Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » octobre 18, 2011

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Apple Q4 2011 by the numbers: $28.27B revenue, $6.62B profit -- misses Wall Street consensus

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 10:45pm CEST par Joe Wilcox
Today, after the closing bell, Apple announced another blow-out quarter -- and the first with Tim Cook officially as CEO. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company also closed fiscal 2011. While Wall Street waited with interest for today's results, fiscal Q1 2012 may be more interesting -- Cook's first full quarter as chief executive and when Apple launched iPhone 4S.

The quarter broke a longstanding trend of Apple beating Wall Street's over-inflated estimates, not just revenue and earnings but also for numbers of prominent products shipped. Only Macs exceeded analyst projections among the top-tier products.

The market reacted harshly and immediately to the rare earnings miss -- the first of post-Steve Jobs Apple. Between the earnings announcement and start of Apple's conference call with analysts, shares dropped by nearly 5.82 percent. After hours, Apple traded at $397.67 at 5 pm EDT, off the day's close of $422.24. Thirty minutes into the call, the sell-off intensified, rather than abated. Shares were down 6.63 percent then. When the call ended around 6 pm, shares were down 6.69 percent.

Apple shipped, 4.89 million Macs, 11.12 million iPads and 17.07 million iPhones during fiscal Q4. Analyst consensus was around 4.2 million, 11.5 million and 20 million, respectively.

For fiscal fourth quarter, Apple reported $28.27 billion revenue and net profits of $6.62 billion, or $7.03 a share. A year earlier, the company reported revenue of $20.34 billion and $4.31 billion net quarterly profit, or $4.64 per share. Apple announced fiscal Q4 results after the market closed today.

Three months ago, Apple forecast $25 billion in revenue with earnings per share of $5.50. Analyst average estimates were higher than Apple guidance: $29.45 billion revenue and $7.28 earnings per share.

"We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108 billion and growing earnings to $26 billion", Cook says in a statement. "Customer response to iPhone 4S has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline".

Gross margins were 40.3 percent. Apple had forecast 38 percent.

International sales accounted for 63 percent of revenues. China was phenomenal. The country accounted for just 2 percent of Apple revenues in fiscal 2009, Cook told financial analysts today. China accounted for 12 percent of revenues for fiscal 2011 and 16 percent for the quarter. By the way, Cook, as COO, has long participated in the earnings conference call, something he continued today as chief executive -- unlike Jobs when he was CEO.

Apple ended the quarter with $81.6 billion in cash and securities, up from $76.2 billion three months earlier.

Looking ahead, Apple forecasts $37 billion in revenue for fiscal 2012 first quarter, with earnings per share of $9.30. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer offered guidance during today's conference call. Analyst consensus before Apple issued guidance: $36.63 revenue and $8.98 EPS.

Q4 2011 Revenue by Product
- Desktops: $1.69 billion, up 1 percent from $1.68 billion a year earlier.
- Portables: $4.59 billion, up 44 percent from $3.19 billion a year earlier.
- iPod: $1.1 billion, down 25 percent from $1.48 billion a year earlier.
- Music: $1.68 billion, up 35 percent from $1.24 billion a year earlier.
- iPhone: $10.99 billion, up 24 percent from $8.82 billion a year earlier.
- iPad: $6.87 billion, up 146 percent from $2.8 billion a year earlier.
- Peripherals: $640 million, up 34 percent from $477 million a year earlier.
- Software & Services: $729 million, up 10 percent from $662 million a year earlier.
iPhone. Apple shipped 17.07 million iPhones worldwide during fiscal fourth quarter, up from 14.1 million iPhones a year earlier. That's a 27 percent increase, year over year. Wall Street analyst average estimate was about 20 million units. Apple counts shipments into the channel, typically making them several million units higher than numbers released by Gartner, which measures actual sales.

Oppenheimer told analysts today that iPhone sales fell off during the last half of the quarter, citing the "rumor of the day" about iPhone 4S.

Sales in Asia more than doubled. Apple ended the quarter with 5.75 million iPhones in inventory.

With the iPhone 4S launch, the handset is available from 230 carriers in 105 countries.

"I'm confident we'll have strong supply", Cook assured analysts today, regarding Apple having enough iPhone 4Ses to sell during the holidays. He went on to predict "an all-time record" for iPhone sales.

