Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar
Mark Bridge writes:
The Rockstar Consortium. That name sounds as though it could be promising more than it can deliver, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. It’s the group of mobile companies that picked up Nortel’s portfolio of several thousand tech patents for $4.5 billion. And now, its members – including Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony – have set some of those patents on their biggest competitors.
Article rating: No rating
Compare and contrast
Mark Bridge writes:
Talk about a difference. In preliminary results last week, HTC announced its first-ever quarterly loss while Samsung revealed record quarterly profits.
Curiously, many of the week’s other news stories also had a companion headline to provide a contrast.
Article rating: No rating
Welcome to the not-so-silly season
Mark Bridge writes:
August is traditionally known as the ‘silly season’… but last week’s mobile industry news was all very serious. Apple started with a move designed to reassure customers about unsafe iPhone chargers by arranging a discounted exchange scheme – and it ended the week with a patent victory in the USA.
Article rating: No rating
Surprises and statistics
Mark Bridge writes:
Google’s big announcement last week involved the company introducing Android v4.3 (as expected), launching a new Nexus 7 tablet (as expected) and also revealing a ‘Chromecast’ HDMI adaptor that’ll stream from most portable devices. That was more of a surprise.
Article rating: No rating
Money, messaging, microphones and M2M
Mark Bridge writes:
This week there was only one set of financial results that attracted the mainstream tech media. Apple reported the first drop in quarterly profit for several years as figures fell by 18% to around £6.1 billion. On the positive side, it made around £6.1 billion profit. It also announced dates for its developer conference in June and promised a new version of iOS.
Article rating: No rating