Nokia Posts Big Loss, But Not Because Of Mobile Phones Business

Topic:

Nokia announced their Q3 numbers today and stunned with a 559m Euro (~$835 million) loss.
Nokia had to take big one-off charges and impairments on Nokia Siemens Networks unit.

The Phone business is down for Nokia as well compared to last year, but that was expected. Nokia’s net sales of EUR 9.8 billion (~$14.5 billion) are down 20% compared to last year's Q3. The number of mobile device volume was 108.5 million units which is down 8% compared to last year, but the market share of 38% stayed the same. Read more

Posted on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:05:36 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Epson Offers Multimedia Business Projectors Starting Under $600

Topic:

Epson has announced three new projectors in its EX-series today that offer good features at prices starting under $600. The projectors include the EX31, EX51, and EX71. The three projectors are aimed at businesses looking for good performance at a good price.

The projectors have 2,500 lumens of light output making them bright enough for rooms that aren’t dark. The EX31 will sell for $549, the EX51 will sell for $649, and the EX71 will sell for $749. The projectors have 3LCD technology for vibrant images. The EX31 has SVGA resolution, the EX51 offers XGA resolution and HDMI, and the EX71 offers WXGA resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio. Read more

Posted on Tue, 6 Oct 2009 12:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Dell launches Vostro 430 business desktop

Topic:

Dell has added a new desktop computer to its Vostro business line called the Vostro 430. The machine is optimized for Windows 7 due to launch this month and has a starting price of $699. Dell offers a wealth of options that will push that starting price up significantly.

The Vostro 430 can be fitted with Intel Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs and has graphics options from both NVIDIA and ATI. The machine also has lots of expandability options with support for up to 16GB of RAM and two 1TB HDDs. Read more

Posted on Fri, 2 Oct 2009 08:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Belkin Unveils surge Protector to Save Energy Costs for Businesses

Topic:

For many homes and businesses, the cost of electricity is one of the largest expenses that they have. Belkin has announced a new surge protector aimed at business users that will turn off outlets and reduce standby power consumption. The product is the Conserve Surge with Timer.

According to Belkin, over half of all IT energy costs originate with desktop hardware. The Conserve Surge with Time can reduce that power consumption by providing two always on outlets and six auto off outlets. The six auto off outlets can be turned off with the press of a button. Read more

Posted on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:55:18 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Apple's Apps a $2.5 Billion Business?

Topic:

The iPhone App Store is, without a doubt, the most successful app market for any smartphone. They've got thousands and thousands of different apps, and hundreds of millions of app downloads. It's not surprising to hear that the App Store is making a lot of money for Apple. What is surprising, is just how profitable the App Store really is.

MacRumors.com reports on a Mobile Metrics report from AdMob that estimates App Store annual revenue at almost $2.5 billion per year. That becomes even more impressive when compared to the Android Market's $60 million/year estimated sales. If these numbers are accurate, than the App Store becomes a much more significant part of Apple's annual revenue than previously thought.

Posted on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:50:00 CDT | by Robert Evans

Canon Unveils First Mac-compatible Scanners for Business

Topic:

Canon has unveiled its first Mac compatible scanners for business users. The company has unveiled a pair of scanners called the imageFormula DR-2510M and DR-2010M scanners for high-speed document scanning. The scanners are aimed at home, office, and educational use.

Both scanners use a Mac TWAIN driver and have bundled CaptureOnTouch one-touch scanning software for Mac systems. The software allows one-touch scanning directly to email, printers, network folders, and applications that can send images to the iPhone. Read more

Posted on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

The Pirate Bay's New Business Model

Topic:

Back when the news first broke that The Pirate Bay had been sold to the Swedish-owned Gaming Factory we wondered just how they intended to make TPB profitable. The whole reason that the Bay routinely sees tens of millions of views every day is because it is the largest torrent site on the Internet. Next to no one visits that website when they aren't looking to steal media.