Q4 2011 Unit Shipments by Product
- Desktops: 1.28 million units, up 3 percent from 1 .24 million units a year earlier.
- Portables: 3.62 million units, up 37 percent from 2.64 million units a year earlier.
- iPod: 6.62 million units, down 27 percent from 9.05 million units a year earlier.
- iPhone: 17.07 million units, up 21 percent from 14.1 million units a year earlier.
- iPad: 11.1 million units, up 166 percent from 4.19 million units a year earlier.
iPad. Apple shipped 11.12 million iPads globally during the quarter -- that's up from 4.19 million -- a 166 percent -- a year earlier. The tablet was available in 90 countries at end of quarter, when Apple had 2.5 million units in channel inventory.

The media tablet is one of the most successful new products ever. In this quarter alone, iPad added $6.87 billion revenue to Apple's bottom line. According to Gartner, iPad leads the market segment, currently with 73.4 percent market share, and will continue to do so at least through 2015.

iPad is leading the charge of devices hampering PC sales. Regarding third calendar quarter (Apple's fiscal fourth): "The popularity of non-PC devices, including media tablets, such as the iPad and smartphones, took consumers' spending away from PC", Mikako Kitagawa, Principal Gartner analyst, says. "The PC industry has been performing below normal seasonality. As expected, back-to-school PC sales were disappointing in mature markets, confirming that the consumer PC market continues to be weak".

"I do believe we're seeing some cannibalization", Cook admitted today. He acknowledged that some people are buying iPads instead of Macs, but many more are displacing PC sales. "Cannibalization like this -- I hope it continues".

Apple is a major player in the two most disruptive technologies affecting PCs today -- media tablets and smartphones. "By 2015, mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber PC projects by 4 to 1", Hung LeHong, Gartner research vice president, says. "The PC is no longer king".

Gartner predicts that media tablet sales will reach 900 million by 2016, up from 17.6 million last year. For perspective, that's more than 2.5 times the current rate for PCs and nearly as much as the entire Windows PC install base.

"The tablet market will be bigger than the PC", Cook told analysts today. "It's a huge opportunity for Apple across time".

Q4 2011 Revenue by Geography
- Americas: $9.65 billion, up 34 percent from $7.19 billion a year earlier.
- Europe: $7.4 billion, up 36 percent from $5.46 billion a year earlier.
- Japan: $1.2 billion, down 21 percent from $1.4 billion a year earlier.
- Asia Pacific: $6.5 billion, up 139 percent from $2.7 million a year earlier.
- Retail: $3.58 billion, up 1 percent from $3.57 billion a year earlier.
Computers. Mac shipments soared during fiscal fourth quarter. Apple sold -- what company executives really mean by shipped -- 4.89 million Macs during the quarter, up from 3.89 million units from fiscal Q4 2010; growth was 26 percent year over year. Wall Street consensus was about 4.2 million units worldwide. Apple ended the quarter with 3 to 4 weeks of inventory in channel.

Last week, Gartner and IDC released calendar third quarter 2011 preliminary PC shipments. Apple was a star performer, establishing an uncontested third place in the United States. By Gartner's reckoning, Apple's percentage of US PC shipments during the quarter was a stunning 12.9 percent, a solid and unchallenged third place. Fourth-ranked Toshiba had 8.4 percent share. IDC's numbers weren't as magnanimous -- 11.3 percent -- but still better than Apple has had in nearly two decades.

In the United States, Apple outpaced the broader PC market -- with 21.5 percent growth, according to Gartner, and 8.3 percent growth by IDC's reckoning. By comparison, the overall US PC market grew 1.1 percent and 0.1 percent according to Gartner and IDC, respectively.

Q4 2011 Unit Shipments by Geography
- Americas: 1.7 million units, up 18 percent from 1.5 million units a year earlier.
- Europe: 1.2 million units, up 20 percent from 978,000 units a year earlier.
- Japan: 175,000 units, up 48 percent from 118,000 units a year earlier.
- Asia Pacific: 731,000 units, up 61 percent from 455,000 units a year earlier.
- Retail: 1.1 million units, up 25 percent from 874,000 units a year earlier.
iPod. Apple shipped 6.62 million iPods during fiscal fourth quarter, down from 9.05 million a year earlier -- a 27 percent decline. Apple ended the quarter with 4 to 6 weeks channel inventory.

