T-Mobile Offers Premium BlackBerry Torch — But at a Premium (NewsFactor)

T-Mobile will soon offer a premium BlackBerry device, the Torch 9810, at a premium price, $249 with a two-year contract. That's $200 more than AT&T charges for the Research In Motion smartphone, which it started selling in August.

Emphasizing the traditional appeal of BlackBerry devices to business users, T-Mobile is giving them first crack at the Torch: they can order it today while other customers must wait until Nov. 9. The $249 price is after a $50 mail-in rebate card and with a two-year voice and data contract.

Fast Processor, Fast Data Speed

Compatible with T-Mobile's high speed HSPA+ data network, which the carrier calls 4G, the Torch is powered by the latest-version BlackBerry 7 operating system and packs a 1.2 gigahertz processor, with 3.2-inch TFT VGA capacitive touch-screen display and full QWERTY slide-out keyboard and 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p high-definition video recording. AT&T is not marketing its version of the Torch 9810 as 4G compatible.

The 9810 is an update of the Torch 9800 released in August 2010, which debuted on AT&T a year later. The processor is more powerful than the original 624 megahertz processor of its predecessor and the 768 megabytes of RAM exceed the original 512 megabytes. It also has more storage for apps and media, eight gigabytes instead of four, and ships with the updated operating system.

It comes in one color, a zinc-gray color finish, and the Torch 9810, like all BlackBerry devices, includes access to BlackBerry Messenger, personal and corporate e-mail, and social networking applications and access to BlackBerry App World for premium applications and games.

The offering comes at a time when German-owned T-Mobile is in limbo, waiting to see if federal regulators will approve its merger deal with AT&T. Meanwhile the two companies continue to compete, with the AT&T price for the Torch 9810 an example of the bigger carrier's power to offer better deals because of its large volume of sales.

Canada-based Research In Motion needs as many carriers as it can for its devices, as it struggles to gain back market share it has lost to Apple's iPhone and the arsenal of Android-based devices that seem to come out every week from a multitude of manufacturers and on all major carriers.

'The Real 4G'

T-Mobile also carries the BlackBerry Curve 9360 for $79.99, the Bold 9780 for $109, and Bold 990 4G for $299.

Analyst Gerry Purdy of MobileTrax said 4G speed was a dubious reason to charge more for the Torch 9810 than AT&T.

"It brings us to the question of, will the real 4G please stand up," said Purdy. "There is LTE and HSDPA and enhanced HSDPA+ from AT&T. Each one claims they are faster than the other guy, but it's really a matter of coverage and availability in a given area. They may advertise peak speeds but the actual speed you will realize is much less."

Purdy said that while the Torch 9810 was a premium device, "what T-Mobile needs is to figure out a way to get the iPhone, which will bring them more revenue than another BlackBerry."

Nokia suffers as Europeans turn to smartphones: IDC (Reuters)

HELSINKI (Reuters) – The boom in demand for Apple iPhone and phones with Google Android software collected in the second quarter smartphone sales in Western Europe by 48 percent compared to last year, has fallen during the previous market leader Nokia declined further.

"Smartphones are now dominating the Western European market and mobile vendors with greater consolidation in the segment of their portfolio positions," said IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo.

Nokia has dropped to No. 2 in its domestic market in the first quarter, when Apple has surpassed in smartphones and Samsung Electronics have been so in total sales of mobile phones.

Halved in the second quarter, Nokia's share of the smartphone market in western Europe for three months to about 11 percent, and the Finnish company fell behind in the standings Samsung smartphone, the BlackBerry developer Research In Motion and Taiwan's HTC.

"The Android phones by the will of Sony Ericsson and Samsung HT were able to drive volumes and the largest piece of the agreement shares fall as Nokia Symbian Phones moved to Windows," said Jeronimo.

Nokia's sales have been hit hard by the company tries to smartphones using Symbian aging, it has been dumped in favor of phone Microsoft to sell Windows.

The first Windows phones Nokia are expected to reach the market later this year.

Unlike the smartphone market booming, the global market for mobile phones in Western Europe slipped by 3 percent a year ago – after seven quarters of growth – such as a weakening economy dampened demand.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virk)

Openwave alleges Apple, RIM infringed patents (Reuters)

TORONTO (Reuters) – Software maker Openwave Systems has filed a complaint against Apple and Research In Motion on Wednesday, alleging infringement of five of its patents relating to mobile internet technology.

Openwave, which in turn would make a loss company, said that the iPhone and the BlackBerry manufacturer had its patents for technologies in smart phones and tablet computers are used to hurt the connection to the Internet.

