Tech news from around the web:
Motorola Xoom’s new tablet prescription
Just ahead of an updated iPad, Motorola has come out with the best Android tablet to date to keep Apple up to the mark. The Xoom features Android 3.0, codenamed Honeycomb, which represents a big leap forward in terms of an interface purpose-designed for a larger tablet screen. The Xoom was the subject of this week’s Personal Technology column in the FT’s Business Life section. Read more
Atrix 4G laptop has smartphone behind it
Smartphone makers have been claiming for some time that their products are becoming as powerful as PCs, but with its new Atrix 4G phone, Motorola is actually proving its point by turning it into a laptop. I have been trying the Atrix 4G for the past week, most of the time docking it to a screen-and-keyboard laptop accessory that uses the guts of the Atrix for processing, memory and internet connectivity. The combination is unusual, but on the whole, works well and is being offered by AT&T in the US in an attractive package deal. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Motorola Devour: Full Review
Motorola is on a roll with its Android-based smartphone launches. Hot on the heels of its Mobile World Congress announcements the Motorola Devour went on sale at Best Buy a few days ago for the bargain basement price of $99.
The same sleek all aluminium-bodied handset, exclusive to Verizon Wireless in the US, will cost $149 with a new 2-year contract (after a $100 mail-in rebate) when it launches at Verizon’s high street stores later this month. Read more
Motorola could ground Iridium launch
The past has a way of catching up with you. Iridium, the satellite phone company, has been working hard to re-invent itself following its 1999 bankruptcy. Last September it returned to the stock market through a reverse takeover, and has set about raising money for a new fleet of low-earth orbiting satellites.
In the 1990s Iridium launched with the idea of selling satphones to a wide consumer market, but was soon overtaken by the mobile phone industry. It became chiefly a niche provider of phones to aid workers and the military.
Now, Matt Desch, chief executive, believes there could be a big new market to be exploited in tracking all sorts of objects, from trucks and cargo containers to polar bears, by satellite. Read more
Moto’s Devour joins Droid at Verizon Wireless
Motorola‘s share of the global mobile phone market has fallen from a Razor-fuelled 22 plus per cent four years ago, to just 3.7 per cent in the latest quarter. But don’t count the US phone maker out just yet.
Verizon Wireless, the largest US mobile phone network operator, confirmed today that it will start selling its second Android-based Motorola smartphone next month. Read more
Elfin Pixi is a Palm for your palm
Apparently robotic hamsters are the cute must-have gift this Christmas, but, as they’re in short supply, the Palm Pixi might make a good alternative.
Palm’s newest smartphone, made available on November 15 on the Sprint network in the US, has a cuddly form factor you can almost fit in your palm and an interface to coo over. Read more
Droid – the good, the bad and the ugly
Droid, the most hyped Android phone to date – even Google promoted it on its home page today – is finally available to buy in Verizon Wireless stores.
More than 100 people queued at midnight outside a midtown Manhattan store to be among the first members of the public to get their hands on one.
I’ve been lucky enough to have one on loan for more than a week now, so here’s my assessment after the jump of whether it has been worth the wait and queues. Read more
More smartphones, lower margins
It’s been apparent for some time that the spate of touch-screen smartphones now hitting the market will dent profit margins in the hottest part of the mobile business, but Wall Street seems only now to be digesting that fact.
The slumping share prices of Research in Motion and Palm over the past fortnight make this case eloquently. Two weeks ago, not coincidentally, was the weekend that Verizon began its guerrilla marketing campaign for Motorola’s Droid (see Chris Nuttall’s first impressions last week). Since then, Palm’s stock is off 35 per cent and RIM is down 20 per cent, while Motorola is up.
It’s clearly ridiculous to think that one handset can cause this much damage: what is sinking in are the implications of the much bigger wave of competition that is about to hit. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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