Motorola Droid Releases Tomorrow

Motorola, the company that introduced to us the star tac, razr and other phones is trying to recover from a dismal cell phone offering in recent years with their new Droid.  The Droid gets released tomorrow featuring the Android 2.0 operating system.

The phone may be the only option for Verizon users that were holding out for the iPhone to come to Verizon.  Many Verizon users would love to have the iPhone but choose to have better cell phone coverage than a better phone.  Therefore the Droid may be their phone for now.

AT&T and Verizon have been attacking one another as the release gets closer with advertising and lawsuits.  AT&T has recently filed a lawsuit against Verizon for misleading claims about their 3G coverage.  Verizon has been advertising their Droid against the iPhone.  Verizon’s advertising blitz for the Droid is not only drawing the ire of AT&T but it may be doing the same with Apple. It seems that Verizon may not see the iPhone for some time.

The Droid is certainly a great phone.  It is getting positive reviews from tech Guru’s Walt Mossberg and David Pogue, two Apple friendly columnists.  However, David Pogue does not see the Droid as an iPhone killer but he does see it as a great phone.

There are features on the Droid that make it stand out from the iPhone.  It has a better GPS with Google maps, it has a physical keyboard, and has a better camera.  However, the Droid only has about 12,000 apps compared to 100,000 from Apple.

RIM market share eroding

Research in Motion, makers for the Blackberry is seeing their market share eroding in recent weeks.  The biggest culprit to the erosion is the Apple iPhone.  The iPhone has been gaining strength with the 3GS introduction.  Their market share has risen an astounding 30% in the two plus years the iPhone has been available.

The introduction of the Palm Pre has done nothing to the market share of both Blackberry and iPhone.  Their market share has not gotten above the double digit mark and their markets share is already dwindling.

The new fear on the market for RIM is the coming introduction of the Droid.  Droid is Motorola’s most recent entry into the smart phone era.  Motorola has been hit with lackluster phones for the past several years.  Motorolas partnership with Google to introduce the Droid which runs Android 2.o software may make another big dent into RIM’s smart phone dominance.  The droid is seen as the best competitor of the iPhone of late.

So RIM needs to come up with some answers to the smart phone woes soon.  It is pinning its hopes possibly on the next storm.  The upgarde to the not so popular original storm is said to be a worthy upgrade.  Whether it is going to be able to compete with the iPhone and Droid will be a wait and see.

Google introduces free GPS

With the release of the Droid from partners Verizon and Motorola comes with something unseen in mobile phones.  A service that’s free.  Google just introduced a service on the droid to provide free turn by turn directions.  With the announcement, the stock prices of both Garmin and Tom Tom tumbled.  Both Garmin and Tom Tom provide gps navigation but with a fee.

The service brings features never seen on any gps system.  The free service from Google, allows for turn by turn direction in conjunction with street view so that you can actually see the intersection that you’re supposed to turn on.  Sometimes its difficult to even follow turn by turn directions by looking at a surface map but with having a visual of the actual intersection, getting lost will be a thing of the past.

The gps system that Google is bringing to the Droid may be available of the Apple iPhone however executives from Apple may think otherwise.  Apple has recently acquired a mapping company that may be enhanced features to its own turn by turn gps navigation.

Netflix and PS3 Join Forces

Netflix and Sony have teamed up to allow Netflix movies and TV shows to be streamed to the PS3 free of charge.  Netflix has the same service for XBox however, to allow streaming of content from Netflix, it requires a Gold account with a fee of $49 per year.  Netflix is heavily investing into the streaming aspect of movies.  Currently, Netflix is providing more and more movies to be streamed to the user instead of having to send out physical DVD’s.

The PS3 has the advantage of being able to play blue ray content and it is being set up to be more than just a gaming console.  PS3 is hoping to take back some market share from XBox with this new venture.  Microsoft does not plan on having a blue ray drive in its gaming console.

Los Angeles city employees will use Google for email

The Los Angeles city council has approved the use of Google to supply the city with email services for all of its 30,000 city employees.  The contract was seen as a boon for Google for a large city such as Los Angeles to adobt its email system for all of its city employees.  Other companies such as Microsoft was campaigning for the contract with the city.

The city council unanimously voted 12-0 to approve the 7.25 million dollar contract.  However, before the vote, some city council members did express concerns over security and reliability of the system.  Also, council members had doubts whether the adoption of Google’s email system would actually save the city money as Google contends.

Skepticism about the service did pare off and the council did vote unanimously.  The adoption of Google’s system may entice other smaller cities to adopt a similar form of email service if Los Angeles and Google can show success of the system.  This is why this contract was so heavily sought after.

Blackberry and U2

Blackberry is currently headlining the sponsorship for U2’s new 360 tour instead of Apple, who people might have thought would have made sense.  Apple and U2 have had a great relationship in the past and possibly still do.  Apple had introduced a special limited edition U2 ipod with the autographs laser etched into the back of the iPod.  However, in obtaining sponsorship to the concert, U2 did end up picking Blackberry.