Retail. Revenue from Apple Store rose just 1 percent year over year to $3.58 billion -- that's from an average 336 retail shops. Unit sales increased 25 percent -- to 1.07 million from 874,000 a year earlier. Apple opened 30 new stores during the quarter -- 21 outside the united States and 7 during last week of the quarter. Apple ended Q4 with 357 stores.

During fiscal 2012, Apple will "focus on international expansion" -- 40 new stores -- "with three-quarters outside the United States", Oppenheimer told financial analysts.
BlackBerry moves into the next generation with new BBX platform, Cascades UI

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 10:44pm CEST par Tim Conneally

On the first day of its BlackBerry developer conference in San Francisco, smartphone maker Research in Motion announced the next generation of BlackBerry platform will be called BBX and it will combine QNX, the platform RIM acquired in 2010 and used in the PlayBook tablet with the more traditional BlackBerry smartphone platform, a move not unlike the one Google has taken with Android "Ice Cream Sandwich."

BBX will be a complete platform made up of the operating system known as BBX-OS, and the related BlackBerry cloud services and development environments. BBX will support all the QNX tools that were used for PlayBook development, including Native SDK, Adobe AIR/Flash and WebWorks/HTML5. It will also include support for the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps.

RIM today showed off the core elements of the BlackBerry Cascades UI for the first time on Tuesday, which will all eventually be included in the BlackBerry Native SDK in beta version later this Fall. Shown in the video we've embedded below, Cascades supports 3D and 2D layouts, and a set of core UI components for designers to take advantage of.
What can you expect from Nexus Prime?

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 10:17pm CEST par Ed Oswald
Samsung is set to release the highly-anticipated Nexus Prime on Wednesday. The device was set to debut at the CTIA conference on October 7, but was delayed due to the passing of Steve Jobs. The new event takes place in Hong Kong on Wednesday at 10:00 am local time -- 10:00 pm tonight Eastern Time.

While it has never been confirmed that Samsung's event will be about the Nexus Prime, Google-Samsung teasers and loads of rumors surely point to the device's release, along with Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich." The Prime would be the first device to run the new version of the mobile OS.

So what will it look like? Based on what we've seen in the promo videos for the event, the most notable feature will be the curved form factor of the device. Prime predecessor Nexus has curved glass, which appeals for aesthetic, comfort and privacy reasons.

Android fan blog android.hdblog reportedly has obtained full specs for the Prime -- from a leak out of carrier NTT DoCoMo -- and those help to paint a clearer picture of the device.

Based on the leak, a Texas Instruments dual-core ARM chip running at 1.2GHz powers the Prime, which sports 1GB of internal RAM. Internal storage is 16GB or 32GB. On-board support for Micro USB, near-field communication (NFC), Bluetooth 3.0, and integrated GPS are included.

Samsung will bring both GSM and CDMA versions of the phone to the market, according to leaked information. The Prime also supports 802.11a/n.

One feature may leave some users disappointed -- the camera. If rumors are right, the rear-facing camera is only 5 megapixels; the front-facing 1.2MP. By comparison, the older Samsung Galaxy S II has an 8MP rear-facing camera, putting Prime behind in that respect.

The specs leaked by android.hdblog (confirmed by a similar scoop on Boy Genius Report earlier this month), don't jive with some others. As recently as October 6, GSM Arena reported that the device would have an 1.5GHz dual-core processor and an eight megapixel camera.

There is also the possibility, according to some sources, that the specs are confused with other upcoming devices, such as a variant of the Prime itself or a US version of the Galaxy S II HD LTE, launched in Korea last month.

