Nokia, Motorola, Research in Motion, Apple (yes, even Apple) and six other cell phone makers have agreed to a European Commission request to develop a universal charger. The agreement was announced today by the the EC. The new handsets will use Micro-USB connectors, and will be available in Europe beginning next year. The GSM Association […]
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Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO of Verizon, appeared on “The Charlie Rose Show” yesterday talking about the communication company’s plans for global growth, network neutrality and the role of government. For the record, Verizon plans to build out its wireless business internationally within the next 5-10 years, and about one-third of that growth will be through […]
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Global revenue growth from mobile phone subscriptions has slowed, according to data released today by research firm Telegeography. The firm notes that the top 20 global service providers generated $251 billion during the first three months of 2009, which was only up 3 percent from the same period last year. Part of the slowed growth […]

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The Kindle DX uses E-Ink technology
Prime View International, a Taiwanese company that makes an e-readers display part, said today it would purchase E-Ink, a company that provides the digital ink technology in the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, for $215 million. The two companies have been partners in developing the Sony and Amazon e-reader products, […]

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As cable companies transition to super-fast broadband speeds provided by DOCSIS 3.0, they’re also considering how they can move from providing analog and digital channels via radio frequency the way they do today, and instead transition to an on-demand IPTV model that could offer them more flexibility with their programming options. For consumers, this could […]

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Motorola -– not HTC — is being tapped by carrier T-Mobile to produce an updated version of the G1, according to the Boy Genius Report. In a leaked product photo obtained by the BGR site (pictured), the G1 v2 — unlike the HTC-made G1 — sports easily recognizable Motorola styling.
Being picked by T-Mobile […]

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Meraki, the wireless access point maker, today sent out emails informing its customers than it’s launching two enterprise access points that can be managed via the web (Meraki, in an attempt to hop on the cloud buzzwagon, calls this a cloud controller). That means Meraki is going to compete with folks like Cisco, Juniper […]

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Meraki, the wireless access point maker, today sent out emails informing its customers than it’s launching two enterprise access points that can be managed via the web (Meraki, in an attempt to hop on the cloud buzzwagon, calls this a cloud controller). That means Meraki is going to compete with folks like Cisco, Juniper […]

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Last week, I blogged about the au Box, an Internet-video friendly uber set-top box developed by Motorola . My blog post was based on a story in the Information Week. The publication reported that the multi-featured set-top box that can play back DVDs and CDs would use Google’s Android OS. I had heard something similar […]

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Last fall, I asked the question: Where will Android go next? For while Google’s mobile-oriented, lightweight operating system has been linked with netbooks and various other devices, we thought Android would be ideal for Internet video-focused set-top boxes. Motorola apparently thought so, too, and was said to be working on an Android-based set-top box. Today, […]

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We’re no rating agency here at GigaOM, but Om and I got together this week to figure out our coverage priorities for the coming months — let’s call it a spring cleaning — and decided there are five companies that we’re just not going to spend a lot of time on anymore. Nortel , AMD, […]

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Most in the technology world think about scaling in relation to web sites and data centers, but the carriers operating the world’s wireless networks are worried about scale as well. As they transition to fourth generation (4G) wireless networks, they’re not just thinking about increasing data speeds; they’re also trying to figure out how to […]

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WiMAX, despite losing attention and mindshare in the U.S., seems to be thriving across the planet. Business Standard, an Indian newspaper, reports that Huawei, Telsima and Alvarion are three of the companies shortlisted for the $1 billion WiMAX network being built by BSNL, the state-owned Indian telecom company. With Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent (a ALU) […]

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Earlier today, Motorola announced it was selling Good Technology, the wireless email software division it bought for $400 million only 2 years ago, to Visto technologies, the leader in enterprise push email.
This move signals the end of Motorola’s attempt to build a business-specific phone to compete with RIM’s Blackberry (RIMM) and Palm. To some, this […]

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At the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona today, the next-generation 4G wireless service finally got some respect, with AT&T saying it will likely deploy the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard in 2011 rather than in 2012 and Verizon choosing vendors for its upcoming LTE rollout.
Verizon has chosen Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent as […]