Now the Gaming Factory has disclosed their business plan. They're going to turn the Bay into a paid subscription site and use the revenue from those subscriptions to pay content providers. Users will be able to subsidize their fee by dedicating certain portions of their computing power to the Bay. As Gaming Factory describes it,

Posted on Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:35:00 CDT | by Robert Evans

Lexmark Unveils Web-enabled AIO Business Printers

Topic:

Lexmark has announced a pair of web connected printers aimed at small and medium businesses. The printers both feature a 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen and will be priced at $199 to $399. The printers are designed with shortcuts and workflows built-in and have an ID card copy function.

The printers can also display RSS feeds and RSS feed info can be emailed from the printers. Features include Vizix print technology with separate ink tanks and fast print speeds. The printers both integrate 802.11n technology for the fastest speeds. Read more

Posted on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

AT&T Offers Xora GPS Location Service to Businesses

Topic:

AT&T and Xora announced this week that the Xora GPS locator phone service is now available for small and medium businesses. The service is very similar sounding to the AT&T TeleNav Track service in that it provides the real-time location of a mobile workforce.

The solution is a software-as-a-service application designed to lower expenses related to overtime and fuel costs. The Xora service is compatible with most AT&T mobile devices including ruggedized phones and the Blackberry Bold as well as laptops and industry specific devices. Read more

Posted on Tue, 7 Jul 2009 08:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Google Voice: Now For Small Businesses

Topic:

Invites have only been out for a few short days, and already Google Voice has an add-on. Google Voice is a service that consolidates all of your phone numbers (including Skype) together under one number. It's free (you'll have to wait a long while for invites though) and you can even pick vanity numbers.

That's an especially attractive proposition for small businesses, as it would allow them to have a custom number for their company that links multiple cell, in-office, or sky numbers together. Unfortunately, Google Voice currently lacks any ability to allow you to differentiate between which number which call goes to. This would be a major limiting factor for the service, if the good people at On-State hadn't stepped in.

Posted on Wed, 1 Jul 2009 17:30:00 CDT | by Robert Evans

HP Officejet 7000 Printer for Business Unveiled

Topic:

HP has announced new printers aimed at businesses looking to save on printing costs and energy usage. The new printers include the HP Officejet 6000 and 7000 printer series. The 6000 series printers range from $89 to $119 and feature embedded wired and wireless printing capability along with automatic dual sided printing. The 6000 series will debut in June.

The Officejet 7000 series offers a single product that is the entry-level wide format printer from HP. The printer sells for $229, has individual ink tanks, and delivers the lowest cost per page in its class. The printer can produce photo quality poster prints in up to 13 x 19 inch sizes and will ship in July. Read more

Posted on Tue, 19 May 2009 08:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Soundview Releases iPhone Apps for Busy Businessmen.

Topic:

It's a hectic time in America. The economy is bad and businesses are scrambling to cut costs and improve profits. With everything that's going on in the world today, businessmen have less time than ever for things like reading. Enter Soundview Executive Book Summaries, a company whose entire purpose is to summarize big business books for busy executives.

Right now you can find a bunch of Soundview's summaries at the Apple app store. Each of their apps contains three summaries in both audio and text, formatted for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Each app costs $9.99.

Posted on Mon, 11 May 2009 12:00:00 CDT | by Robert Evans

HP and RIM Offer Business mobility on Blackberry Smartphones

Topic:

Blackberry and HP announced today that new business mobility solutions are being offered for Blackberry phones. The new solutions include support for Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0 and help enterprise users increase service leads, reduce operating costs, and improve productivity for customers.

Among the services are HP CloudPrint that lets users print emails and other things using the Blackberry from wherever they are. HP Operations Manager for Blackberry Enterprise Server allows for centrally monitored and managed Blackberry solutions. Read more

Posted on Mon, 4 May 2009 06:26:34 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Toshiba and Fujitsu Agree on HDD Business Transfer

Topic:

Toshiba and Fujitsu have announced an agreement today that will have Fujitsu transferring its HDD operations businesses to Toshiba. The agreement comes after the signing of an agreement on February 17, 2009.