Who is right? We'll have to find out. In the meantime, we've included the full spec list from android.hdblog, which seems to be the most likely at this point.
- Dimensions (length x width x thickness): 136.0 × 68.0 × 8.8 fine piece - 11.5 thickest part
- Weight: Approximately 135.0g
- OS: Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich"
- Chipset: Texas Instruments Omap4460 CPU: ARM Cortex-A9 MP Core SMP (Dual-Core) CPU operating frequency: 1.2 GHz
- GPU: PowerVR SGX 540 Immage Technologies
- Communication Systems (GT-I9250/GT-I9250M/GT-I9250M/SC-04D): W-CDMA, GSM phone (SCH-I515): LTE, CDMA2000 Packet (GT-I9250/GT-I9250M / GT-I9250M/SC -04D): HSPA, EDGE, GPRS (SCH-I515): LTE, EV-DO Rev.
- Display: AMOLED HD: 4.65 inches Resolution 720 x1280) Maximum number of simultaneous colors Main Display: 16,777,216 color touch screen: capacitive (multi-touch)
- Main camera: 5 megapixel CMOS camera with LED flash Video recording 1080pHD (1920 * 1080)
- Front camera: 1.3 million pixels CMOS
- GPS
- NFC
- Micro USB 2.0
- Communications Bluetooth 3.0 + HS
- Wireless LAN Communication: IEEE 802.11 a / b / g / n (2.4 GHz Dual-Band 5.xGHz)
- Tethering
- Wi-Fi Direct
- RAM: 1GB
- Flash Memory: 16/32GB
- Battery Capacity: 1750mAh
- Notification LED
What do you think of the leaked specs? Is this enough to get you to pull the trigger? Let us know in the comments.

Photo Credit: android.hdblog
TuneUp Utilities 2012 review

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 7:08pm CEST par Mike Williams
Every PC user would like their system to run a little faster, but making that happen yourself usually requires time, effort, and an in-depth knowledge of how Windows really works.

Does that sound too much like hard work? Then maybe you should just install a copy of TuneUp Utilities 2012, which the authors say can restore "over 50 percent of speed and free space" on cluttered PCs, while improving "battery life by up to 30 percent".

Of course there are plenty of PC maintenance suites promising much the same thing, some of which are even available for free. But this isn’t just another identikit optimization package. It has real depth, offers genuinely useful advice, and includes tools you won’t find elsewhere.

Is there enough power here to really speed up your PC, though? We decided to put TuneUp’s latest release to the test.

User Interface

After a straightforward installation, the TuneUp Utilities 2012 immediately launched its 1-Click Maintenance tool, which quickly checked for the performance basics: Registry problems, broken shortcuts, surplus temporary files, startup and shutdown problems, and so on. The report appears within a couple of minutes, and you can then fix any issues with a click. This won’t have much effect, as 1-Click Maintenance is very limited (its hard drive cleaning only empties your temporary folders, for instance -- it doesn’t even touch the Recycle Bin), but it’s fine as a quick start.

And with that out of the way, we got our first look at the program’s new interface, which divides its functionality into five sections:
- "Status & recommendations" details any issues with your PC and provides some quick fixes
- "Optimize system" includes links to various speedup tools
- "Gain disk space" helps you to delete redundant files
- "Fix problems" contains some general PC maintenance options
- "Customize Windows" provides various useful PC tweaks
This is conventional enough, but a little cluttered, and not the easiest to follow. So it’s good to see the program has an "Overview" option, too; click this button and instead of the tabs you’ll see every tool listed on the same page, which may be an easier way to find what you need.

Core tools

We started our tests by checking the core tools you’d find in any PC maintenance suite.

TuneUp Utilities 2012 has plenty of hard drive cleaning options, for instance, allowing you to remove redundant files, Windows Update backups, old system restore points and more. This section finds a similar amount of drive leftovers to CCleaner.

Additional one-click options can disable hibernation, Windows search indexing and so on, saving a little more. And a Disk Analyzer reports on your drives to show you what’s consuming the most space. We’d like a tool to locate duplicate files, as well, but otherwise this is a genuinely useful way to free up hard drive space.

Of course there are also a couple of options here to help control your Windows startup programs. The program can make specific recommendations, which generally include good advice, for example suggesting that you run Google Update as a scheduled task, rather than every time your system starts. Although, disappointingly, the program won’t create a substitute task for you; if you disable this kind of program and forget to set up a task (or never read the Task Scheduler suggestion), then you’ll miss out on updates, perhaps compromising your security.

And a second option displays all your startup programs, highlighting those it believes are unnecessary, and providing a "Usefulness" rating (courtesy of other TuneUp users) to help you decide what’s important. Startup programs can be disabled at a click, but conveniently they remain on the list. If you have problems, you can come back a week later and re-enable anything you like.

