Nokia Corp. hired a former Palm Inc. executive to head up its worldwide developer efforts, a move that highlights Nokia's continuing focus on its developer and licensing business and the potentially troublesome issues in the space.Lee Epting started as Nokia's vice president of developer...
STAMFORD, Conn.-Content deals continue to funnel through the pipe, with a range of handset makers, carriers and content companies announcing deals in the area.First, application provider SmartServ Online Inc. said it scored a major deal with an unnamed global handset maker to include the...
SECAUCUS, N.J.-Panasonic continued its push into the United States with a new camera phone for AT&T Wireless Services Inc.AT&T Wireless will begin selling the Panasonic GU87, which features an embedded digital camera, as well as support for multimedia messaging services."By combining Panasonic's digital phone...
OSLO, Norway-Sales of handheld computing devices, including personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones, rose 3.5 percent in the final quarter of 2002 in Sweden, reversing a slide that began in 2001. Swedish consultancy IT Research credited the swing to innovative multipurpose phones like...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-Having deployed several thousand Panasonic GD87 cell phones, Vodafone Germany has confirmed the handsets can make billable calls without users being aware. The company said the software bug within the device could lead to fraud or unwanted charges.According to Vodafone, which has...
SAN JOSE, Calif.- Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. Ltd. will license over-the-air application provisioning technology from DoOnGo Technologies Inc. for use in the company's Panasonic FOMA mobile phones.Using the new software, Panasonic phone owners will be able to wirelessly access software upgrades in Panasonic retail...
BEIJING-Managing Director Shinichi Okamoto of Matsushita's mobile-phone department in China told the China Daily Business Weekly his company is aiming for a 25-percent share of China's handset market by 2005 by focusing on high-end phones.He estimated high-end phones account for approximately 14 percent of...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-In an effort to break the stranglehold of the likes of Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson, Vodafone is preparing to launch a huge marketing campaign that will prominently feature handsets labelled with the company's brand name, and not those of handset manufacturers.The...
CUPERTINO, Calif.-Mobile phone operating system company Symbian announced it added additional security features to its OS product through a new deal with Internet security company Symantec Corp.Under the deal, Symantec will work to extend its security programs to Symbian's operating system.Also on the mobile...
WATERLOO, Ontario—BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. continued to make noise during its Wireless Enterprise Symposium this week, announcing a deal with business software vendor BEA Systems Inc. to extend Web service applications to BlackBerry devices, as well as original equipment manufacturer agreements with...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—The sales projection for mobile terminals in Latin America for 2002 is 54 million units, with an increase of 13 percent compared with last year, according to a report presented by Daniel Torras, Pyramid Research's director. According to the report, the terminals...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—Despite the sluggish European phone market, Toshiba announced it plans to market Taiwanese-made handsets in Europe to boost sales beyond Japan and the United States. The company, which also said it planned to build a cell-phone factory in China, confirmed that it...
TOKYO—Fujitsu Ltd. licensed Symbian's operating system for use in the company's third-generation mobile phones, further adding to the long list of Symbian licensees.Fujitsu joins Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Kenwood, Panasonic and a variety of other manufacturers that have licensed Symbian's platform. Symbian has been battling...
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Palm Inc. dropped the price of its high-end m505 color handheld to about $400, down from about $450. The company also offered a special promotion for a free 16MB Panasonic Secure Digital expansion card and $250 worth of coupons.The moves are the...
TORONTO-As the handset manufacturing business gets tougher because of declining demand, more phone makers are looking at joint ventures as their economic salvation and perhaps their best strategy to catch number-one handset supplier Nokia. In October, after much fanfare, Ericsson and Sony launched a...
SAN DIEGO—Qualcomm Inc. said some top device manufacturers, a game developer and a Canadian carrier have signed memoranda of understanding to join its Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless Platform.The companies include Japanese phone manufacturers Hitachi Ltd., Panasonic and Toshiba, game developer Sega Corp., Canadian...
TOKYO—Matsushita Electric Industrial said its expects a net loss of US$560 million in the second half of this year, 50 percent more than its earlier estimate.The company, which offers the Panasonic brand, attributed this bleak picture to its depreciating value resulting from the slide...
BEIJING—Chinese mobile-phone supplier Bird has sold around 1 million sets in the first six months of the year, surpassing foreign brands Philips, Alcatel and Panasonic in the domestic market.Bird is now the fifth best-selling brand in China, following Nokia, Motorola, Siemens and Ericsson. Domestic...
BEIJING—China has imposed a one-year sales ban on Panasonic-brand phones made by Japan's Matsushita Communication Industrial, because the phone's software referred to Taiwan as an independent country.The government in Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of the People's Republic of China and does not...
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah-Sierra Wireless and WirelessReady Alliance members Padcom, Panasonic and AT&T Wireless announced they will together offer a bundled wireless data solution to law enforcement officials and other public safety industry workers. With the bundled solution, officers will be able to send...
As Sony Corp. choreographs its dance steps for the awaited 3G stage, cell phones continue to inflict muscle spasms.The Japanese electronics giant dampened market confidence in its abilities as a phone maker when one of its customers, KDDI Corp., a major Japanese carrier, announced...
SINGAPORE-Singapore network operators will not make General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) widely available to consumers here before the end of this year, executives from operators and handset manufacturers said at the CommunicAsia exhibition recently. Handset manufacturers also admitted the shortage of devices is delaying...
DENVER-A Cingular Wireless executive last week discussed the benefits of EDGE technology as an alternative to true third-generation networks, further evidence that EDGE may still play heavily in future plans for U.S. operators.Anil Doradla, a wireless technology researcher for Cingular, made his comments during...
Monopoly claims on Microsoft Corp. might go out the window in the wireless space as major vendors, developers and operators expect to leverage both the software giant's .NET and Java 2 Enterprise Edition platforms for third-generation Web services, according to industry watchers."The evolution to...
