Explaining Value of Business IP Telephony in 4 Minutes

Tablets are the New Gaming and Video Platform

Any brand-new consumer electronics category will feature some new lead app, feature and use case. For the iPod it was music, for the iPod Touch it arguably has been games and web apps. For the new category of tablets, it appears games and video consumption actually are emerging as the lead apps, even though tablets continue to be used for some business applications and light consumer computing tasks as well.

Wi-Fi remains the connection of choice. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson says half a million tablets on the AT&T network had active 3G connections. But something on the order of three million tablets get sold each quarter.

For most consumer products, price remains the single most important factor in consumers’ purchase decisions. But tablets appear to have been somewhat different in the early going, largely because of the early adopter profile of most Apple iPad buyers. 

Price ranks fourth among purchase considerations in one survey by NPD Group. Only 77 percent of potential tablet buyers say price factors very highly in their purchase decision. Click images for a larger view. 

Yankee Group : Research Report

Verizon Could Bring Apple Millions of iPhone Users

Opinions are split on how many iPhone customers Verizon could take away from AT&T. Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research said he believes initial sales will mostly involve Existing Verizon customers who want to upgrade to the iPhone and Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA customers who weren't willing to switch to AT&T because of its poor network reputation might drive most of Verizon Wireless iPhone sales, some believe.

AT&T also has launched promotions to lock in existing iPhone customers on its network in advance of the Verizon iPhone launch. AT&T recently launched a promotion offering $49 3GS phones as well as easier upgrades to the iPhone 4. Many other iPhone owners are on the carrier's family or business plans, making it trickier to switch.

Many observers predict sales of nine million to 12 million iPhones on the Verizon network in 2011.

Verizon Could Bring Apple Millions of iPhone Users - WSJ.com (subscription required)

IPv6 Tutorial

Get Ready for "Twitter Phones"

A year ago, Twitter mobile devices were used to create around 20 percent to 25 percent of tweets , but now this has risen to nearly 40 percent of all tweets, Twitter says. So watch for the company to optimize Twitter use on mobiles even more. That might mean pre-loaded Twitter or even the ability to "Twitter optimize" a device.

CES 2011: Get Ready for Twitter-Embedded Phones

Jajah "Dynamic Buttons" for In-App Communications

Jajah Buttons add communications functionality to any website.

Sprint as Wal-Mart?

“Sprint is at a crossroads,” said Craig Moffett, a New York-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “Their time-to- market advantage is now largely gone for 4G.”

That's true enough. What isn't so clear is how Sprint's positioning will evolve, now that the 4G platform does not offer such uniqueness.

Some might argue that Sprint will have emphasize its lower cost plans for unlimited wireless data use. "Unlimited," assuming the other carriers do not offer it, will offer some uniqueness.

I suspect Sprint will do more than that. Whether Sprint would agree with the Wal-Mart analogy is not clear. That Sprint would base its strategy on that seems unlikely. We'll see.

Sprint May Become Wal-Mart of Mobile as Rivals Move to `4G' - Bloomberg