Apples to oranges: Google and Amazon are too timid to copy Apple’s retail success
There is a strange duality in the world of brick and mortar tech stores today. In the last four years CompUSA, Borders, and Circuit City all went out of business. Many expect Best Buy to follow in the near future. At the same time, Apple has opened over 300 retail outlets worldwide. And recent reports indicate that Microsoft, Amazon, and Google plan to follow Apple’s lead.
The new Google store, which Bloomberg reported on yesterday, … Continue Reading
The “app economy” created 466K jobs, counting your developer’s favorite barista
Apps are everywhere these days, with founders from Instagram and Shazam starring in Super Bowl commercials. According to a new study from the non-partisan group TechNet, apps have created 466,000 American jobs since they arrived with the modern day smartphone in 2007. Dig into the data, however, and you’ll find only about a third of those are actual tech jobs.
It turns out that there were really only about 155,000 developer and tech support positions … Continue Reading
VentureBeat’s 2012 Mobile Summit: Great minds tackle 5 key mobile issues
VentureBeat is proud to announce our second annual Mobile Summit, where we are once again inviting 180 top mobile executives, investors, and policymakers to discuss five significant issues facing the mobile industry.
The event will be held at the beautiful Cavallo Point Resort (just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco) on April 2-3. The Mobile Summit is an invitation only event, but you can request an invite here.
We decided to host the … Continue Reading
Amazon stays frustratingly silent on Kindle Fire sales data
With the rumblings from Amazon about the early success of its new Kindle Fire over the holiday season, the company’s disappointing fourth quarter results came as a surprise.
More surprising was Amazon’s silence regarding total Kindle Fire sales for the quarter. During the earnings call, Amazon’s executive team deferred questions about the device to the press release, which simply regurgitated sales data from December.
The Kindle Fire, which is Amazon’s 7-inch Android-based tablet device, did … Continue Reading
Got big pockets? Samsung’s Galaxy Note headed to AT&T on Feb. 19 for $300
Skinny jeans wearers need not apply. AT&T announced Tuesday that Samsung’s massive 5.3-inch Galaxy Note — which was one of the most intriguing devices at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show — will be available in the U.S. on February 19 for $300 with contract.
The Galaxy Note occupies a weird space between a smartphones and a tablets, but for some it may just be the perfect balance of the two form factors. Pre-orders for the … Continue Reading
Amazon estimated to have sold 6M Kindle Fires in Q4
Amazon will reveal its fourth quarter earnings Tuesday and finally put to bed the hottest question of the new year: Just how many Kindle Fire tablets did the company sell?
Can’t wait one more day? You’re in luck. Stifel Nicolaus digital-media analyst Jordan Rohan estimates the Kindle Fire performed better than expected, with Amazon selling 6 million of its affordable tablets in Q4.
The Wall Street veteran upped his fourth-quarter sales guesstimate by one million … Continue Reading
Kindle Fire leads Android in taking a bite out of iPad market share
Good sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet led to significant gains for Google’s Android operating system in tablet market share during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to new data from mobile analytics firm Flurry.
Flurry, which purports to measure application sessions on more than 90 percent of all Android devices, found that Android tablets gained 10 percent share from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011 and now represent 39 percent of the overall tablet market.… Continue Reading
Samsung’s Galaxy S II leads it to record profit of $4.7B
It’s good to be the Android king: Samsung today announced its record fourth quarter earnings, in which it saw operating profits of 5.3 trillion won (around $4.7 billion) on revenues of 47.3 trillion won (around $42 billion).
That’s a decent jump over last year, when it reported earnings of 3 trillion won (about $2.6 billion) on 41.8 trillion won (about $36.5 billion) in revenue.
Samsung performance was in line with its guidance from earlier in … Continue Reading
Droid doesn’t: Motorola loses $80M in Q4, phone shipments down at 10.5M
Without any wildly successful Android devices this quarter, Motorola took a beating during the fourth quarter.
Motorola reported a loss of $80 million on revenue of $3.4 billion, compared to earnings of $80 million last year. The company’s mobile device shipments were down as well at 10.5 million, a slight dip from 11.3 million a year ago.
Motorola’s earnings show how difficult it is for Android phone makers to remain profitable in the face of … Continue Reading
Apple’s staggering Q1 earnings by the numbers
Apple investors jumped for joy at the company’s first quarter earnings report today, with results that beat high Wall Street expectations. The company earned a record net profit of $13.06 billion on revenue of $46.33 billion and sold a record 37 million iPhone units.