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In a twist on customer satisfaction surveys, Glassdoor, an online site that tracks employee satisfaction, has asked employees at mobile handset makers and carriers what they think of the executive they work for and the products and services their workplaces offer. The folks at Apple are cultishly loyal to CEO Steve Jobs, giving him a […]

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Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next-generation wireless network chosen by 80 percent of the world’s carriers, isn’t turning out to be the star of this year’s Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona. Instead of announcing LTE rollouts, carriers are talking up their upgrades to HSPA+, a small, software-based step up from existing GSM-based 3G […]

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We’ve already heard of efforts to port Android to netbooks — but today it appears another, more important milestone has been reached. Motorola says its Moto Labs has succeeded in porting Android to E Ink display screens. E Ink is an electronic paper display technology with a paper-like, high-contrast appearance, ultra-low-power consumption and a thin, light form; Moto Labs has developed a way to marry Android to the E Ink development kit. And while the fruits of this labor won’t show up in a commercial product for some 12-18 months, it’s still big, big news.

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Oh no, Moto! The handset and equipment maker reported a $3.6 billion loss today on sales of $7.1 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008.  Motorola’s handset business sold only 19.2 million phones in line with expectations. With a quarterly loss of $595 million, Moto’s handset business has lost a collective $3.22 billion in the […]

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Earlier this month reports emerged that Motorola would cut as much as 50 percent of its handset division, as it slashes down the number of phones it sells to a dozen and focus solely on Google’s Android Operating System. The decision, made us wonder if Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS might be a big loser because […]

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The economic downturn knocked the wind out of the handset market in the third and fourth quarters of 2008, resulting in shipments of 1.2 billion handsets for the year and overall growth of just 5.4 percent, according to data released today from ABI Research. And it’s only going to get worse. But economic upheaval isn’t […]

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Chemical giant BASF and a small specialty chemicals company in Skokie, Ill., called Polyera Corp. have come up with a new type of semiconductor ink they plan to market under the name ActivInk. The ink is based on a new molecule that allows printed ink to carry a negative charge. Flexible circuits carrying a positive […]

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Today Ericsson reported a 31 percent drop in its fourth-quarter profits to 3.9 billion kronor ($465 million), announced 5,000 job cuts and said its core telecommunication equipment business was still unaffected by financial turmoil. Ericsson saw a large loss in its handset unit, but demand from telecommunication operators and a weakening currency meant strong equipment […]

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Motorola will soon lay off as much as 50 percent of its handset division, according to mobile industry blog, PhoneScoop, citing an unnamed source said to be familiar with Motorola’s plans. The post also claims that Motorola will skip the CTIA Wireless trade show in April, and will slash the number of new phones it […]

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The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES)— at which every new gadget debuting in the year ahead is trotted out for display in a football-sized stadium in Las Vegas — is upon us again. After spending days walking amidst rows of 82-inch flat screen TVs and pocketing useless tchotkes from hundreds of vendors at the show, […]

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As part of a CES related briefing, I was turned on to a product Motorola is pushing that combines a CDMA femotocell with a software-based phone and a digital picture frame. The femotocell will connect with a user’s existing broadband connection and boost cellular coverage in the home. The picture frame shows pictures and also […]

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Having determined that its growth in the enterprise has pretty much stalled, Cisco is looking at video to help it sell equipment to carriers. To do that it’s positioning video traffic as the new data — ready to take over the web. Because if you’re going to convince service providers to shell out for equipment […]

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The troubles in telecom continue as Nokia Siemens Networks plans to cut an additional 1,300 employees in Finland and Germany as part of an overall restructuring. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, the telecommunications equipment maker has cut about 6,000 workers and plans to lay off a total of about 9,000 before the restructuring is complete. NSN is a joint venture between Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG. Laid-off NSN employees won’t be alone, as workers throughout the communications value chain watch their jobs disappear — from those working at Freescale and ST-NXP Wireless to those at Nokia and Motorola. The industry and its employees have weathered downturns before, but it’s hard to watch it happen all over again.

