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By Tim Conneally, Betanews

After Sony debuted the slimmer, cheaper PlayStation 3 in September, the formerly "too expensive" home video game console enjoyed an explosion in sales. At the $299 price point, it quickly went from the slowest-selling console to the fastest. NPD Group statistics are now showing that sales cooled off slightly in November, and PlayStation 3 receded to second place (710,400 units) behind Microsoft's Xbox 360 (819,500 units).

Though sales may have relaxed after the initial surge, market research company iSuppli says the 120 GB PlayStation 3 slim has brought Sony closer to the "breakeven point." Each unit sold still loses money for Sony, but because of the revised bill of materials in the new design, Sony is losing less, and that's something.

After all, the console has been selling at a loss to Sony for its entire life. After the device launched in 2006, iSuppli determined that Sony was losing between $241 and $307 for each unit sold depending on the hardware configuration.

"However, with each new revision of the game console hardware, Sony has aggressively designed out costs to reach the hardware and manufacturing breakeven point as quickly as possible," said iSuppli analyst Andrew Rossweiler.

The firm's last count put Sony at a $49.72 loss per unit sold.

In its most recent teardown analysis, iSuppli determined that Sony has shrunk that loss even further to $31.27 per unit. The entire bill of materials adds up to $336.27, thanks to a lower wattage power supply, more energy efficient chips and fewer components.

Technology System Integrator. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In October, Finnish mobile phone leader Nokia sued Apple, claiming that the iPhone infringed on ten of Nokia's wireless technology patents, and that Apple refused to agree to appropriate licensing terms for Nokia's intellectual property.

"Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of [our] innovation," Ilkka Rahnasto, Nokia's Vice President of Legal & Intellectual Property said at the time.

Today, Apple responded to the litigation with a countersuit, upping the ante by saying that Nokia violated 13 of Apple's patents, that Nokia's patents are not essential to any standard, and that Nokia is effectively scrambling to remain relevant in the changing mobile device market by charging bogus licensing fees and by copying Apple's iPhone design.

Apple pulls no punches in its counterclaim: "In dealing with Apple, Nokia sought to gain an unjust competitive advantage over Apple by charging unwarranted fees to use patents that allegedly cover industry standards and by seeking to obtain access to Apple's intellectual property. Nokia needs access to Apple's intellectual property because it has copied and is now using that patented technology.

"When mobile wireless handsets or cell phones were first introduced," Apple's counterclaim continues, "the technology focused on the ability to make and receive traditional voice calls. Nokia was an early participant in the development and sale of these traditional voice call-focused mobile phones. Over time, however, mobile phone technology converged with computer technology and other technology advances, including many advances pioneered by Apple...Today's 'smartphones' are sophisticated, portable computing devices with immense capabilities...Apple foresaw the importance of converged user-friendly mobile devices...designed a business strategy based on the convergence of personal computers, mobile communications, and digital consumer electronics, and produced...devices such as the iPod, iPod Touch and the iPhone.

"In contrast, Nokia made a different business decision and remained focused on traditional mobile wireless handsets with conventional user interfaces. As a result, Nokia has rapidly lost share in the market for high-end mobile phones. Nokia has admitted that as a result of the iPhone launch, 'the market changed suddenly and [Nokia was] not fast enough changing with it.' (citation)...In response, Nokia chose to copy the iPhone, especially its...patented design and user interface."

The complaint finally declares, "This attempt by Nokia to leverage patents previously pledged to industry standards is an effort to free ride on the commercial success of Apple's...iPhone while avoiding liability for copying the iPhone and infringing on Apple's patents."

In addition to being a harsh criticism of Nokia's business model, Apple's statement is rife with self aggrandizement. The frequent ellipses in the above quotes are sections containing references to Apple's "innovative," "enormously popular," and "revolutionary" products. This section of the complaint ends up reading something like Apple's incredible, amazing, awesome keynotes. The remainder of Apple's 79-page complaint -- the part that we didn't cite here -- refutes Nokia's patent claims and asserts 13 of its own.

