Products

• Technology news: BlackBerry maker warns on slowing growth

  
  04 December 2008
  

  Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of BlackBerry smartphones, became the latest mobile handset maker to warn about slowing growth when it issued a surprise profit warning late on Tuesday night.

  RIM, which blamed new product delays, general economic conditions and slowing subscriber growth, cut its third quarter revenue and profit guidance well below Wall Street expectations, sending its shares tumbling in early trading on Wednesday before recovering.

  Although the company’s recent product launches, including the touch-screen-based BlackBerry Storm have been well received, the revenue and profit warning has highlighted that RIM, like many of its rivals, is not recession-proof.

  ”Initial sales of new products have been very positive and we believe we have the strongest smartphone portfolio in the industry by far, “ said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at RIM. “However product launch timing, general economic conditions and foreign exchange volatility have tempered our results in the third quarter,” he said.

  Mr Basillie’s latest comments were in sharp contrast to the bullish tone he struck just two months ago when the company reported strong second-quarter results and brushed aside analyst concerns about slowing market growth and falling margins.

  On Wednesday however, RIM said it now expected to report fiscal third-quarter revenue of between $2.75bn and $2.78bn, about 10 per cent lower that analysts’ forecasts.

  Adjusted earnings are now expected to be between 81 cents and 83 cents per share, compared with the 89 cents to 97 cents per share the company had initially forecast for its third quarter, which ended November 29.

  RIM, which has pushed deeper into the consumer market over the past 18 months making it more susceptible to changing consumer sentiment, said it now expected to add about 2.6m net new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter, down from a previous estimate of 2.9m but still 57 per cent more than in the year-ago period.

  The warning follows a dire forecast from Palm, the struggling maker of Treo and Centro smartphone devices earlier this week. Palm said revenue for its latest quarter would fall substantially short of Wall Street’s already depressed expectations. Meanwhile Nokia, the world’s top cellphone maker, is expected to lower its mid-term profit forecasts at a global investor day in New York on Thursday.

  About a third of RIM’s revenue shortfall reflects the impact of the recent strengthening of the US dollar, the company said. “The remaining difference is primarily due to lower than estimated unit shipments of existing products, which RIM believes is a reflection of general economic weakness in the US and shifts in product launch dates within the quarter.”

  RIM blamed a changing product mix and foreign exchange movements for a further reduction in gross margin in the quarter which are now expected to be between 45 and 46 per cent. The company will announce its third quarter results on December 18.

  RIM’s stock, which reached a record high of nearly $150 on Nasdaq in June, has fallen sharply in recent months as investors have reacted to the flood of negative economic signals. The shares recovered somewhat later on Wednesday and were trading at $37.49 at lunchtime in New York.

   

  (ft.com)

• Technology news: Nokia releases its answer to Apple’s iPhone

  
  04 December 2008
  

  Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, has finally responded to the threat posed by touch-screen based smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone with a model of its own. But it could be a case of too little too late.

  The N97 handset was unveiled in Barcelona on Monday although it will not be available for purchase in Europe until the first half of next year, with a US launch coming later.

  While the N97 – the first N-series smartphone with a touch display – was generally well received, Nokia is in some senses playing catch-up with its rivals, such as Apple, T-Mobile with its G1, and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. The iPhone, for example, will have been available for almost two years by the time the N97 is finally launched.

  Indeed, some analysts noted that many of its features are already available on existing smartphones, such as the G1, which is powered by Google’s Android open source operating system and the recently launched Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 operating system. In contrast, the N97 is powered by Symbian.

  Like the G1 and Xperia X1, the N97 is a sleek touch-screen based device that also features full slide-out “qwerty” mini-keyboard and comes with full GPS navigation and mapping options.

  It has a 5 megapixel camera capable of taking still images and film clips and extensive multimedia capabilities, including the ability to play Flash-based internet video and access Nokia’s Ovi multimedia services. It also combines GPS technology with a digital compass, enabling the handset to tailor online content depending on its location. It will come with 32Gb of expandable on-board memory.

  Among its most significant innovations, it features a personalised home screen populated with software “widgets” that pull together information such as meeting reminders, the online status of friends and family and local weather conditions.

  While the widget concept is a familiar one to PC users, the N97 will be one of the first smartphones to incorporate the technology although Sony Ericsson’s Xperia handset features a similar system called ‘panels.’ Nokia plans to launch the phone with a handful of “home-grown” widgets but is also encouraging third-party developers to build their own.

  In terms of design, the N97 looks quite like the T-Mobile G1 which was launched early last month and is built by Taiwan’s HTC. It is also very similar to the Xperia. While the N97’s 3.5in touch-screen display is clear and bright, the handset is somewhat thicker than the iPhone, which lacks a physical keyboard.

  Nokia executives said they believed the slide-out keyboard was an essential feature for a handset designed for serious messaging although the added weight and bulk may deter some consumers. “Much grumbling is already emerging about the size of the N97, the 150gm weight and the 18mm thickness in particular,” noted analysts at Global Crown Capital Equity Research.

  Nevertheless, overall, the N97 is a beautifully designed device, which, in spite of being a late entrant, is almost guaranteed to be a success due to Nokia’s marketing muscle. It also provides a solid hardware platform for Nokia to demonstrate the range and sophistication of its Ovi services.

   

  (ft.com)

• Technology news: Web users filtered news of Mumbai attacks

  
  03 December 2008
  

  

  CHAOTIC, disorganised but useful — that's how one user described the flood of information to social networking website Twitter in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks.

  One of the citizen journalists who was instrumental in spreading news of the attacks says the online community worked together to filter accurate reports of the unfolding tragedy and spread them across the web.

  User-generated content on websites like Twitter and Flickr played a key role in media coverage of the attacks, with outlets including CNN and the BBC gleaning insight into what was happening on the ground from what was being said on the internet.

  Thousands of messages posted to Twitter reported news of gunfights and explosions in areas of Mumbai almost as they occurred, in some cases beating traditional media reports by up to an hour.

  Those reports were then spread across the globe by fellow users who relayed them to their own network of readers (called "retweeting"), who in turn relayed them again and so on.

  One of the makeshift reporters was 21-year-old electrical engineering student Aditya Sengupta, who returned from his classes at college to find his online circle of friends talking frantically about the first attacks.

  "A quick search through the web and a couple of frenzied phone calls confirmed the start of what was going to be one of the bloodiest and most horrific days in Mumbai’s history," said Mr Sengupta, who lives and studies in the city.

  Read Mr Sengupta's account of reporting the news on Twitter

  Mr Sengupta said the social aspect of Twitter allowed users not just to report news but also collaborate to spread information and organise help.

  "Several constructive actions and initiatives were taken by Twitter users, such as publicising the descriptions of one of the terrorists, the cars that they were said to have carjacked and the fact that they had even carjacked a police vehicle," he said.

  "Calls for blood donations for specific blood types were also posted and widely retweeted."

  However not everything posted to Twitter was useful, Mr Sungupta said. For every important update, there were several that were irrelevant or inaccurate.

  "As the hours wore by, the importance of attribution of one’s source of news for each tweet became clear when rumours started spreading," he said.

  "The appearance of (one rumour) on the BBC website added to the confusion since a number of Twitter users cited the same BBC article as a source of their information."

   

  (news.com.au)