Elsewhere is a capable Registry Cleaner, quickly scanning your system to highlight problems, allowing you to view these in detail and delete them in a click. And even if, like us, you think that Registry cleaning does little of value, you should still appreciate the Registry Editor, launched via the toolbar. It looks like REGEDIT, but has more features; searching, for instance, quickly displays a list of matching Registry keys in a "Search Results" tab. It’s a very useful way to be more productive in your Registry work.

Program Deactivator

Install a big application like VMware Workstation or Microsoft Office, and it might add services, startup programs and other tasks that will slow you down. If this becomes a problem, and you use the program rarely, then you can uninstall it -- but that’s about all.

TuneUp Utilities 2012 offers another solution, though, in its Program Deactivator. Launch this and you’ll see a list of installed programs which, TuneUp Utilities 2012 claims, will have some performance impact on your PC. ITunes, say, has a "Medium" impact, apparently: if you have a copy, and rarely use it, then you can deactivate it at a click. TuneUp Utilities 2012 will then disable all iTunes associated services, Startup programs and so on, freeing up resources.

But the program remains installed, so if you ever want to launch it again, just choose iTunes from your Startup menu, and TuneUp Utilities 2012 will step in, re-enable it, and start the program for you.

We’re a little sceptical of some of the ratings provided by the Deactivator. It claims Google Chrome has the same "medium" load on your system as iTunes and O&O Defrag, for example.

But once you get past this, and start deactivating programs you don’t need, it really does work. We turned off Microsoft Office and freed up valuable resources; but when we relaunched Outlook later, it started only maybe 3 or 4 seconds slower than usual, and worked perfectly: very impressive.

New in this version is an "Automatic" function. Leave this turned on, and if you launch a "deactivated" program then TuneUp Utilities 2012 will automatically disable this again once you’ve closed it down. Which means your installed programs are always using the very minimum of RAM and CPU time.

The impact of this will obviously vary, depending on your software and how you use it. But if your system is packed with programs which you use only very occasionally, the Deactivator will help reduce their resource impact without the hassle of uninstalling them. And that could be worth the purchase price of the TuneUp Utilities 2012 all on its own.

PC Optimization Modes

As well as the usual manual tweaks, TuneUp Utilities 2012 also provides a few "optimization modes" that claim to offer more general benefits.

Live Optimization, for instance, sees the suite monitor your running applications, adjusting process priorities to ensure everyone gets a fair share of resources. This idea can be useful in some situations, although we saw no benefit from it.

Turbo Mode is more useful. Enable this from the TuneUp Utilities system tray icon, and by default it’ll turn off scheduled tasks, disable Windows Aero and unnecessary Windows services, make sure you’re running the “High Performance” power plan, and more. The speed benefits are marginal, but it is a good way to free up resources and maximise your system’s speed when necessary (just before you run a demanding game, say).

And, new this time is Economy Mode, which aims to save energy by turning off your screen and hard drive when your system is idle, switching your CPU and wireless adapter to their maximum energy-saving mode, disabling unwanted services, and more.

This delivers little benefit over using Windows own power plans. We monitored a PC’s power consumption when using the Power Saver plan, and Economy Mode, and the latter used at best 2 percent less energy. Still, it does have a couple of advantages.

First, Economy Mode is easy to configure. There’s no technical jargon when setting up CPU energy saving, say – just choose the level of savings you need ("Maximum", “Medium” or "Minimum") and that’s it.

And second, power plans are a hassle to switch, but Economy Mode can be enabled in just three clicks (and can then optionally persist as long as you like, even surviving reboots). Get in the habit of switching and you really could save energy and extend laptop battery life.

And There’s More…

Other TuneUp Utilities tools include a "Fix Problems" wizard, highlights potential issues like not having an antivirus program installed, UAC being turned off, devices with driver errors, and more.

An Uninstall Manager displays installed applications, and highlights those which have a high system load, or aren’t rated as “useful” (according to other TuneUp users). This may help you decide what you should uninstall, but the Manager won’t ensure that happens in full (it won’t in itself clean and remnants from your hard drive or Registry).

There’s also a basic, and rather slow defrag tool; simple utilities for checking your hard drive for errors, or recovering accidentally deleted files; and a small but surprisingly useful system information tool.

The Customize Windows tab provides so many tweaking options that it could qualify as a separate application, all on its own. There are options to customise your desktop, taskbar, Start menu, mouse, security, common applications and more. While TuneUp Styler allows you to change your logon screen, visual style, system icons and more.