"Before filing these complaints we have repeatedly addressed these two companies in an attempt to license our technology to negotiate with them and do not have a substantive answer," said Chief Executive Ken Denman Openwave.

"In the end, litigation is the only way we can our rights against these big companies that have actually refused, the technologies that we can use license invented to defend," said Denman.

Openwave is the last action, like moving into a mobile landscape that more and more filled with complaints, businesses seek legal recourse to their products or force rivals to protect pay. The prices paid in recent patent income has also enriched.

Openwave, which holds over 200 patents lodged the complaint with the International Trade Commission in Washington DC and also in a federal court in Delaware.

The company said it expects a positive decision by the ITC, RIM and Apple's push to "very high" would have to pay licensing fees.

RIM refused to comment Openwave fit. Apple was not immediately available.

The shares of Redwood City, California were based on Openwave to 30 cents to $ 1.77 on the Nasdaq on Wednesday morning.

The move comes days after Openwave, which reported a net loss in its last fiscal year, said he paid $ 12 million to Myriad Group to terminate all the company claims on its patents.

Openwave software enables companies to analyze and optimize traffic on their wireless networks.

The ITC will submit its import from Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and block the United States and prohibiting the introduction of RIM's smartphone Curves and Tablet Playbook.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp, Toronto, additional reporting Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore, editing by Rob Wilson)

Amazon may sell 3-5 million tablets in Q4: Forrester (Reuters)

One station is dedicated iPad front of a iPhone in the Apple store in New York

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc. may sell as much as 5 million of Tablet PC in the fourth quarter, which is the largest retailer in the Internet's main competitor Apple Inc. in the niche market of rapid growth public consumption PC, Forrester Research, said Monday.

Amazon.com has the price of your pills "significantly" below competitive products and have a sufficient supply to meet demand, but if the company can accomplish this can be "easily" sell from 3000000 to 5000000 units in the three months of 2011, Sarah Rotman Epps, Forrester predicted.

Apple has sold nearly 30 million Cases since the launch of the tablet in April 2010.Competitive products companies, including Samsung Electronics Co., Research In Motion and Motorola mobile phone to a serious challenge to assemble early lead. This month, Hewlett-Packard are destroyed TouchPad after sales languished.

"So far, Apple has many potential competitors face, but none has gained significant market share," wrote Abs. "Not only have the potential to Amazon quickly gain share, but the willingness to sell hardware at a loss, as he did with the Kindle, Amazon makes a bad competitor."

A problem with rivals iPhone was expected that the developers have so far before you make a lot of applications or uses for the devices to create, Forrester said.

Apple says some 100,000 custom-built iPhone, honeycomb, the Google platform, which is the compressed version of the Android operating system, has attracted fewer than 300 applications, says Forrester.

"If Amazon Android-based tablets are sold in millions of Android suddenly much more attractive to developers who have taken a wait-and-see attitude," said Epps.

Amazon Kindle e-reader is lighter and smaller than the iPad, but Apple's tablet has a browser and other services to improve reading and research, says Fred Wilson, a venture capital investor and principal of Union Square Ventures, recently a blog.

"What we all want is a hybrid of the two – a Kindle as a full-fledged tablet computer with a browser, programs and OS," Wilson added. "It looks like Amazon will bring to the market this fall … It looks like a killer product."

Amazon shares were down 3.4 percent to $ 206.03 in trading Monday afternoon, so it is now more than 10 percent this year.

Apple's shares rose by 16 percent to $ 389.87. The stock is nearly 19 percent so far in 2011.

(Reporting by Tim Dobbyn Alistair Barr cut and Matthew Lewis)

UK may disrupt social networks during unrest (Reuters)

Hooligans front of a burning barricade in Liverpool

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is considering disrupting social networks like Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger, during the riots, the prime minister, David Cameron said on Thursday, a move widely criticized as repressive for use by other countries.

The Egyptian authorities closed the cellular and Internet services in January, during the mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak, while China is quick to shut down online communication considers subversive.

Police and politicians have said that social networks, including Research In Motion's Blackberry popular Messager (BBM), were used by rioters and looters during the four days of illness in England this week to coordinate.

"We are pleased with the police, intelligence agencies and industry together to participate in, whether it be fair to the people of the communication through these web sites and services if they know we are seeking to prevent plotting violence, disease and crime," said Cameron during an emergency session of Parliament Inspired by the riots.

Many of the rioters BBM favorite Canadian company RIM on Twitter and other social media, because the messages are encrypted and private.

The company said on Monday that works with all telecommunications, law enforcement and supervisory authorities, but declined to say whether it is to deliver the chat logs to the user or special police.