Though no single device from Nokia is an out-and-out ripoff of the iPhone, Apple takes full advantage of Nokia's vast portfolio, and singles out a number of devices for their individual infractions. Apple singles out the 5310, E71, N900 by name, but includes the Series 40, S60 and Symbian platforms, Carbide C++ (because it's developed in an environment that enables the compiler to generate a GUI), and any Nokia product that identifies itself through USB.

Technology System Integrator. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

End of year is typically time for company retrospectives, but 2009 is also end of decade. For Microsoft, the slow economy and push into Web services bookends the decade 2000-2009. Microsoft parallels between the new century's first year and the decade's last year are surprising. I've put together a list of 10 things, presented here in no particular order of importance.

1. Microsoft struggled through recession. In December 2000, Microsoft issued an unexpected profit warning for its fiscal 2001 second quarter. In January 2009, Microsoft released disappointing 2010 second quarter results, announcing intent to lay off 5,000 employees. Recessions marked the beginning and end of the decade, hitting Microsoft sales hard.

2. Major new Windows versions launched. In February 2000, Microsoft released Windows 2000, mainly for the business market. Windows 2000 promised to fix many of the applications and device driver incompatibilities and performance problems associated with predecessor Windows NT. In October 2009, Microsoft launched Windows 7, promising better device driver support and improved performance than predecessor Windows Vista.

3. Internet Explorer bundling with Windows. In April 2000, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found that Microsoft had violated 1898 Sherman Act by, among other things, integrating Internet Explorer into Windows. In January 2009, the European Union issued Statement of Objections that later solidified into a formal ruling against Microsoft's integrating Internet Explorer into Windows.

4. Office on the cheap. In November 2000, Microsoft announced that Office 10 (aka Office XP) would be available by subscription. Microsoft later scraped the subscription plan several times (anyone remember Equipt?) but not the concept. In summer 2009, Microsoft began testing Office Web, a hosted version of the productivity suite for the low subscription price of free.

5. Web services vision to delivery. In June 2000, Microsoft unveiled .NET, which replaced what had been called Next Generation Windows Services. In November 2009, Microsoft announced that its next-generation Azure Web services platform was in production among some businesses, in preparation for Jan. 1, 2010 official launch.

6. Ebook publishers unite. In March 2000, 30 publishers supported launch of Microsoft Reader format for ebooks. In December 2009, Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time announced plans to "develop open standards for a new digital storefront," supporting many portable devices (What? No Microsoft?).

Related: In August 2000, Barnes & Noble started selling ebooks in Microsoft Reader format. In December 2009, Barnes & Noble started selling the Nook ebook reader, based on software from Microsoft rival Google.

7. MSN butterfly takes wing. In February 2000, Microsoft introduced a new MSN logo, the four-color butterfly. In October 2009, Microsoft updated the butterfly logo.

8. Tablet PC keeps on trying. In November 2000, at Comdex, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates unveiled Tablet PC, a concept that never really caught on. In October 2009, Windows 7 launched with touchscreen support, extending and finally fulfilling the original Tablet PC concept.

9. Mobile devices rule the day. Handheld PDAs, many running Palm or Windows CE operating systems, were the hot geek gadgets in 2000, as seen at PC Expo and Comdex trade shows (Anyone remember the first Compaq iPaq?). In 2009, smartphones were so popular that unit sales exceeded laptop sales, according to Gartner. But for smartphones, Microsoft's mobile OS stood behind Apple and Google products for mindshare and geek enthusiasm.

10. The Ballmer Era. In January 2000, Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as Microsoft CEO. Gates stayed as Chairman, a position he still holds. In 2009, Ballmer.... I simply can't complete this one, because people's emotions seem to run so high about him. That's your role, to offer appropriate Ballmer parallel from 2000 to 2009 -- or to add others that I might have missed. Comments are open for your Ballmer insight.

