Apple may be moving into the educational market in a different way, going after the enormous, highly politicized, and highly profitable textbook business. The details of this move aren’t known at this point but there are some interesting questions about the whole textbook-ebook thing that bear review. It might be something actually useful in education….
The story that PC sales slipped in 4Q, first raised as a Microsoft comment yesterday, is now being quasi-confirmed by more detailed shipment data released by various Wall Street researchers. One, citing Gartner, says that y/y growth in PC sales was well below seasonality in the quarter, and the expectation overall is that PC sales…
What’s the lesson of CES so far? That a tablet is a window on the cloud. Eric Schmidt danced around that point with his notion of Android making your house cooperate with you by essentially sensing your behavior. Walk into a room and it’s like the old song; “The room was singing love songs…” because…
Surprise, surprise! The latest data from the European Telecommunications Operators Association shows that costs are up and revenues are down, and the author wonders how long this sort of imbalance can go on without compromising spending. Maybe it already has; we noted that Acme Packet showed weakness that could be a symptom of a capex…
We’re on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, and it’s already clear to most of us that the event is in jeopardy. Not only are some big names (like Microsoft) expected to withdraw after this year, the whole notion of shows in general and this one in particular is under threat. Ironically, what’s threatening…
I’ve got a kind of “tale of two TVs” today, if that’s not too euphonic for you! The big story at CES may not be tablets after all, but Google TV. And the biggest IPTV success story may be doubling down on their approach, but shifting to Microsoft’s Mediaroom. Google has tried TV already, and…
Cisco is discontinuing its personal/consumer telepresence product, Umi (or however you like to spell it; I’m not going to imitate their accent-U!), a move that’s no big surprise to most industry-watchers, including me. The big question isn’t why (because it didn’t sell) but whether the move might represent a gradual shift by Cisco toward a…
Acme Packets, one of the growth leaders in the network equipment space as far as the Street was concerned, did a surprise pre-announce of a less-than-expected quarter. Supporters of the company have rallied around the notion that this is somehow just a transient blip. Yet the company told investors that the shortfall came from a…
Well, it’s 2012 and everyone is going to be talking about what kind of year it will be, or what kind of year 2011 was. It’s inevitable at this time of year, and the fact that there’s nothing much being announced at this point in time is no small reason for the recaps or future-tellings….
It’s the last workday of 2011 and everyone seems to be doing a retrospective, but I’m not going to do that! What’s the point of blogging if you rake up the past anyway? There are more stories today about both Apple’s and Google’s possible plans in the TV space. One of the popular ones (for…