RIM encrypted services have accused the aid militant attacks in India and the men and women who can not communicate with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

In August last year, a source close to the negotiations between RIM and the Saudi authorities said the company had agreed to control the information that would enable SBB to deliver.

Online social media were also used by members of the British public in recent days to help others avoid fires and to coordinate a cleanup after the riots had ended.

BBM has over 45 million active users worldwide, 70 percent of their daily use, sending billions of messages, images and other files in total per month.

The authorities are struggling with violent disorder must instead cracked down clamp downs on social media to prevent and try to help the public against the rebels of recruiting, said John Bassett, a former high official in the British signals intelligence agency GCHQ and Now a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute.

"The use of social media in an uproar like a game-changer.But any attempt to exert state control over social media seems to fail, "he told Reuters.

"One solution would be far better to encourage and support individuals and local groups to identify the alarming developments in social media on the internet and also to speak against the extremists and criminals, and ensure that the police have the expertise and technical support to obtain pre-operative and preventive intelligence from the media when necessary. "

(Additional reporting by Peter Apps, editing by Matt Falloon and Gareth Jones)

UBS cuts RIM price target on competitive threat (Reuters)

Toronto (Reuters) – Research In Motion (RIM.TO) is still at an early stage of transition from software and faces overwhelming competition from Apple (AAPL.O), Google (GOOG.O) and later Microsoft (MSFT.O) a UBS analysts said Wednesday.

Phillip Huang lowered his price target to $ 30 from RIM $ 41 and cut more than 10 percent of its earnings forecast for this fiscal year, which ends in early March and the year after that. Who maintained a "neutral" position calls.

"We still believes RIM may be because it slows down to a more sustainable position in the highly competitive mobile market operating system," Huang wrote in a note to clients. "So, are outside this time."

BlackBerry manufacturer's stock has halved this year as it lost its own lame quarterly forecasts affected by delays in bringing advanced smartphones on the market and failed to create excitement when it launched its long awaited Playbook tablet.

RIM's shares fell 1.2 percent to close Tuesday at $ 27.39 on Nasdaq and C $ 25.86 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The Canadian company plans to move its BlackBerry smartphones to QNX software that runs Playbook begin early next year. It will release a game with an upgraded version of existing software later this year.

While the upcoming phones can help curb some of the negative momentum for RIM, "a more meaningful transition is likely to occur with QNX in 2012, although the execution risk is high, and the success probability is not clear," Huang said.

He added that RIM's strength in international markets mature as the UK is showing signs of weakness, and the company is unlikely to gain much traction in China.

While most of RIM competes with Apple and Google's Android software, which is used by several handset manufacturers, Huang also said that Microsoft (MSFT.O) to get into the match with his partner Nokia (NOK1V.HE) next year.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp, editing by Frank McGurty)

RIM’s QNX-Based PlayBook Will Get Android App Player (NewsFactor)

Research In Motion is developing a player for its Android-based tablet playbook QNX, and should be available before the end of the summer. A beta version of the player was inadvertently posted on the BlackBerry and the company has since been removed, RIM confirmed Friday.

However, the file reader 143.28MB sys.android.bar was charged with several mirror sites worldwide. Playbook RIM advises users not to download the file.

"We recommend users not to download and install the software because it is outdated and not functional in many ways," said a spokesperson for RIM. "The official beta version of the reader for the BlackBerry is on Android Playbook track for release this summer. "

Open to alternatives

The aim is that the RIM playbook users beta 250 000 applications on the Android Marketplace. RIM BlackBerry world is sparsely populated by comparison.

"Supporting the Android ecosystem is an interesting approach, because it can be interpreted as giving the building of their own ecosystem," said Al Hilwa, director of application development software at IDC. "But in reality, with the Android as an intermediate layer shows that they are open to alternative methods and run an open and inclusive platform."

Android still must be implemented correctly, the program is attractive and usable, Hilwa said. "I do not think we have seen exactly how this will happen again," said Hilwa. "If RIM is moving forward with support for Android applications, it will be one of the many things that RIM is made to improve Playbook -. As everyone would also pay dividends to its transition OS phone crucial "

RIM did the right thing in promoting the history of developers, as it tries new things, Hilwa observed. "RIM has developed an ecosystem that can generate a critical mass of applications [for] the playbook and their future handsets based on the QNX system," said Hilwa. RIM problem is that all the oxygen from developers is "pulled by Apple and Android, with Microsoft using its existing. NET base to generate some activity around Windows Phone" Hilwa said.

Acquisition JayCut

RIM takes JayCut this week the publisher of the Swedish company with online video and cloud services for HD cameras playbook with two video capture and video, HDMI output, and high-resolution video playback, RIM CTO David Yach observed.