Technology System Integrator. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I'm not at all surprised that Apple's recent purchase of Lala Media, a previously-ignored music streaming outfit that likely would have flatlined otherwise, is already generating rumblings of impending major change to one of the most pivotal brands in its arsenal. While it was the iPod and iPhone devices that first established Apple's consumer product cred and later sealed its long-term position on the techno-cultural podium, it was iTunes that turned the process of buying, managing and consuming content from a chaotic mess into something that ultimately killed the local record store and permanently changed the entertainment landscape.

If only the world never changed

But nothing stays still for long, and as iTunes gets ready to celebrate its ninth birthday, its future is already being rewritten. And none too soon, because iTunes is badly in need of fixing. The package has virtually always been a pig. It's too large, unwieldy, and slow for its own good, and too quirky in day-to-day use. It sucks back system resources and forces users who like to work to music to make a tough call: iTunes, or work, but not both at the same time unless the performance goal is a 386 running WordPerfect circa 1989.

Apple has had eight major upgrade opportunities to get it right, and it's failed at every turn, adding features on top of an already rickety architecture and letting users on both Macs and Windows suffer the performance-sapping consequences. The interface, which has often served as a canvas for Apple's latest design theme, violates more usability principles than the dashboard of a first-generation Yugo.

The intent of iTunes is admirable, and it's been hugely successful largely because it's free and most folks consider it good enough. But it's about as far removed from Apple's simple-at-all-costs ethos as you can possibly get. It's time for Apple to get serious and apply the same design- and usage-led thinking to iTunes that it applies to everything else in its stable.

The shift is already underway

The timing for this transition is ideal given the current trend toward thinner, Web-based, mobile-friendly solutions that don't necessarily revolve around a computer. The concept of mobile devices tethered to desktop or laptop computers laden with entire libraries of purchased or downloaded music is increasingly seen as yesterday's model. Folks are getting tired of having to download something to a computer before syncing it to a mobile device. They're fed up with having to move gigabytes of content from one hard drive to another when they get a new machine.

Thanks to Google's ever expanding universe of Web-based services, consumers are also gradually becoming more comfortable moving some (not all, not yet, but getting there) of their precious data to the cloud. But it won't stop with productivity-related data. It's inevitable that music, video and related entertainment-focused content moves in that direction as well.

This transition toward cloud-based paradigms isn't just affecting the Microsofts of the world, and Apple knows it. And before a savvy web services outfit outflanks it with a cloud-focused content acquisition and management solution that out-iTunes iTunes, it looks like Apple's building a web-ified, wireless-driven solution of its own. Good on them. If you're listening, Mr. Jobs, here's my wish list:

• Make it work on any mobile device. I know it's tempting to give preference to the iPhone and iPod Touch crowd. Avoid the temptation at all costs. Remember how the original Mac-only iTunes exploded in popularity and cultural significance as soon as you released it for Windows? Keep the same strategy in mind this time out and make sure other major platforms like BlackBerry, Android and, yes, even Palm's webOs get to join the party. I know you've had fun blocking Palm devices from using iTunes, and I appreciate that you own the playground and want consumers to keep buying Apple-branded mobile devices. But at some point, this proprietary silliness has to end.
• Let me store everything in the cloud. Google's been hemming and hawing over its mythical Gdrive for longer than I wish to remember. Don't make the same mistake. Even if you have to cannibalize your .ME service, find a way to cost effectively let iTunes users stream their content online, again from any device. Whoever drives ubiquitous, cost effective, Web-based storage into the mainstream first, wins.
• Make the wireless carriers play ball. Strike a deal with them to introduce stream-friendly rate plans. AT&T will hate you, but none of this will ever fly if wireless consumers are worried about busting their measly 500 MB/month data allocations.
• Don't kill me with DRM. Don't make me jump through hoops to enjoy legitimately purchased content on a number of devices and/or platforms. Your decision to make the current iTunes DRM-free was a great one. Don't change direction now.
• Ignore protests from record labels and studios. They'll certainly howl with each inevitable step away from the models they've held near and dear for so long. Tough. After they failed to anticipate and respond to the realities of selling content in a broadband-driven Internet era, it fell to you, Apple, to introduce a model that worked well enough for everyone. Don't let them ruin the party now that content moves from download-and-install to cloud-based.

