Can HTML5 replace an iPad app? Financial Times to find out — Apple News, Tips and Reviews

It is one thing to debate the merits of HTML5 as an alternative to creating and using mobile apps. It is quite another to note that, within the Apple iOS ecosystem, there is an "application tax" of 30 percent of gross revenues for any entity selling content within the Apple App Store.

The Financial Times, which in June introduced a tablet and smartphone-optimized version of its digital edition, has removed its apps from the iOS App Store instead of complying with Apple’s requirements for software that offer in-app access to subscription content.

The Financial Times instead will work outside the App Store using HTML5 apps, keeping the 30 percent of gross revenue it otherwise would have had to pay Apple.

Apple now requires that newspaper and periodical apps offering access to subscription content either offer subscriptions through in-app purchase, which entitles Apple to a 30 percent cut of all revenue.

FT‘s subscriptions were handled outside of the store, and rather than just remove the sign-up link like The Wall Street Journal did, FT apparently prefers removing its native software altogether in the hopes that readers will make the transition to the web-based app.

Can HTML5 replace an iPad app? Financial Times to find out

Google Gets into "Offers" Business

Whether you like to call the service a "daily deals" business, social shopping, mobile coupons or something else, Google now has launched its social shopping service.

Some of us think it is important not so much because consumers need yet one more channel to receive coupons, but because Google Wallet,among other efforts, ultimately will win or lose based on the ability to provide an engaging, easy to use and valuable way of supplying new value for consumers when shopping.

Google launches "offers"

"Consumer Welfare" Will be Front and Center in DoJ Lawsuit

There are many possible "losers" and potential "winners" from the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit challenging the proposed AT&T purchase of T-Mobile USA. But Jerry Ellig of the Technology Liberation Front thinks one actual upside, from a consumer welfare angle, is the centrality of "consumer welfare" as the central issue.

"For once, the high-profile action everyone pays attention to will occur in an antitrust forum where the decision criterion is the effects of the merger on consumer welfare, period," says Ellis. "Regardless of what one thinks about the merger, it’s nice to see that we’ll finally have a knock-down, drag-out fight based on whether a big telecommunications merger harms consumers and competition."

"That’s the antitrust standard the Department of Justice has to satisfy in order to prevent the merger," and also is a central concern of economic thinking that drives thinking about antitrust regulation.

One good thing about DoJ challenge of AT&T purchase of T-Mobile USA

25% of Small Businesses Have "Virtualized" Servers

A new study by CDW found that 25 percent of small businesses have virtualized at least some of their servers, attracted by efficiency, cost savings and flexibility to meet changing business demands, and that the average percentage of servers virtualized at those businesses grew steadily from 28 percent to 33 percent between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011.  

Even among small businesses that have not yet implemented server virtualization, 73 percent report they are investigating or planning to deploy the technology, with investments averaging 17 percent of their IT budgets over the next two years, CDW says.

On average, small businesses using virtualization are saving 18 percent of their IT budget or $19,400 per year, the report found.

CDW suggests that server virtualization can make sense when there is a need to replace older servers, or when organizations already are running five to seven dedicated servers. Ownership of servers that are lightly used is another instance where virtualization might make sense.

Physical space issues, rising support, energy or real estate costs also can be drivers. Businesses expecting significant growth, or with high needs for application availability and protection from disruption likewise are good candidates for a virtualization approach.

Sponsored by CDW, the survey of 300 small business professionals was conducted by Spiceworks, an IT-focused social network.

FCC Chairman Says Agency Also Has Concerns

"By filing suit today, the Department of Justice has concluded that AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile would substantially
lessen competition in violation of the antitrust laws," says Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.

"Competition is an essential component of the FCC's statutory public interest analysis, and although our process is not complete, the record before this agency also raises serious concerns about the impact of the proposed transaction on
competition," Genachowski said.

Genachowski statement

Has U.S. Mobile Market Finally Reached Limits of Market Concentration?

In any mature market, there comes a point where the biggest players simply are not allowed to get any bigger. The U.S. cable TV industry already ran into that limit, as there recently have been formal market share caps that limit the total number of subscibers (as a percentage of total) that any single contestant can serve. Though those caps were overturned in court, it isn't clear that Comcast or other cable operators really want to test the limits directly. 30% subscriber cap overturned

That might now be the case for the U.S. mobile industry. That would not mean smaller contestants are barred from growth through acquisition, but the DoJ opposition could signal that the crucial tipping point has been reached, and that both AT&T and Verizon Wireless now will face limits on the percentage of U.S wireless customers each can serve.

Here, Department of Justice Acting Assistant Attorney General Sharis A. Pozen talks about rationale for DoJ antitrust finding:

The Antitrust Division conducted an exhaustive investigation. We conducted dozens of interviews of customers and competitors, and we reviewed more than 1 million AT&T and T-Mobile documents.   

The conclusion we reached was clear. Any way you look at this transaction, it is anti-competitive. Our action today seeks to ensure that our nation enjoys the competitive wireless industry it deserves.

T-Mobile has been an important source of competition among the national carriers through innovation and quality enhancements.   For example, T-Mobile rolled-out the first nationwide high-speed data network using advanced HSPA+ technology and the first handset using the Android operating system.   It has also been an important source of price competition in the industry.   Unless this merger is blocked, competition and innovation in the mobile wireless market, in the form of low prices and innovative wireless handsets, operating systems, and calling plans, will be diminished—and consumers will suffer.  

T-Mobile competes with the other three national providers to attract individual consumers, businesses, and government customers for mobile wireless telecommunications services. They compete on price, plan structure, network coverage, quality, speed, devices, and operating systems.   A combination of AT&T and T-Mobile would eliminate this price competition and innovation.   It would reduce the number of nationwide competitors in the marketplace from four to three.   Eliminating this aggressive competitor, which offers low pricing and innovative products, would hurt consumers, businesses, and government customers that rely on a competitive marketplace to provide them with the best products at the best possible price.

DoJ outlines rationale

Department of Justice Talks about Opposition to AT&T Purchase of T-Mobile USA

The Department of Justice today filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc.   The department said that the proposed $39 billion transaction would substantially lessen competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services across the United States, resulting in higher prices, poorer quality services, fewer choices and fewer innovative products for the millions of American consumers who rely on mobile wireless services in their everyday lives.
The department’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to prevent AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom AG.

“The combination of AT&T and T-Mobile would result in tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for mobile wireless services,” said Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole.   “Consumers across the country, including those in rural areas and those with lower incomes, benefit from competition among the nation’s wireless carriers, particularly the four remaining national carriers.   This lawsuit seeks to ensure that everyone can continue to receive the benefits of that competition.”

“T-Mobile has been an important source of competition among the national carriers, including through innovation and quality enhancements such as the roll-out of the first nationwide high-speed data network,” said Sharis A. Pozen, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.   

“Unless this merger is blocked, competition and innovation will be reduced, and consumers will suffer.” Mobile wireless telecommunications services play a critical role in the way Americans live and work, with more than 300 million feature phones, smart phones, data cards, tablets and other mobile wireless devices in service today.   

Four nationwide providers of these services – AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon – account for more than 90 percent of mobile wireless connections.   The proposed acquisition would combine two of those four, eliminating from the market T-Mobile, a firm that historically has been a value provider, offering particularly aggressive pricing.  

According to the complaint, AT&T and T-Mobile compete head to head nationwide, including in 97 of the nation’s largest 100 cellular marketing areas.   They also compete nationwide to attract business and government customers.  AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile would eliminate a company that has been a disruptive force through low pricing and innovation by competing aggressively in the mobile wireless telecommunications services marketplace.

The complaint cites a T-Mobile document in which T-Mobile explains that it has been responsible for a number of significant “firsts” in the U.S. mobile wireless industry, including the first handset using the Android operating system, Blackberry wireless email, the Sidekick, national Wi-Fi “hotspot” access, and a variety of unlimited service plans.   

T-Mobile was also the first company to roll out a nationwide high-speed data network based on advanced HSPA+ (High-Speed Packet Access) technology.  The complaint states that by January 2011, an AT&T employee was observing that “[T-Mobile] was first to have HSPA+ devices in their portfolio…we added them in reaction to potential loss of speed claims.”

The complaint details other ways that AT&T felt competitive pressure from T-Mobile.   The complaint quotes T-Mobile documents describing the company’s important role in the market:

• T-Mobile sees itself as “the No. 1 value challenger of the established big guys in the market and as well positioned in a consolidated 4-player national market”; and
• T-Mobile’s strategy is to “attack incumbents and find innovative ways to overcome scale disadvantages.   [T-Mobile] will be faster, more agile, and scrappy, with diligence on decisions and costs both big and small.   Our approach to market will not be conventional, and we will push to the boundaries where possible. . . . [T-Mobile] will champion the customer and break down industry barriers with innovations. . . .”

The complaint also states that regional providers face significant competitive limitations, largely stemming from their lack of national networks, and are therefore limited in their ability to compete with the four national carriers.   And, the department said that any potential entry from a new mobile wireless telecommunications services provider would be unable to offset the transaction’s anticompetitive effects because it would be difficult, time-consuming and expensive, requiring spectrum licenses and the construction of a network.

The department said that it gave serious consideration to the efficiencies that the merging parties claim would result from the transaction.   The department concluded AT&T had not demonstrated that the proposed transaction promised any efficiencies that would be sufficient to outweigh the transaction’s substantial adverse impact on competition and consumers.  Moreover, the department said that AT&T could obtain substantially the same network enhancements that it claims will come from the transaction if it simply invested in its own network without eliminating a close competitor.

DoJ statement