Mobile game publishers and their carrier partners are hoping to lure newbies by giving away everything from 30-second game demos to a Volkswagen Beetle. Whether they're succeeding, though, is far from certain. Wireless gaming continues to struggle to expand past the "golden nickel"-the 5%...
Ad-supported game distributor Greystripe pocketed $8.9 million in a second round of funding led by The Walt Disney Co.'s venture capital arm.The San Francisco-based startup, which offers more than 800 free mobile games via the online and mobile portal GameJump.com, claims to have delivered...
Ed Whitacre announced that he will retire as CEO and chairman of the board at AT&T Inc. effective June 3. The 65-year-old is the longest-serving CEO in the telecommunications industry, having served as chairman and CEO of Southwestern Bell since 1990. When he took...
Verizon Wireless is making new moves toward customer friendliness with an expanded "test drive" period of 30 days, during which customers can opt to leave the carrier and essentially have Verizon Wireless foot their usage bill-so long as they port their number elsewhere. Typically,...
Amobee Media Systems is the latest startup on the ad-supported mobile game space, teaming with Exit Games to deliver marketing messages in titles running on Java and BREW handsets.Exit is a German-based firm that provides technology for connected play to customers including Cingular Wireless,...
Motorola Inc.'s performance last year cost CEO Edward Zander his bonus, but it didn't tarnish his golden parachute. Zander's exit pay, explicitly disclosed for the first time in a company filing March 2, could range as high as $56.8 million, depending on the circumstances...
International operator Vodafone Group plc has agreed to acquire a majority interest in Indian mobile operator Hutchison Essar Ltd. for $11.1 billion-however, whether a major shareholder will cooperate is unclear.Vodafone said it had reached the multibillion-dollar deal to acquire companies that control a 67-percent...
Mobliss Inc. made its exit from mobile messaging official, selling off its assets in the space to digital company New Motion Inc. for an undisclosed sum.Mobliss, a subsidiary of Japan's Index Holdings, gained substantial traction in the early days of text messaging in the...
Time was when the wireless industry's major, marketshaping impact in the telecom sphere was defined by the number of mobile phones that became substitutes for landline telephones, which historically consumers have relied on for day-to-day communications.Just as Ma Bell back in the day grossly...
Editor's Note: Welcome our Monday feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry. In the coming weeks look for columns from Strategy Analytics' Chris Ambrosio, Current Analysis’ Peter...
It's not a good sign when your name starts popping up in the press with the kind of foreboding and frequency otherwise reserved for Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, Kim Jong ll and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Well, OK, it's not that bad. Still, Sprint Nextel Corp. President...
"Idealistic" isn't a word commonly associated with venture capitalists. But Brian Biniak, founder of the new wireless venture-capital firm Provenance Ventures L.L.C., believes there is a business case for making the world a better place. "Some people complain about it, and I decided that...
The following list includes ratings changes and financial information for wireless companies announced this week by investment-banking and financial-services firms. Click here for wireless ratings from past weeks from RCR Wireless News.CarrierRBC Capital Markets lowered its rating on Verizon Communications to sector perform from...
WASHINGTON-The unsuccessful proxy fight lodged by Highland Capital Management L.P. against Motient Corp. has given way to another nasty skirmish over proposed ownership changes in mobile satellite assets whose value may have been a factor in the exit of a high-rolling satellite TV bidding...
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The battle for the large regional licenses in the advanced wireless services spectrum auction appears to be largely settled at this point, with Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc. the big winners. Click here for the latest headlines from the AWS auction. Click...
Polar opposite pictures of the second quarter emerged last week from Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. as the industry's No. 2 and No. 3 operators reported financial results. Verizon Wireless' parent company, Verizon Communications Inc., encountered what its executives called a "pivot point"...
NEW YORK—Vodafone Group plc plans to keep its 45-percent stake in Verizon Wireless for the foreseeable future, Verizon Communications Inc. chief executive officer Ivan Seidenberg told analysts in a conference call Tuesday. Seidenberg said he met last week with Arun Sarin, Vodafone’s CEO, to...
Business forecasts are integral to industry, wireless or otherwise. Vendors crunch them, analysts parse them, investors fret over them, bloggers disparage them and reporters write about them. Early in the year, forecasts typically are up, down or mixed. And by mid-year, there's enough hard...
While the standards-setting process for WiMAX technology seems to move forward at a snail's pace, the business machinations around mobile WiMAX are developing faster than a speeding bullet, so to speak.Indeed, Intel Corp.'s recent moves to exit the wireless handset chip business and immediately...
The good news is that about 80 percent of the world's population is covered by wireless networks, and only about one-quarter of those actually subscribe to a wireless service, which means emerging markets offer opportunities for handset vendors to grow market share and, possibly,...
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Nokia Corp. unveiled a new software development kit (SDK) for game-makers looking to create 3-D titles for the manufacturer’s smart phones. The SDK, which was announced at the Game Developers Conference, includes debugging and analyzing tools as well as information based on...
BONN, Germany—Vodafone Group plc announced that the company’s chief marketing officer and board member Peter Bamford will leave the company as of April 1, the latest of several high-profile company members to leave or announce their upcoming departures. According to the Wall Street Journal,...
BONN, Germany-Vodafone Group plc shares surged more than 9 percent on the London Stock Exchange Friday when the company confirmed reports that it is in talks to sell its Japanese operations to broadband Internet provider Softbank. "Vodafone has been struggling with its Japanese unit...
BONN, Germany—Vodafone Group plc shares surged more than 9 percent on the London Stock Exchange Friday after the company confirmed reports that it is in talks to sell its Japanese operations to broadband Internet provider Softbank. "Vodafone has been struggling with its Japanese unit...