In the coming year, I expect this landscape to get a lot more convoluted than it already is, as players large and small maneuver around each other for position. As is often the case when markets move through historic inflection points, it isn't fully clear how all this will play out and who will be left standing when the dust settles. But the lessons that Apple taught the then-new online music market earlier this decade -- delete superfluous features, integrate the hardware, software and network, simplify the purchase experience -- continue to apply in today's vastly expanded multimedia market.

It'll be nice to finally have an iTunes delivery method that lives up to the promise and doesn't frustrate us with unchecked bloat, machine-tied inconvenience and interface-based gridlock in the process.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Technology System Integrator. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Mobile browsers have come a long way in a relatively short time. In a way, webOS, iPhone OS, and Android users have been kind of spoiled by the fast and easy-to-use browsers installed on their devices by default. For these sorts of users -- the ones who pull out their mobile phones to run a search every time someone has an unanswered question -- it's easy to forget that much of the mobile world would rather avoid opening its default mobile browser at all.

Opera may be the most prominent third-party solution to poor mobile browsing experience, but free browsers such as Bolt and Skyfire are quickly making a name as well. They too seek to improve the mobile Web experience for everyone, even those on resource-constrained devices with less-than-lovable browsers built in.

This week, both of these cross-platform browsers received significant updates.

Bolt from Bitstream (which made its name in software as a retail seller of fonts) is not even one year old yet, but has already shown promise as an alternative browser for devices that support the MIDP 2.0 and CLDC 1.0+ profiles. Along with its desktop-style browsing functions, Bolt supports streaming video, copy and paste, and the ability to upload photo or video content to the Web.

This week, Bitsream rolled out Bolt 1.6, which the company said adds full socket-based connectivity, a new password manager, and the ability to be set as the default browser on BlackBerry devices. This means when links are embedded in e-mails and text or instant messages, they can be clicked upon and opened in Bolt now instead of having to be copied and pasted or otherwise opened in BlackBerry's default browser. Mobile users can point their default Web browser to Bitstream's Bolt download site to install the new version of Bolt.

Skyfire has gained considerable attention in the third party mobile browser scene thanks to its support for Flash 10, Silverlight 2, AJAX, and JavaScript, and its snappy server-side compression techniques. These factors combined bring users an experience that is comparable to, if not actually better than, the webOS, iPhone, and Android browsers. Unfortunately, device support for Skyfire is not as vast as Bolt, and the most recent update will only affect Windows Mobile users.

Skyfire 1.5 for Windows Mobile (both PPC and SMP) adds full VGA support, a new UI more tailored to touchscreen "flick" browsing, and full-screen mode with no UI layers. Flash and Silverlight have been updated to the latest versions with this release, and Skyfire claims the browser has been upgraded on both client and server side for and overall faster browsing experience.

Though this update is only for Windows Mobile 5, 6, and 6.X devices, Skyfire says S60 5th edition will get the fully updated browser some time in January.

Technology System Integrator. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Do you browse the Web on your phone, iPod touch or other portable wireless device? Congratulations, you're one of the 450 million mobile Internet users, according to IDC. The analyst firm today predicted that number would reach 1 billion by 2013.

I'll do some quick math. Apple has shipped more than 30 million iPhones, so there's a possible 6 percent or so of mobile Internet users -- and that's not counting more than 20 million iPod touch users. Another nearly 30 million Crackberry -- ah, BlackBerry -- addicts accounts for another 6 percent of users.