Apple notably missed Wall Street’s expectations for the first time in a long time during its last earnings report. But the company changed the release of its iPhone launch schedule by … Continue Reading
NBC News to start publishing interactive e-books
Interactive e-books are a hot business. NBC News is the latest major player to dip its toes into the e-book publishing business, the company announced on Monday.
The new unit, called called NBC Publishing, will exploit NBC’s extensive library of archival video, audio, and text to create interactive e-books, Publishers Weekly reports. The new group will be able to take content from all NBC News properties as well as NBC Sports, NBCUniversal, Universal Pictures, and … Continue Reading
Amazon sells the Kindle Fire at a loss because it makes so much money on media
During the holiday season Amazon used its massive sales channel to push the Kindle Fire hard. It moves millions of units, and according to studies from IHS iSupply, was losing about $2 per unit. That’s a big difference from Apple, which makes a healthy profit on sales of its iPad tablet.
But according to a new poll from RBC Capital, Amazon stands to earn about $136 in additional revenue from every customer who bought a … Continue Reading
The view from CES: The top 10 trends in technology for 2012
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a huge festival of gadgetry, but there’s no better place to get a bead on where technology is going in the coming year.
Among the 153,000 attendees at the show in Las Vegas last week were five VentureBeat staffers who were sniffing out the big trends. This story is our list of the most evident trends among the rows and rows of gadgets at CES.
The convention is like … Continue Reading
Intel marketing guy: Netbooks aren’t dead yet
Mark Miller has one of those hot and cold jobs. He is the director of marketing at Intel for netbooks and tablets. Tablets, of course, are hot. But netbooks are cold. Still, in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, Miller said that netbooks aren’t dead.
Netbooks are the stripped-down laptop-like computers that cost around $200 to $300 and were created only for surfing the web. They were a hot commodity a couple … Continue Reading
Hands on with Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga, a Windows 8 laptop/tablet hybrid (video)
Lenovo has been busy at CES 2012 with debuts for smart TVs and laptops, but its coolest device may be the upcoming IdeaPad Yoga, a laptop that can bend over backwards and turn into a Windows 8 tablet.
With laptops beginning to model tablets in terms of thinness and lightness, it was only a matter of time before we began to see a model that blurs the line further by essentially being both. The IdeaPad … Continue Reading
Dell plans to reenter the tablet arena with a bang later this year
After Dell’s Streak tablet quickly became roadkill, it seemed that the computer maker had given up on slates altogether. Instead, Dell has been quietly working on a major tablet comeback.
The company has plans to release a consumer tablet later this year, and is paying special attention to creating a valuable ecosystem for consumers on the device, Dell chief commercial officer Steve Felice told Reuters today at CES.
“We have been taking our time. The … Continue Reading
BlueStacks brings Android apps to Windows 8′s Metro interface
After gaining notoriety for bringing Android apps to Windows 7, plucky startup Bluestacks is setting its sights on Windows 8, the company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show today.
But BlueStacks isn’t just porting its software over to the new operating system — it’s taking special care not to mar Windows 8′s sexy Metro user interface. The company has managed to integrate Android apps into Windows 8′s app tiles, making Android apps virtually indistinguishable from … Continue Reading
Samsung’s Smart TV evolves with motion, voice controls and upgrade slots
Samsung is quickly beginning to generating Apple-levels of hype at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Last year’s Samsung’s CES press conference was a complete madhouse, and this year was no different. Today at the Las Vegas tradeshow, Samsung showed off a major update to its Smart TV lineup, which will bring a slick new interface, as well as motion and voice controls to the platform.
Boo-keun Yoon, president of Samsung’s consumer electronics decision kicked off the … Continue Reading
AT&T announces a slew of LTE 4G devices, plus an API platform for devs
In a bid to catch up with Verizon’s LTE lead, AT&T announced a plethora of new LTE 4G smartphones and tablets today at its annual developer summit — many of which will be exclusive to the carrier.
Additionally, AT&T unveiled its grand plans to court developers with a new API platform, which will make it easier to create compelling apps, together with a new cloud platform dubbed AT&T Cloud Architect.
At the developer summit, which … Continue Reading
USB 3.0 to reach mobile this year; promises faster data transfers and charging
The high-speed USB 3.0 standard will finally make its way to smartphones and tablets by the end of 2012, the organization behind USB standard said at the Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday.
In addition to the inevitable faster data transfer speeds, the USB 3.0 ports will also allow mobile devices to charge faster since they deliver more power, reports PC World.
In the battle for the next major high-speed data port, USB 3.0 will be … Continue Reading
