With ringtone revenues in decline and full-track downloads struggling to find an audience, carriers and third-party vendors are working furiously to breathe life into a withering mobile music industry.Ringtones for years have been the most popular type of content on (or off) carrier decks,...
The Mad Ballmer remained out of sight for Tuesday's keynote address before a standing-room-only crowd.Instead, a calm, determined Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp.'s CEO, offered a new, enterprise-friendly, mobile-device-management suite, touched device maker HTC Corp. with his magic wand and just said no to spectrum...
What's plaguing the mobile gaming market? Pretty much the same headaches that have been there for years.Mobile gaming continues to struggle to move beyond what publishers have dubbed the "golden nickel"-the 5% or so of mobile users who pay to download and play games...
If you've ever tossed a strand of spaghetti against a refrigerator to see if it sticks-and, therefore, is fully cooked-then you have a sense of what handset vendors and carriers go through each fall. The analogy is inexact because the issue isn't whether that...
Editor's Note: Welcome to a special CTIA I.T. Show Daily edition of our weekly online feature, Analyst Angle. Every Monday at www.RCRNews.com you can find columns from the industry's leading analysts, including iGR's Iain Gillott, JupiterResearch's Julie Ask and more. Visit www.RCRNews.com/analyst for more...
Editor's Note: Welcome to On the Margins, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week, the RCR Wireless News staff considers events in the wider business world and how they could affect the wireless industry. --Peer-to-peer...
Apple Inc. beat Wall Street's financial estimates and said that it sold more than 1.1 million iPhones during the quarter to bring its cumulative sales of the popular wireless device close to 1.4 million unit since it launched on June 29.This was the first...
If you own the platform, you control the message.That's not some esoteric, technological mumbo-jumbo-though you'll hear plenty of that this week-but one take on Symbian Ltd.'s position as sponsor of the Smartphone Summit, which allows the company to spin the data on its fortunes.While...
Data is a damnable thing. It is what it is, but the devil's in the interpretation.The same could be said for the Apple Inc. iPhone, hailed as a disruptive force that could change the handset vendor-network operator business model and pave the way for.Well,...
AT&T Mobility bolstered its mobile music offering with plans to offer over-the-air access to Napster's 5-million-plus music tracks beginning next month. The deal builds on the carrier's current side-loading deal with the music giant as well as its over-the-air downloading agreement with eMusic.The service,...
You might call it industry's summer of discontent. Where to begin?The Federal Communications Commission saw fit to attach conditions-public safety and open access, specifically-to a tad more than half of the cherished 700 MHz spectrum anxiously anticipated by the wireless industry and first responders...
The Apple Inc. iPhone has been AT&T Mobility's top-selling handset since its launch June 29, according to new data from Strategy Analytics, and is now the fourth-hottest selling device on the United States market."The iPhone has quickly assumed a leading market-share position (in the...
The first glimmer of quantifiable iPhone impacts is in, courtesy of NPD Group.The news is not-so-good for Palm Inc. and carriers T-Mobile USA Inc. and Alltel Corp. Research In Motion Ltd., however, appears to have nothing to fear.The top-tier carriers report third-quarter earnings beginning...
A true sign that wireless has finally made it-that is if the more than 1 billion cellphones in use around the world was not enough proof for you. The New York Racing Association signed a three-year deal with Sona Mobile Holdings to provide a...
A mixed third quarter is expected for the wireless industry, with weakness at Sprint Nextel Corp. contrasting with solid performances by AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, according to a report from Cowen & Co.Cowen & Co. analyst Tom Watts said he expects AT&T Mobility...
Wireless carriers are heading into the all-important holiday selling season, flashing new handsets designed to dazzle consumers and riding sales trends which have been building over the past year.The Apple Inc. iPhone craze has, as expected, prompted interest in touch-screen technology-and competitors are taking...
NOKIA CORP. RODE A CONTINUING WAVE of worldwide consumer demand for handsets in the third quarter, posting impressive gains in revenue and profit and volume.The other top-tier, incumbent handset makers also posted healthy numbers for the quarter just over. Motorola Inc. reports Thursday."People are...
The worldwide mobile music market will more than double in the next few years, exploding from $13.7 billion this year to more than $32 billion by 2010, according to Gartner Inc.But splitting up all that cash won't be easy.While boilerplate agreements don't exist in...
Welcome to our Friday feature, Week in Review. Every Friday, RCR Wireless News runs through the major events of the past week, outlining what happened and speculating on what to look for in the coming weeks, months and years. Check below for news about...
Nokia Corp. inched toward its long-held goal of 40% global market share in the third quarter, shipped more phones than its three largest rivals combined and earned revenue and profit to match. With near-complete dominance over incumbent handset makers, Nokia is moving to address...
Steve Jobs has given in.Apple Inc.'s CEO said the company will let outside developers create applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, reversing a policy that allowed the devices to run only Web-based third-party applications. The company in February will release a software development...
Music and messaging may be the mantra for holiday sales, according to conventional wisdom, but Sprint Nextel Corp. is taking no chances. The carrier will offer the HTC-branded Touch on Nov. 4, for $250 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate. The Touch, naturally,...
The following list includes ratings changes and financial information for wireless companies announced this week by investment-banking and financial-services firms.Carrier --Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said it does not expect the FCC's upcoming wireless spectrum auction to affect the ratings of U.S. wireless carriers...
Nokia Corp. will answer the iPhone's splashy user interface with advancements in its own Series 60 UI that runs its smartphone offerings, the Finnish giant said at the Symbian Smartphone Show in London.Nokia will offer the upgraded UI to rivals on a licensing basis,...