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Updated with information about Nortel cuts: Big job cuts are not just for startups. The grim reaper has started to take its tool on the telecom ecosystem. We have already reported about the job cuts at Nokia (600) and Motorola (3,000) and Nortel is likely to cut about 10 percent of its work force. The malaise has started to spread to component makers. For instance, JDSU cut 400 jobs, shut down seven R&D centers and three plants. Anadigics, a Warren, N.J.-based broadband wireless and wireline chip maker cut 15 percent of its work force. ST-NXP Wireless has cut its workforce by 500. Elsewhere Freescale and Verio also made some cuts. All these companies are reacting to the broader market declines and slowing demand from consumers. Vodafone, one of world’s largest telecom operators, is looking to cut jobs soon.

Update: Nortel today announced that it was cutting 1,300 jobs versus previously reported 3,000 cuts. Nortel had previously cut about 1,200 jobs. John Roese, Chief Technology Officer at Nortel along with some other senior managers is going to be leaving the company by end of this year. Roese, who participated in our Mobilize 08 conference, in my view is one of the smartest people when it comes to the broader direction of the telecom and technology industries. I think with his exit, Nortel loses a critical thinker. But right now it seems Nortel is fighting for its dear life as economic realities are crushing the company.

The original post was published yesterday.

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Apple’s 3G iPhone was the best-selling handset in the U.S. during the third quarter of 2008, according to data compiled by The NPD Group. Apple had previously reported that it sold about 6.89 million iPhones (3G) in the quarter. The research group identifies Apple’s new device “as the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S.”

It beat out Motorola’s RZR V3 (all models), RIM’s Blackberry Curve, the LG Rumor and the LG enV2, the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research group said. RAZR was ranked as the top seller for past 12 quarters. That is bad news for Motorola, which is already on the mat after being pummeled with losses and declining market share. Funnily enough, phones with a QWERTY keyboard were in high demand — 30 percent of the handsets sold in this quarter had keyboards, versus just 11 percent the year prior. According to NPD Group, the domestic handset purchases by adult consumers declined 15 percent year over year in third quarter to 32 million units. Consumer handset sales revenue fell 10 percent to $2.9 billion.

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The votes have been cast, the winners and losers have spoken, and the euphoria of yesterday will now give way to the realization that a lot of hard work lies ahead. We’re not talking about the U.S. presidential race, but the even longer slog to use the spectrum between digital television channels for unlicensed wireless […]

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The FCC today opened up the wireless communications market with its approval of a plan to allow independent devices to operate in the spectrum between digital TV channels; it also OKd the merger of spectrum between Sprint and Clearwire as well as Verizon’s $28.1 billion deal to buy Alltel, creating two new wireless networks backed, in part, by Google.

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Motorola today said it has demonstrated over-the-air data transmissions using equipment based on the LTE next generation wireless protocol in the recently auctioned 700 MHz spectrum. The equipment will be ready for limited network deployments in 2009.

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Motorola continues to lose market share and more importantly money in its handset business. And the way things are going, it might never be able to spin off the division that has bled over $2.6 billion in last seven quarters with no end in sight.

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Motorola will cut jobs, simplify the number of operating systems it uses with a big bet on Google’s Android OS, according to WSJ.

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A week before the Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on a proposal to turn over spectrum between the digital television channels for a wireless broadband service, singer/songwriter Dolly Parton has come out against the plan.

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BusinessWeek says Motorola, the beleaguered Schaumburg, Ill.-based handset maker is working on an Android OS-based phone — not that it should surprise anyone. Former CEO Ed Zander was quick to sign up for the Google-sponsored Open Handset Alliance.
Sanjay Jha, who now heads up Motorola’s handset business (which is likely to be spun out some time […]

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Kineto Wireless said today it has raised $15.5 million in additional capital, including funding from Motorola as part of a broader commercial relationship with the company’s home & networks mobility business.

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When it comes to the fixed-line Internet, the FCC would like you to believe that wireless broadband is going to be the answer, perhaps through schemes such as the D Block auction, spectrum grabs by M2Z Networks and white space initiatives. If you believe that, then you also believe that that you can walk away a winner from a game of three-card monte on a Manhattan sidewalk.

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Check out this cool new converged prototype device from Motorola that combines a picture frame with touch-screen, video camera, Bluetooth headset, VoIP, femtocell, and video streaming. A femtocell is a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in residential or small business environments that allows you to use your mobile phone in your home connecting to your femtocell access point.

