Posted by: Olga Kharif on November 05
This morning, Verizon Wireless announced Droid Eris, a new phone from HTC. The announcement comes on the heels of another, of Motorola Droid, another smartphone device based on Android software developed by Google and its partners. So Verizon Wireless has decided to develop a single brand for all Android-based phones it puts out: Droid, a company spokesperson confirms.
This strategy is a smart one: Currently, very few consumers are even aware of Android, or know what it is. With the Droid brand, Verizon Wireless is likely hoping to change that, and to make Droid phones stand out in the consumers' minds in the same way the Apple iPhone does. Indeed, Android-based phones are highly differentiated products: They are the only phones that can connect to and download apps from the Android Market, an app store for mobile games, calendar and productivity applications. They also can access services such as Google Maps Navigation, which offers voice turn-by-turn directions. It's important to point out these differences to consumers, and a single Droid brand can help achieve just that.
Posted by: Rob Hof on November 05
Early this morning, Google is launching a new feature that lets you view what data is being stored on a range of Google services. Google Dashboard also will let you control at least some of that data and how it's used by Google and even delete it.
Dashboard provides a summary of the data in Google products you use while signed in (if you're not signed in, that data isn't associated with you). For now, Dashboard aggregates Gmail, the photo service Picasa, Calendar, Google Docs, Alerts, YouTube, Web history, and some others. As early as next week, Google will start adding more services, such as Checkout, Google Groups, and SideWiki.
Google says Dashboard wasn't prompted by rising concerns about corporate use of people's data. But I don't doubt that Dashboard is intended to blunt complaints that Google collects so much data. In fact, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's business product manager for trust and safety, made a point of telling me that the company had briefed some regulators around the world on Dashboard.
Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on November 04
It's been a year since the Conficker worm first started turning up on Windows PCs and the Conficker Working Group estimates that there are still millions of computers infected with it. These systems are still a potential threat to their owners and to the health of the Internet as a whole, but there's a really easy way to find out if a computer is infected: the Conficker Eye Chart.
On a clean system, all of the images on this page will show up. If it's infected, some will be missing. The site includes simple instructions on how to interpret the results and how to remediate an infected system. Run it on your PC. Better yet, run it on your mother's PC and your kids' PCs.
Conficker still remains something of a mystery. Experts have no real idea of who is behind it or what it was intended to do, says Tom Cross, manager of X-Force Research at IBM Internet Security Systems who has worked closely with the Conficker Working Group. Despite the fears of security experts, the bots infected with the worm were never used to mount any sort of serious attack. What remains unknown is whether the infection was some sort of elaborate rehearsal for a future attack or if the vigilance of the computer security community prevented something worse from happening.
Continue reading "Conficker a Year Later--Help Stamp It Out"
Posted by: Peter Burrows on November 04
Cisco just announced earnings for its first fiscal quarter that beat Wall Street's expectations by a wide margin, as well as its own expectations. The company posted revenue growth of 5%, far higher than the 1% to 3% it forecast three months ago. Operating margins of 29% and gross margins, at 66%, were also well above expectations. Those gross margins were the best in four years, CEO John Chambers told analysts on the conference call now underway.
He said that he expects we'll look back and see this as "a major inflection point." He believes the economy bottomed out in the first calendar quarter of 2009, began to recover in the second quarter and gained real momentum in the third. "The recovery is well under way," said Chambers.
Among many highlights, the company saw flat order growth in the US for the quarter ended on Oct. 30--a massive improvement from the 20% year-on-year declines of the last two quarters. While small businesses and phone carriers were much improved, the highlight was spending by US corporations. "We've seen a much faster recovery in their business than we had expected. The company seems to be well on the road to recovery," says Pacific Crest analyst Brent Bracelin. Indeed, Chambers forecast positive revenue growth in the current quarter, and even said it would begin limited hiring--though he warned any employees listening to the call that it would be "very targeted" on jobs that drive productivity growth or help grow into new markets.
The company warned shareholders not to assume the second half of the year would remain strong, and advised analysts not to update their models for the second half of the year given uncertainties about job growth and the sustainability of the recovery. "I just don't want us to get ahead of ourselves," said Chambers.
Still, the company did give a forecast for the current quarter, saying that it expects year over year growth of between 1% and 4%. That's in line with recent years, when the company averaged 3% growth in its second quarter--and much rosier than Wall Street analysts, who expected a revenue declilne. Gross margins could fall, due to product mix and some less expensive new products.
Given Cisco's huge size, product breadth and importance as a proxy for the health of the Internet, this is great news for tech in general. Bracelin notes that this marks the tenth out of twelve companies that sell primarily sell to corporations that has exceeded Wall Street expectations.
Some in the press have been raising questions about Chambers' long-term strategy, particularly the amount it has spent on acquisitions and on moving into dozens of "market adjacencies"--from Flip video cameras to heavy duty servers. Bracelin isn't one of them. With so many companies moving to virtualized data centers, "Cisco's goal is to be there as companies go through the biggest transition in many years," he says. "I think Cisco is doing all the right things, and it's way too premature to judge Cisco's strategy, when we're just coming out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression."
Certainly, Cisco seems as confident as I've ever seen it--and maybe more confident than any company I've ever seen. As Chambers pointed out, it did four large acquisitions in the last month, including $3 billion acquisitions of wireless services infrastructure company Starent and videoconferencing specialist Tandberg (although the bill for that deal may go up, given protests by Tandberg shareholders). What's more, the company is clearly ignoring critics who doubt that strategy. The evidence: the company okayed a $10 billion stock buyback. As Chambers told analysts, "There are some CEOs that are stepping on the gas pedal, but very few are doing what we're doing and pushing the gas pedal down all the way."
Continue reading ""Recovery Is Well Under Way," says Cisco's Chambers"
Posted by: Olga Kharif on November 04
Half of T-Mobile myTouch 3G users visit Android Market at least once a day, according to a Nov. 4 report from T-Mobile USA. As you'll recall, the carrier released the T-Mobile myTouch 3G device in August.
Here's why this is huge news: Until now, Android Market has not been as good at attracting smartphone users as the legendary Apple App Store, which now offers more than 100,000 apps to Android Market's 12,000. Most developers I've talked to say their Android Market sales have been tiny. The best apps have only sold thousands of copies in the Android Market vs. millions in the App Store. But all that well may be the thing of the past.
Devices that can tap into the Android Market have improved, and become easier to use: myTouch 3G represents only one of a bunch of new, compelling gadgets based on Android software developed by Google and its partners that are coming out en mass. What's more, Android Market's functionality has improved, and should evolve further in the next few months, making the store easier to use for both developers and consumers. Perhaps the Android Market will prove to be a Cinderella story yet.