It’s unknow whether U2 approached Apple for sponsorship or not but it does seem to have made sense since they did have a relationship in the past.  However in attending the U2 concert last night, had Apple and the iPhone had sponsored the concert, it may not have looked good when I couldn’t use the internet at all last night because of the heavy traffic that 20,000 or so possible iPhone user trying to update their Facebook status’ to one cell AT&T cell tower.

If the iPhone had sponsored the event, it would have been embarrassing that I was either on edge or no connection to the internet at all.  It would have been funny, since The Edge is the guitarist for U2.  Who knows, maybe Blackberry had some sort of black out.  Text messages were getting received 20 minutes later, Facebook wouldn’t connect, phone service was somewhat spotty, and it was just an all unpleasant experience.  Who knows what problems Blackberry users were experiencing though.

Windows 7

Microsofts introduction of Windows 7 yesterday marks another round of upgrade frenzy when new operating systems are announced.  Apple also has introduced a new operating system recently called Snow Leopard.  Snow Leopard has seen a huge adoption rate compared to previous versions.  Microsoft is hoping for the same thing.  Microsofts sales have been flat of late and it is putting its hopes on Windows 7 to lift Microsoft and the computer sector at the same time.

Windows 7 is what Vista hoped it would be.  Vista was plagued with many problems from the beginning.  In the years since, it has gotten better however their reputation might have taken a hit.  It is putting its hopes on Windows 7 to mitigate some of that criticism and also lift Microsoft in an era of increased sales pressure from Google and Apple.  Will Windows 7 be a catalyst to lift the economic hit the computer industry is taking?  People are often opting for cheaper netbooks instead of buying a whole new computer.  Time will see if Windows 7 will be a success.

However, many users may find that upgrading from XP might be a nightmare and it may be just as easy to buy a new computer if it is in their budget.  Upgrading from XP requires a user to back up everything, do a format on the hard drive, and then install windows 7 and then reinstall all their applications.  People may opt to wait and get windows 7 when they upgrade their computers.  The cost will also prevent alot of people from upgrading.  Paying over a hundred dollars to upgradge may be too much if some computers are selling for around $700.  Therefore, Windows 7 may not see the same adoption rate as Snow Leopard but time will only tell.  Don’t worry if you don’t upgrade though.  Microsoft will still support XP for some time.

Apple Posts Record Profits

Apple on the heals of releasing new iMacs, macbooks, mac mini, and other items, in probably an effort to take away from the release of Microsofts Windows 7, reported record profits for the quarter.  The company reported a profit of $1.67 billion on revenue of $9.87 billion.

Apple shipped 3.05 million macs, 10.2 million ipods, and 7.4 million iPhones.  All sales of macs, ipods and iphones were up considerably over last year.   With the recent good news, Apple stock just reached an intra day all time high in recent trading.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook

Barnes & Noble’s fire off its salvo in the latest ebook reader wars.  Barnes & Nobles introduced the dual screen Nook in its effort to battle the Kindle from Amazon.  The Nook seems to blow away the offering from Amazon by offering more features for the money.

The Nook has the ability to connect to the internet via AT&T’s 3G wireless connection and a wifi connection.  It comes with a 2gb storage capacity, a SD card expansion slot, and an ample battery supply that allows ten days of reading.  The ten days may be unrealistic due to varying amounts of time different people read per day.  In any case, they expect the battery to last longer than the Kindle.

The Nook does feature something that is drastically differnt than the Kindle in terms of appearance.  The Nook sports an additional screen at the bottom of the main screen.  This section can be used for choosing a particular book from your library and other features.  This does decrease the overall size of the main screen and will force people to scroll more often but the feature may be worth it.

An interesting feature thats present on the Nook is the ability to “share” ebooks with others.  When one person shares a book with another person using a Nook, they have 14 days to browse the book.   Most people could read an average size book in that time so the feature is a plus for a lot of people.

The B&N library may be on par with Amazon.  Prices may differ for each title.  However, the library shouldn’t be the deciding factor on which ebook reader to buy.  B&N defiinitely has the leg up on Amazon.  We’ll see how Amazon returns the fire.

Microsoft Able To Recover Data

Microsoft today announced that it will be able to recover the lost data from Sidekick users who had their data lost due to a server failure.  Microsoft states that Sidekick users who lost data were among a small group of people and they said that they will be able to recover all the lost date for most if not all users affected.

Microsoft has been busy rebuilding their systems as a result of the failure.  The data recovery has been a slow process, but Microsoft has said that they wanted to be sure to recover data for its users who lost data.  If Microsoft is able to recover data, it still leaves bad sentiment in the minds of people who rely on Microsoft.

This is somewhat of a wake up call as more and more companies are providing storage systems or “clouds” to a whole slew of users.   Apple and Google store a ton of data on its servers and could also be vulnerable to such outages as the one that affected Microsoft.