Femtocells essentially are an alternative way to deliver the benefits of Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) without the need for a dual-mode handset. In the Youtube demo video below demoed by Motorola representative Harsha Hegde, you can clearly see they’re using the popular Counterpath Xten SIP-based softphone - also shown in the screen grab above. Motorola also demonstrates a femtocell mobile-to-mobile VoIP call, which is pretty cool.

Tags: bluetooth, femtocell, motorola, photo frame, picture frame, video, voip

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The Wireless Innovation Alliance today is making another charge in the war between those trying to keep the unused spectrum between digital television channels clear, and those trying to use that spectrum for wireless broadband. Those so-called white spaces are the last chance for wireless broadband competition in the eyes of the Alliance and the […]

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After a few quarters of nonchalant statements that the sub-prime mortgage crisis and rising oil prices weren’t going to affect the tech stocks, the bloom is off the rose. The lowered sales forecasts and lackluster quarters are trickling in, and the trend for wireless companies is clear. This morning, networking equipment maker Ciena said in […]

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The U.S. market for smart phones continues to be a tough nut to crack for the established handset makers.

Top-tier players such as Nokia, Motorola and Samsung control 80% of the market for cell phones but have struggled in the U.S. to sell smart phones — phones that allow users to surf the Internet, send email and download music, among other advanced functions.

Often caught up satisfying carrier demands, handset makers have been slow to bring out products in this segment, opening the door for the likes of Research in Motion and Apple.  And let’s not forget Palm.

(What’s in your pocket? Bet it’s one of those …)

Want to find out more about the trials and tribulations of this market? Check out the Wall Street Journal here.

Tags: apple, cell phones, motorola, nokia, palm, research in motion, samsung, smart phones, wall street journal

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AMD sells digital TV chip division to Broadcom for $193 million in cash. It is part of companies desire to be an asset-lite company.

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Motorola, the world’s third-largest handset maker, has just unveiled two new low-end phones on that allow users to listen to songs and surf the Web.

Facing stiff competition from handsets such as Apple’s iPhone and the Nokia line, Motorola has said it would launch 50 new devices this year, including advanced phones, trying to come up with a strong follow-up to its once-lauded Razr phone.

One new handset is a music-enabled camera phone — the W388 – that sells for under $100.

The second device is a low-end third-generation (3G) mobile phone — the VE538 — which goes for less than $250 and offers one-click mobile social networking, photo uploading and blogging at various websites.

The two new products will be shipped to Asia-Pacific markets first — before being rolled out globally — by September. 

More at Reuters.

Tags: apple, iphone, mobile, motorola, nokia, razr, reuters

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Today, Google is launching a new advocacy campaign, Free The Airwaves, an effort by the company to get some traction around white spaces, the tiny slivers of spectrum that resides in the 700 MHz band vacated by analog television’s switch to digital transmissions. It even launched a lobbying web site, though the “supported by Google” […]

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LG Electronics, the South Korean mobile phone manufacturer, has overtaken rival Samsung to take second place in the U.S. handset market behind Motorola in the latest quarter.

The figures, prepared by Strategy Analytics, a Boston-based research firm, underscore the popularity of several touchscreen-based handsets made by LG, including the Vu and Voyager (photo above). Both are sold by Verizon Wireless in competition with Apple’s iPhone offered exclusively by AT&T in the U.S. 

More at the Financial Times.

Tags: at&t, lg electronics, motorola, samsung, verizon wireless, voyager, vu

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Motorola has divided itself into three units, rather than two. In March Motorola said it would spin off its handset business in the wake of poor performance. Now, according to WSJ, it has further split its units into: a set-top-box and home-networking business, a networking gear business, and […]

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Nokia and Qualcomm buried the hatchet this week, deciding to settle matters out of court and become friends. While the details of the settlement aren’t clear - The Wall Street Journal reports that as a result of this settlement, Nokia will pay less to Qualcomm. The deal ensures that Qualcomm continues to get money in […]

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Israeli chip startup Animon, which is pushing a form of whole-home, uncompressed wireless HD, has teamed up with Sony, Samsung, Sharp, Hitachi and Motorola to create the WHDI special interest group. Animon already has products out on the market to offer wireless HD using the same 5 GHz spectrum used by Wi-Fi. But the […]

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