"Working with JayCut to add video editing for the BlackBerry platform, we can further improve the multimedia experience for our customers with BlackBerry," said Yach, in a blog.

However, continued internal dissension within the ranks of RIM employees roil the organization. The senior product manager for the effort RIM playbook, Ryan Bidan, is reportedly leaving to join the North American division of Samsung Electronics.

RIM Android player can breath the BlackBerry maker, as it is to move the entire line of mobile devices for the QNX operating system, acquired last year. Among other things, can help relieve temporarily investors growing concern about the strategy of RIM.

But RIM's BlackBerry brand is determined, the increased competition in Western Europe and elsewhere face, once Apple's latest mobile device upgrade rolled out in September."The new Apple devices will be an important strategy to cope with the price band midtier currently dominated by Android, BlackBerry and Symbian to play," said IDC Research, Francis Jerome.

Anonymous Employees Say Working at BlackBerry Is a Nightmare (The Atlantic Wire)

BlackBerry is having a hard time. Since the iPhone hit the market just over four years ago–happy late birthday iPhone!–the original email phone and its parent company, Research In Motion, have been bleeding users and slipping in market share. The first week of June, they slipped to number three in the mobile phone market, behind Android and Apple, and now they face a mutiny.

Related: RIM’s CEO Terminates BBC Interview Over Simple Question

Thursday morning, the tech blog Boy Genius Report posted an open letter from an unnamed senior RIM executive to the rest of the senior management team. "I have lost confidence," It begins. "While I hide it at work, my passion has been sapped. I know I am not alone–the sentiment is widespread and it includes people within your own teams."

Related: Square, Now Worth $1 Billion, Wants to Take On Google

First of all, you know that things aren't going well at a company when senior executives start communicating with each other via anonymous letters to tech blogs. The open letter includes all kinds of frustrated phrases about "lazy marketing" for "incomplete products" is ruining the company. Oh yeah, and "Canadians are too nice." What the letter lacks in profanity, it makes up for in references to how RIM is getting their asses kicked by Apple and Google.

RIM, of course, responded with their own unsigned letter. It doesn't engage with any of the points in the original letter, but it does agree with us about the anonymous executive problem: "It is obviously difficult to address anonymous commentary and it is particularly difficult to believe that a 'high level employee' in good standing with the company would choose to anonymously publish a letter on the web rather than engage their fellow executives in a constructive manner, but regardless of whether the letter is real, fake, exaggerated or written with ulterior motivations, it is fair to say that the senior management team at RIM is nonetheless fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company's challenges and its opportunities." Then they list some numbers. RIM, by the way, wants everyone to know that they have "nearly $3 billion in cash and no debt."

BlackBerry might have made the problem worse. In BGR's original posting of the anonymous letter, they asked for more harrowing accounts of what happens inside of BlackBerry headquarters, and Friday they published the first batch. First, we wanted to laugh at insidious management practices, secretive anti-recycling campaign and silly name-calling. Then we realized how it must be tough to work at a once-booming, now-failing company. Disgruntled employee letters from former employees are a dime a dozen–though these from fired journalists are particularly terrific–but they never get old.

One former RIM employee wrote about some paranoia:

The insanely high turnover rate meant the department head wouldn’t let anyone go, in addition to refusing to promote from within (pets excepted). People were pitted against each other and an incredibly tense and hostile work environment was fostered. People around the office started referring to the office politics as “Survivor: RIM edition.” And we all remember the great movement to make recycling physically impossible across the entire company because one person let some confidential information slip.

And the time the human resources stole from his scholarship fund:

Then, as I was saving up to return to school and make a better life for myself, I received a series of nasty emails from HR letting me know that since my boss had failed to log my vacation time a year earlier on SAP (despite my insistence on her doing it at three different times), I would have two full paycheques deducted to “pay back” the company for what was being portrayed as my mistake. I never received an apology and almost had to drop out of school due to the loss of a full month’s pay. On my last day my boss deliberately avoided me at all cost. The best part is that I recently heard that my boss just got promoted to the VP of the business affairs department.

A different employee offered up a itemized list of everything that was going wrong. It seems like the secrecy thing isn't working as well for RIM as it is for Apple:

6) Products: If you walk around and talk to RIM employees (in operations, I’m sure the development teams are better) about the products we make, you’ll find most of us a) don’t know anything about our new products, b) don’t like our current products and c) pine for the old products. There is so much secrecy in the company, no one knows anything about new things until we see it on the news. That means we’re not able to tell our friends and family anything about new things, and that reflects badly on RIM. The current products are slow and underpowered. It’s generally acknowledged that our devices are inferior to other devices, and indeed, many people have personal devices from our competitors.