And these tweaks, as well as most of the other settings changes you make, are recorded in the TuneUp Rescue Centre. So if you’re concerned about giving the program so much control over your PC, don’t worry: your original settings are always safe in the Rescue Centre, and can be restored in a couple of clicks.

Results

TuneUp Utilities 2012 isn’t exactly short of features, then. But what can all this power achieve?

To find out, we installed the program on an average Windows 7 PC; it was moderately optimized already, but nothing too intensive, so there was scope for improvement.

Then we ran the 1-Click optimiser, and accepted all its recommendations. We cleaned up the hard drive to the maximum, defragged, sorted out all the systems problems, and used the Program Deactivator to disable some of the most heavy-duty installed applications.

And the results weren’t bad at all.

Boot time fell by around 13 percent. Running processes on PC launch dropped from 90 to 67; initial RAM use fell from 40 percent to 37 percent; resource use (as measured by system handles) fell by almost 30 percent.

Applications loaded notably faster. Firefox launch time dropped from 2.69 to 1.72 seconds, a fall of more than a third; Outlook launch time dropped by 22 percent, and the whole system felt much faster and more responsive.

That’s very acceptable, considering this PC was already reasonably well maintained. Installing the suite on an entirely unoptimised system would deliver even better results. And of course there are many benefits here not based on performance, like the improved Registry editor and Windows tweaking tool.

You could produce a similar effect by using other PC optimisation tools, of course, many of which are available for free. But TuneUp Utilities 2012 has more options than most of these, greater depth, and some really excellent modules, like the Program Deactivator,– that you won’t find elsewhere. And so if you’re interested in optimising your PC, but would like a little help, then give TuneUp Utilities 2012 a try: it really does deliver. The software is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7 -- 32-bit and 64-bit editions -- and lists for $49.95.
Motorola combines its two strongest phone brands, unveils the 4G Droid Razr

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 6:54pm CEST par Tim Conneally

Motorola Mobility on Tuesday revealed its newest flagship Android smartphone, the Droid Razr, a device that combines Motorola's most lasting brands in a single package.

Droid Razr has a 4.3" Super AMOLED qHD display with Corning's Gorilla Glass protecting it. The original Razr's claim to fame was that it was flat and dramatically thinner than other flip phones available at the time of its release. The Droid Razr attempts to do the same thing for touchphones, and comes in at a slim 7.1mm in thickness. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha on Tuesday said it will be the thinnest smartphone on the market.

With steel and kevlar used in the chassis, the Droid Razr isn't just thin, it's also light. Its weight comes in at just 127 grams (4.47 Oz). The reason why this is so impressive is because the Droid Razr has 4G LTE connectivity and an 1800 mAh battery, yet still offers such a skinny and light profile.

The Droid Razr has a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor with 1GB of RAM and 32 GB memory (16 GB on-board and 16 GB microSD.) It has an 8 megapixel camera and forward-facing 1.3 megapixel chat camera capable of 720p video capture.

In terms of software, it runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, and comes with a few Motorola add-ons for improved usability. One of these add-ons, "Smart Actions," is a battery management application that automatically adjusts settings to conserve battery life. For a 4G phone, this sort of energy management is of paramount importance. It also features a new cloud syncing component called "MotoCast," which lets users stream content (music, photos, video) from their computer straight to their phone from any location.

It also includes a handful of enterprise-specific productivity features such as remote wipe, pin locking, AES encryption, full version of quickoffice, and the full webtop features that are present in the Atrix and Bionic.

The Droid Razr will be available for Pre-order through Verizon Wireless on October 27, and will hit stores in November. It will cost $299 with a two-year service contract from Verizon Wireless. Globally, the device will be known simply as the "Motorola Razr" (just like its predecessor) and it will be available in November.

Tim Conneally's Disclosures
Adobe Reader finally comes to iPad, iPhone

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 6:39pm CEST par Mark Wilson

While iOS has supported Portable Document Format for some time, there has been no official app from the king of the PDF, Adobe. With the release of Adobe Reader for iPhone and iPad, this has now changed. As you would expect, the app provides support for the opening of PDF files that have been created on other platform, including those that have been password-protected, and PDF portfolios.