"Internet-connected mobile devices are reshaping the way we go about our personal and professional lives," John Gantz, IDC's chief research officer, said in a statement. "With an explosion in applications for mobile devices underway, the next several years will witness another sea change in the way users interact with the Internet and further blur the lines between personal and professional."

That change may be accelerating, with smartphones pushing the gas pedal. In October, Gartner reported that smartphones accounted for 14 percent of overall mobile device sales, but would grow to 37 percent by 2012. Gartner forecasts 180 million smartphone sales in 2009, exceeding notebooks for the first time. From 2009, Gartner predicts that consumers would spend more on smartphones than notebooks.

No surprise, mobile Internet usage is more informational -- search, online news and sports, e-mail and instant messaging -- and where recreational, downloading music and videos.

Besides, the mobile Internet forecast, IDC also offered up a plethora of other information about Internet usage:

• The number of Internet users will increase from 1.6 billion this year to 2.2 billion -- or one third of the global population -- by 2013.
• China has more Internet users than any other country -- 359 million growing to 566 million in 2013.
• The number of U.S. Internet users will grow from 261 million in 2009 to 280 million in 2013.
• As measured by percentage of population with Internet access, the United States hugely leads China.
• India's Internet population will grow nearly two-fold over the next four years. IDC didn't give exact numbers of users.
• The number of devices -- mobile phones, PCs and video games -- accessing the Internet is more than 1.6 billion. The number will grow to more than 2.7 billion by 2013.
• The United States leads the world with the most Internet connected devices, but China ranks tops for mobile Internet-connected devices -- 85 million, or nearly 20 percent of the worldwide total.
• The number of Internet users making online purchases exceeds 624 million worldwide. Online purchases will double, from $8 trillion to $16 trillion, between 2009 and 2013.
• Global Internet advertising will reach $61 billion this year, growing to over $100 billion in 2013. The 2009 figure represents 10 percent of advertising spending across all media categories. IDC forecasts 15 percent by 2013.

'The next several years will witness another sea change in the way users interact with the Internet and further blur the lines between personal and professional," Gantz expressed in the statement. He's so right about that.

Because it's not just end of the year, but end of the decade, I have a question for Betanews readers: How do you expect to be accessing the Internet in just five years? PEW Internet forecasts that by 2020, the mobile phone -- and not the PC -- will be the primary way people access the Internet. I predict the transition will be much sooner. What do you think? Please respond in comments.

Technology System Integrator. 2009

Aluratek announced its new eBook Reader, the Libre, sports a monochrome reflective LCD and a $179 price tag.

Aluratek announced its new eBook Reader, the Libre, sports a monochrome reflective LCD and a $179 price tag.

New eBook readers are just popping up left and right, and today Aluratek Inc announced they shall be jumping on the eReader bandwagon as well. The company says it will be releasing an eReader, approriately titled, the Libre eBook Reader Pro with “exclusive LCD technology”.  What makes the Libre eBook Reader Pro—we’re going to call it the Libre— slightly more celebration-worthy than the Kindle or the Nook? We think it could be its low price tag of $179. Aluratek says it is trying to provide the most affordable product in the eBook Reader category.

 The Libre features a 5-inch monochrome reflective LCD panel, a battery life with up to 24 hours of continuous use, as well as MP3 and photo support. The Libre also offers five font size options and also supports Adobe DRM, ePUB, PDF, FB2, TXT, Mobi, PRC and RTF formats, providing a wider access range for books and content. Aluratek’s new eBook Reader comes with a 2GB SD card, and supports SD and SDHC cards up to 32GB.

“Unlike e-Ink displays which require multiple flashes for each page advance, I believe the reflective LCD technology the Libre offers will be a welcome change compared to other eBooks currently on the market” said John Wolikow, VP Sales and Marketing for Aluratek. “The ability to store thousands of your favorite books in the Libre is not only convenient but it’s also good for the environment by saving trees.”