Stat believes will be driving the usage. By 2015, mobile video calling will result in over 9 petabytes in data traffic in North America.

In-Stat - Press Releases

Tough Christmas Selling Season for Consumer Electronics is Forecast

The 2010 Christmas selling season for consumer electronics isn't looking so good, says Stephen Baker, NPD Group VP, at least from the retailer and manufacturer standpoint. Pricing levels continue to flatten, so average selling prices are flat.

Consumers have come to expect 20 percent to 25 percent price declines every year, so small movements of five percent or less are unlikely to inspire them to rush into the stores and buy.

The other issue is that consumers are in the midst of technology "refresh" cycles. Just half of all flat-panel TV purchases are now made by first-time buyers. And more than 80 percent of the notebook installed base was less than three years old at the time of NPD’s Household Penetration survey earlier in 2010.

With the possible exception of Apple's iPad and other new tablets, there does not seem to be some compelling new application or device to prompt a big upsurge in buying, Baker suggests.

Also, the 2010 Christmas selling season will face tough comparisons with the 2009 holiday season. In 2009, categories such as flat-panel TVs saw 25 percent sales increases, and notebooks were up twice that amount. It always is tougher to show current period growth when the comparison is to an earlier period with robust sales growth.

The exception will be the iPad and tablets, in all likelihood.

NPD’s research also indicates worsening consumer sentiment. "Consumers who were considering just cutting back on  purchases are now not planning to buy anything at all," says Baker.

read more here

US Companies Have $1 Trillion, But Won’t Spend It

U.S. enterprises are hoarding cash, Moody's reports. Enterprises now collectively hold about $1 trillion in cash, and 20 firms hold about a third of the amount. These include Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle and Apple. Enterprises are hanging onto their cash in case another economic downturn is in the offing, and in part because economic growth is so sluggish at the moment.

The size of those cash hoards also partly explains why job creation has been so sluggish. Smaller companies can't get credit and large companies have cash but won't invest it.

US Companies Have $1 Trillion, But Won’t Spend It, At Least Not On Jobs - 24/7 Wall St