The two companies plan to have the transfer finished by July 1, 2009. The Fujitsu operations will be transferred to a new Toshiba company called Toshiba Storage Device Corporation. The assets and multiple storage companies held by Fujitsu will all become part of the new company. Read more

Posted on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:30:54 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Best Buy Getting Into the Movie Download Business

Topic:

Best Buy may soon embrace digital downloads by launching a movie download service similar to Amazon’s as early as this summer, according to a Variety report.

The electronics retailer is looking to strike a deal with CinemaNow. While details remain sketchy, the report indicates that Best Buy hopes to market and sell Web-ready televisions, set-top boxes, and Blu-ray/DVD players with access to CinemaNow’s 3,000 titles.

Could the electronics retailer be scrambling to catch up in the digital realm as they watch DVD sales drop? They would face stiff competition from similar offerings via Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Blockbuster. Walmart’s attempt in the movie-download space crumbled in 2007 when partner Hewlett Packard pulled out of the deal.

Posted on Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:00:00 CDT | by James Douglas

Systemax Agrees to Purchase Circuit City E-Commerce Business

Topic:

Systemax has announced that it has signed a "stalking horse" agreement to purchase select assets form Circuit City for $6.5 million in cash along with a share of future revenue generated by using the assets over a 30-month period.

Systemax says that it believes that if the transaction is completed it would further extend its position as a leader in online retailing of value price consumer electronics. The agreement has been submitted to the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern Division of Virginia for approval. Read more

Posted on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Ericsson wants out of the Sony Ericsson Mobile Phone Business?

Topic:

German Manager-Magazine reports that Ericsson plans to exit the Sony Ericsson mobile phone business according to their sources.
Sony Ericsson has seen better days. Their biggest issue is to offer a hot selling smartphone. The XPERIA X1 looks neat, but is not enough. Ericsson apparently wants Sony to take over their share, which is not that easy as Sony's cash stash is quite empty these days.
For Sony it could be a nice way to gain full brand recognition for mobile phones if they can excel in the current evolution of mobile phones led by the Apple iPhone. Read more

Posted on Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Pioneer quitting TV Business in 2010 and cuts 10,000 Employees

Topic:

The recent rumor that Pioneer would stop making TVs turned out to be true. Pioneer will exit the TV business by March 2010. To battle the losses Pioneer also announced plans to cut 10,000 employees, which amounts to about 16% of its workforce.

That is the end of the exceptional Pioneer Plasma HDTVs. Read more

Posted on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 03:00:40 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Twitter officially says No to charging Business Users just yet

Topic:

Twitter, the always on social network service, had to issue an offical statement (Via Techmeme to dismiss reports that the company is starting to charge businesses for using Twitter.
Earlier this week reports made its rounds that Twitter sees traction of companies using Twitter for customers to and fanboys to follow them.
Even the ETrade Super Bowl Baby is on Twitter. Read more

Posted on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:34:35 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Pioneer rumored to exit TV Business

Topic:

If this rumor is true than an icon in the TV segment is vanishing. According to Reuters Pioneer mulls exiting the TV business. Pioneer is looking at a projected loss of $848.6 million for the year ending March 31st. Their highly regarded Plasma HDTVs are a loss maker for Pioneer these days.

Pioneer has a high brand value for TVs. The quality of their KURO line of Plasma HDTVs is amazing. It would be very sad to lose them. On the other hand Pioneer has to go with the times. If other TV makers can create affordable LCD TVs with image quality closing in on Pioneer KURO Plasma HDTVs than Pioneer needs to innovate or indeed die. Read more

Posted on Sat, 7 Feb 2009 12:20:23 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Acer Announces Ergonomic Business Monitors

Topic:

Acer has announced a pair of new LCDs aimed at the business user that have ergonomic features. The LCDs carry the wonderfully horrible names B233HU bmidhz and the B273HU bmidhz. The difference in the two is mostly screen size with the first carrying a 23-inch screen size and the second offering 27-inches of space.

Both the LCDs have stands that tilt, swivel, and adjust for angle. The tilt function has 15-degrees of up movement and 5-degrees of down. The stand swivels 35 degrees to the right and left with height adjustment up to 11cm. Read more

Posted on Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun