Posts filed under 'Business'
Come mid 2008, Nokia will begin to rollout its unlimited music service dubbed “comes with it” to select countries. What is it? Purchase a select high end Nokia phone and it will include unlimited music downloads for 1 year. So far, Nokia has managed to sign up one label, Universal Music Group, and plans to add others. According to Nokia the deal will be profitable for both parties. That’s gotta be one expensive handset given the music label’s recent griping and complaining when it comes to ‘profits’. After one year, Nokia (and participating labels) hopes that users will be hooked on the service and renew - the fee has yet to be determined. Surprisingly, all music downloaded during the first year can be kept beyond the trial end date and played on a PC or Nokia. Of course there’s a much bigger scheme going on here. Nokia will soon launch their Ovi (means door in Finnish) website which will allow users to organize photos, music and more. Apparently, they’ve created some “neural network” that’ll display photos in a 3 dimensional like space and connect those to associated emails, contacts, locations shot, etc. Apparently, we should expect significantly upgraded handsets because the current and standard Nokia interface is beyond antiquated at this point. What’s my take? I’m surprised Nokia didn’t just scoop up Napster or Real, and leverage their already-in-place agreements with the music industry. Apple might be affected by this, but it’ll take years for Nokia to scratch their surface given their market penetration. After all, the ideal consumer (aside from one without any iPod) would be one with an old iPod and looking to upgrade to a handset that’s compatible with both future music services and their past music collection. If they have a small library of AAC encoded music (aka iTunes) they might just opt for the iPhone which will be in gen 2 by mid 2008.
Nokia Won’t Play iPhone’s Tune [Businessweek]
December 5th, 2007
T-Mobile Germany felt the squeeze and has finally given in. What happened you ask? Vodafone whined to the German courts that T-Mobile was dominating the iPhone market by selling a locked version of the iPhone. From Vodafone’s perspective this precluded consumers from choosing an alternative carrier. So to satisfy ‘the law; and comply with the German Court’s injunction, they conceded and will sell an unlocked version of the iPhone for $1,477. This move will allow T-Mobile to continue to sell a locked version of the iPhone for €399. In two weeks there will be a hearing to determine if the injuction - the one that makes T-Mobile sell an unlocked version - will remain in place.
T-Mobile Germany to Sell Unlocked iPhone - €999 [Fiercemobilecontent]
(Thanks Ryan)
November 21st, 2007
Apple’s Senior VP of Retail, Ron Johnson (sounds like a porn name), made over $112 million a few days ago. How so you ask? He cashed in some Apple shares that had a backdate price of $23.72 and was then able to unload them at $112 a piece later that day. Some guys have all the luck…
Apple SVP made $112 million yesterday and you didn’t [Valleywag]
November 1st, 2007
Got some used gadgets and don’t wanna deal with Ebay or Craigslist? Then give SecondRotation a shot.
Its pretty simple, actually. Enter your item, its condition, and your accepted payment methods (check or PayPal - I suggest PayPal). After that you enter your shipping information and print a ‘your shipping kit’. It’s all pretty simple. If your actual item varies in quality (upon arrival) from what you indicated, you’ll of course get less. I can’t imagine them offering more if it were the other way round, though.
Recycle Your Used Gadgets for Cash at SecondRotation [TechCrunch]
October 3rd, 2007
More then 24 hours after the iPhone price drop and Ebay sellers are still pushing them out the door at a premium. You’d think that the Apple event would’ve hit the far reaches of the globe but I guess not. That’s what you get for not reading Gadgetreview. Huh!
September 6th, 2007
A cool $710 million later and you too can own the 3rd largest PC maker in the US. Acer is simply looking to increase it’s footprint here in the US and also prevent Lenovo from making yet another acquisition. What’s shocking is that they purchased the struggling PC maker. Gateway’s hay day has come and gone. I purchased a Gateway P60 (the Pentium 1 with 60MHz) when they were at the top of their game. It was a solid machine, but I only ran DOS, downloaded porn pics (no movies back then) over my 28.8kbps modem and played video games. I think Acer has made a mistake but then again if they can reorg things and institute some of their Korean business practices (aka fire some folks and cut costs) then they might find themselves in a position for success with the Gateway brand. Who knows if they’ll kill the ‘cow’ branding but the deal does include Gateway’s Emachine line of computers as well. Part of Acer’s move was to get right of first refusal on the Lenovo Packard Bell deal. I don’t know too much about that, but you can read more about it at Business Week.
The Acer brand is number 6 in the US. With the purchase of Gateway they now have combined machine sales of 18.6 million beating out Lenovo which boasts 16.6 million.
August 27th, 2007
Paramount has dropped Blu Ray in favor of HD DVD. One, its cheaper to produce HD DVD discs. Two its more “market ready� – whatever that means. And three, HD DVD offered (allegedly) $50 million and $100 million in marketing dollars.
Paramount Opts for HD DVD Format [MarketingVox]
August 22nd, 2007
Unfortunately, my MacBook’s screen began to flicker (known problem) and the Airport card has issues connecting to networks (note that I said plural networks - tested it to make sure it wasn’t just mine). Fortunately, I am still under my 1 year warranty.  I figured my best bet was to take it to the Apple store and drop it off for service. Ain’t that simple. First you have to make an appointment; I can live with that. But the real hook is when you get there at the specified time you sit around wondering when your next. They have a screen that displays your place ‘in line’, but the employees don’t give you a time gauge. I eventually gave up (after about 20 minutes of having zero communication) and called Apple’s tech support. If you’ve got a tech problem and you’re under warranty I highly, highly suggest this. Apple sent me a prepaid box direct to my door within two days. No line, no silly questions and no need for patience.
Apple’s Tech Line: 1-800-275-2273
August 14th, 2007
The 99 cent store will sell 9 4GB iPhones for $.99 on Thursday, August 9th. They expect over 300 -400 people in line by 7.30am that day. I bet it’ll be worse. The deal is only available at their first store in Westchester, LA. The 99 cent store has sold iPods in the past for $.99. Folks in position 10 - 108 will have the opportunity to purchase a scooter for $0.99. No word on what kind of scooter it will be.
99¢ Only Stores Selling 9 iPhones For 99¢ To Promote Pricing [Marketing Daily]
August 6th, 2007
This just might explain why them damn Nintendo Wiis are so difficult to find…or not. A Canadian health club, Studio 55, has opened the first Wii Workout Station. Its 400 square feet of pure Wii exercise boasting a big screen projection. The gym’s owner estimates that users can burn up to 125 calories in a Wii workout session. Just another reason to leave the US and move to Toronto - JUST KIDDING!
Canadian gym puts Wii workout on its schedule [Reuters]
July 31st, 2007
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