Lengthy files can be easily navigated using bookmarks and text searching, and a thumbnail preview section at the bottom of the app makes it easy to jump to a specific page without having to scroll through a document in its entirety. It’s good to see that the iPhone and iPad versions of the app are, apart from the differences in screen size, indistinguishable from each other.

Support for comments and annotations means that by viewinging a PDF on a mobile device you are not missing out. You can choose between working through your documents in single page mode, or opt to use continuous scrolling mode instead for uninterrupted reading.

The ease with which files can be shared means that security is now of the utmost importance, and anyone creating sensitive PDFs will be pleased to find that there is support for 256 AES encryption and password protection. When it comes to working with your files, PDF can be printed out using AirPrint or shared with others by emailing from within the app.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the Adobe Reader for iOS review page.
CIOs must 're-imagine IT'

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 6:03pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

Businesses aren't exactly busting open their coffers, but IT spending will rise next year. Gartner predicts a 3.9 percent increase -- to $2.7 trillion, from $2.6 trillion this year. The analyst firm had expected 5.9 percent spending growth for 2011, and that's not happening.

What's important now isn't so much how much is spent but where. Social media, cloud computing and virtualization are disruptive technologies forcing IT departments and business leaders to re-evaluate technology adoption. Then there are the relentless, lingering effects of the global downturn. As such, Gartner claims that more enterprises are making IT a competitive, business priority -- and that affects who makes the decisions and how technology investments fit the top and bottom lines.

"The days when IT was the passive observer of the world are over", Peter Sondergaard, Gartner's head of global research, says. "Global politics and the global economy are being shaped by IT. IT is a primary driver of business growth. For example, this year 350 companies will each invest more than $1 billion in IT".

He emphasizes: "They are doing this because IT impacts their business performance. For the IT leader to thrive in this environment, IT leaders must lead from the front and re-imagine IT. IT leaders must embrace the post-modern business, a business driven by customer relationships, fueled by the explosion in information, collaboration, and mobility".

Sondergaard identifies four technologies forcing IT organizations to change: cloud computing, information fragmentation, mobility and social media. "These forces are innovative and disruptive just taken on their own, but brought together, they are revolutionizing business and society".

Take social media, for example. Facebook and Twitter opened to the public in 2006. YouTube launched in November 2005. While social media through bulletin boards, forums, instant messaging and such has been around for years, the big wave of social media services and apps are largely less than five years old.

Gartner says that 1.2 billion people -- that's 20 percent of the world's population -- use social networks. "IT leaders must immediately incorporate social software capabilities throughout their enterprise system", Sondergaard says.

Fast-changing pace means that IT organizations, and the business leadership supporting them, must do something they have long resisted: Take more risks. "Never taking risks means you are predictable and an easy target for your competition" Tina Nunno, Gartner fellow, says. "Strive to take calculated risks and surprise both your business and the competition".

Risk means making fundamental changes to how businesses operate and regard IT. "In the post-modern business, your business has no walls. It must be everywhere", Daryl Plummer, Gartner fellow, says. "It will be a virtual and fluid business that changes as customers change. In the post-modern business, you will forget phrases such as 'business architecture' and embrace phrases like 'customer delight', 'customer involvement', and 'customer intimacy'".

There social media plays a pivotal role, but so does the broader push into the cloud. "What supply chain models did to manufacturing is what cloud computing is doing to in-house data centers", Sondergaard says. "It is allowing people to optimize around where they have differentiated capabilities".

Gartner describes public cloud as one of the "hottest topics in IT". Spending on public cloud services is growing four times faster than overall IT spending. Gartner forecasts $89 billion spent this year and $177 billion by 2015.

Meanwhile, mobility isn't just hot, it's setting a blistering pace that many IT organizations can't match. As such, the so-called consumerization of IT is as much about mobile as anything else. Media tablets and smartphones are hugely disruptive technologies that IT departments must manage and embrace. Gartner predicts that media tablet sales will reach 900 million by 2016, up from 20 million last year. For perspective, that's more than 2.5 times the current rate for PCs and nearly as much as the entire Windows PC install base.

"By 2015, mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber PC projects by 4 to 1", Hung LeHong, Gartner research vice president, says. "The PC is no longer king. IT needs to be part of building out this future. Things should be so simple that people should be able to do what they need to do on any device".