Finally, a word about the lazy marketing. The mom metaphors always work when trying to describe technology things:

Marketing: My friends love to poke me and make fun of our ads. Sure, BlackBerry seems to be sponsoring a lot of concerts and baseball games, but looking at my circle of friends and family, no one cares about that. Our marketing is boring, our ads are plain, and completely uninteresting. The whole campaign around the Playbook seems to be “IT DOES FLASH!  LOOK!” … but honestly, my mother doesn’t know or care about that. She wants to know ‘can I play Angry Birds?”.

Speaking of which, you can now play Angry Birds on the Windows 7 phone. It's coming to BlackBerry's tablet too, someday.

Want to add to this story? Open Wire.

Strong PlayBook Sales Threaten Tablet-Less Microsoft (NewsFactor)

RBC said Wednesday that Research In Motion appears to have sold approximately 250,000 PlayBook tablets in the first month of availability, with the BlackBerry maker on track to sell 500,000 PlayBooks by the end of the current quarter. If the financial firm's estimates are accurate, it would suggest that RIM has been successful in leveraging the widespread enterprise presence of its BlackBerry smartphones — and to a higher degree that anyone expected.

The RBC forecast is also surprising given the mixed reviews the PlayBook received last month, in part because the Playbook is expressly designed to function in tandem with a BlackBerry handset. If RIM's dual-device strategy is succeeding, it raises questions about the extent to which Microsoft can recover the mobile-market share it lost in recent years without launching its own tablet platform.

Gartner analysts strongly believe there is a tight link between smartphones and tablets in the minds of users. "They want a similar experience, a tight ecosystem and applications and content that run across devices," explained Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi. So Microsoft and Nokia "need a tablet strategy sooner rather than later," she said.

A Strategic Mistake

Microsoft's current focus is on bringing enterprise-class capabilities to its next-generation Windows Phone 7 mobile platform, and a tablet platform is not expected anytime soon. But Milanesi believes that waiting for Windows 8 may be a strategic mistake.

It may be too late for Microsoft "to catch up with competitors and allow Windows Phone 7 to grow — not just in the enterprise but also in the consumer space in the high end, where users will be looking for that link," Milanesi explained. "As with any new products, I think we should wait and see what RIM does next quarter. Even Motorola sold a similar amount of Xoom [tablets] to start."

However, other wireless analysts believe Microsoft still has time to establish a strong tablet presence.

"Right now, in terms of sheer volume, between the two device types smartphones easily have the lion's share of the installed mobile-device base," noted Lisa Pierce, an independent wireless analyst with the Strategic Networks Group. "Tablets are complementary to smartphones, not competitive," as opposed to the "growing degree of cannibalization between tablets and notebooks/laptops."

Time To Catch Up

What Microsoft needs to do is really bring the full weight of the PC ecosystem into the tablet world, noted Al Hilwa, director of applications software development at IDC. "That can be done with the right changes to Windows and its programming model to make sure that it accommodates touch apps better," Hilwa said. "We are really in the early stages [and] I don't blame Microsoft for taking its time to get [its mobile-platform] formula right."

Pierce also believes Microsoft still has plenty of time to launch a worthy mobile OS rival that can compete with the tablet platforms launched by Apple and RIM. "In the future, I fully expect Microsoft will release a platform for tablets that has business features, with a very high degree of interworking between Mango and the future tablet platform," Pierce said.

Still, Apple continues to command the lion's share of tablet sales and is expected to blow away the competition this year and beyond. Piper Jaffray, for example, is currently pegging Apple's sales "at seven million iPads in the June 2011 quarter and 31.7 million in calendar year 2011."

RIM recalls 1,000 Playbook tablets: report (Reuters)

(Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd. has recalled 1,000 of its playbook pills that shipped with a defective operating system build that can cause problems during the initial set-up, said the technology blog Engadget and several other media.

In a statement to CrackBerry.com, BlackBerry maker said the majority of the affected devices remain in the distribution channel and had not reached consumers.

The company is working to replace the affected pills, he said.

The Engadget blog reported Saturday that the faulty batch was shipped to the office supply chain Staples Inc.

RIM had hoped to turn his fortune with the launch of the playbook tablet, but the product got bad reviews and complaints was rushed out before it was ready.

In April, RIM cut its forecast for the first quarter, citing less BlackBerry smartphone shipments in time.

Research In Motion could not be immediately reached and staples by Reuters for comment.

(Reporting by Joseph Renju in Bangalore, Editing by David Holmes)