Sondergaard predicts: "By 2014, private app stores will be deployed by 60 percent of IT organizations. The applications themselves will be redesigned -- they will become context-enabled, understanding the user’s intent automatically. Mobile computing is not just the desktop on a handheld device. The future of mobile computing is context-aware computing".

Is your business, government or organization ready to re-imagine IT as Gartner demands is necessary? Or do you see the analyst firm blowing the same kind of "IT must change now or else" smoke that's been around for decades?

Photo Credit: cybrain/Shutterstock
TouchPad not dead yet, gets webOS 3.0.4 update

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 5:31pm CEST par Tim Conneally

Even though Palm is a dead brand, and the future of WebOS is uncertain now that HP is reconsidering its position in the consumer electronics market, the vanishingly popular TouchPad tablet today is receiving an over-the-air update to webOS 3.0.4.

According to HP on Tuesday, this update brings the TouchPad a new camera app, the ability to pair non-webOS devices with the TouchPad for call routing, improved support for Bluetooth keyboards, support for the OGG Vorbis music file extension, and the addition of online/offline status in the messaging client.

"In addition to new features, you'll also experience better performance, user interface improvements, and other enhancements such as support for accelerometer events in Adobe Flash Player, and more robust Skype video calling," HP's Jon Zilber said on Tuesday.
SyncBackSE improves sync, Windows 7 support

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 5:20pm CEST par Joe Cassels

2BrightSparks has just released SyncBackSE 6, and it boasts a raft of new features. These include the ability to detect changes in the case of file and folder names, SmartSync options to skip or ignore specified changes and the ability to use Windows 7 taskbar features amongst many more.

You can test all the new features alongside its existing functionality with a free 30-day trial. SyncBackSE helps you to protect data via backup and synchronization profiles, which enables you to create a back-up copy of your data in a variety of different locations; helpful wizards guide you through the process of both backup and restore.

It’s very easy to set up a backup profile once the program’s up and running. Choose Profiles > New to start the New Profile wizard. Now provide a name for the profile and click Next. Choose the kind of profile you want to use. For a simple backup, stick with Backup, but you can also sort out a synchronize or mirror profile from here, too. Click Next.

Now specify the kind of source and destination folders you’ll be using. In most cases, stick with the default of internal/external or network drive on both. You only really need to make a change here if you want to use an FTP server to store your backup. Click Done.

The main profile window now opens. Click the folder icon next to Source to specify the source folder and do the same for the backup destination. Click the button marked Choose sub-directories and files if you want to further specify which parts of the source folder will be backed up. Tick or clear the boxes next to each item you want to include or exclude from the backup. Click OK.

Click OK again and agree to a simulated run. This ensures that you haven’t made any obvious errors in your profile. If all is well, select your profile from the main window and choose Task > Run. You can also opt to set up a scheduled task to run your backup automatically. The program guides you through this process so you can do a daily or weekly automated backup.

SyncBackSE is available as a free 30-day trial download for PCs running Windows 2000 or later. The full version of the program costs $34.95, which buys you a licence for up to five PCs.
Google Offers combines with Google Wallet in new SingleTap experience

Publié: octobre 18, 2011, 4:59pm CEST par Tim Conneally

Google and some of its retail partners have rolled out an updated experience to the four-week old Google Wallet payment-by-phone system that now includes coupons and rewards points, which can all be redeemed with a single tap of the user's NFC-enabled smartphone. Google is calling the updated experience "SingleTap."

In this updated experience, Google Offers has been incorporated into the wireless payment system. In the "Offers" tab in the Google Wallet app, there are deals exclusive to users of the wireless payment service, and whenever a user scans his Google Wallet wireless device, these deals are automatically activated whether or not he's actually checked them out in the tab.

Additionally, the Google Prepaid Card interface has been improved to show realtime transaction data, which includes how much money is left on the prepaid card, which store it's associated with, and the time and location of all past transactions on the card.

The last major part of the update is the automatic inclusion of loyalty cards from select stores participating in the Google Wallet program. These include cards from Foot Locker, Guess, OfficeMax, and American Eagle, with more on the way. Standalone loyalty card applications that do this very thing are common, and they now face competition not only from one another, but from behemoth Google.

Of course, "SingleTap" is different from Google's standard "Tap and Pay," and only a selection of merchants are participating in SingleTap currently. If you check the Google Wallet map, the majority of locations listed are still Tap and Pay only.