Mobilityfeeds

AMD expects Windows tablets to grab 20% of the global market

The chief Executive of computer processor maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said Wednesday the company expects tablet computers that run on Microsoft Windows Operating System (OS) will in five years grab a 20% share of the global tablet market so far dominated by Apple's iPad.

AMD CEO Rory Read said in an interview that Microsoft's next-generation Windows 8 Operating System, which is expected to become available this fall, will help Windows-based tablets become more appealing to consumers.

Windows tablets currently account for only 2% to 3% of the global market, he added.

HP's TouchPad and webOS - the perfect case study of what not to do

The TouchPad tablet from Hewlett-Packard (HP) was one of the most closely watched new gadgets of 2011 — and quickly turned out to be the year’s biggest flop.

The TouchPad, which was supposed to be a rival to Apple's iPad, lasted just seven weeks on the market before HP killed it, citing weak sales.

Analysts point to a long list of factors behind the tablet’s quick demise.
But some of the people involved in creating the tablet’s core software now say the product barely had a fighting chance.

Android tablets are getting the bigger chunk ever of the market in Q4 2011 - Report

Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet will power Google's Android platform to 40.3% media tablet market share in the fourth quarter of 2011.

That's up from up from 32.4% in Q3, according to IDC, which estimated the media tablet market grew 24% on a sequential basis to 18.1 million units.

For an idea of how the tablet market has ballooned, that unit shipment total is higher than the 18 million units sold in all of 2010, according to IDC's count.

Moreover, the market researcher is seeing such strong demand in this quarter that it has boosted its worldwide shipment forecast for 2011 to 63.3 million units, up from its previous tally of 62.5 million units.

At 46.3%, Android leads the mobile market in July to October 2011 survey - Report

With webOS announcing its own retirement and Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry on its deathbed, ComScore’s most recent numbers should not come as much of a shock.

More specifically, in ComScores July to October 2011 Smart Phone Market Share numbers, webOS has been completely wiped from the competition.

In addition, RIM continues its head first dive from 1st place down 21.7 to 17.2%.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich runs (almost) perfectly on an HP TouchPad

Developers attempting to port the latest version of Google's Android to Hewlett Packard (HP) discontinued TouchPad tablet appear to have made a breakthrough, with one team member posting a photo of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich running on his personal device.

After HP announced the discontinuation of the tablet this summer, the firm sold off its remaining stock in a fire sale which saw prices reduced to US$99 (€74), prompting many a tinkerer to buy a tablet with the hopes of converting it into a cheap Android device.

Results have been buggy and mixed, but thus far, hackers have managed to get CyanogenMod 7 Alphas one through three up and running on the TouchPad, despite several ongoing issues with audio and WiFi.

HP plans are messy - after killing TouchPad they may launch a new webOS tablet in 2012 or 2013

Hewlett-Packard (HP) Chief Executive Meg Whitman said Friday that the company plans to manufacture a webOS tablet in 2013, even as the company winds down the webOS-based TouchPad tablet.

In what is the latest bizarre turn for HP's webOS and related tablet business, Whitman and board member Marc Andreessen stated that the company would manufacture a webOS tablet perhaps in 2012, and definitely in 2013.

An HP spokesman, asked to confirm the report, said that a webOS tablet would be made only if the market was "viable".

He added that he preferred to focus on the decision to release webOS as open source, which will give it an immortality that it otherwise might not have.

webOS goes open source - HP plans to participate actively to the new community

HP announced today that it is going to contribute its webOS smartphone and tablet OS to the open source community.

We've been waiting for months to learn the final fate of webOS, since former HP CEO Leo Apotheker announced that his company was going to kill off its webOS hardware division back in August.

HP says that it plans to remain active in the development and support of webOS, claiming that "by combining the innovative webOS platform with the development power of the open source community, there is the opportunity to significantly improve applications and Web services for the next generation of devices."

Q3 2011 shows Windows Phone far behind Android and iPhone - But that was before Mango phones releases

The latest numbers from Nielsen paint a gloomy picture for Microsoft and its Windows Phone/Windows Mobile platforms.

In the third quarter of the year, both Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined held 6.1% of the United States smartphone market.
That's down 33% from the 9% of the US market Windows Mobile/Windows Phone held in the previous quarter.

Breaking down who owns what of the (sliver-esque) Windows Phone 7 market, HTC leads with Samsung, "other", and Motorola trailing.

HP TouchPad makes the best non-iPad 2011 tablet sales

Well that settles it:
clearly the way to compete with Apple is to mark down your only tablet hardware by 80%, then leave the market in huff.

According to the NPD Group, the HP TouchPad made up the largest percentage of the non-Apple tablet market in the United States at 17%, with Samsung in a close third at 16%.

Total non-Apple tablet hardware sales were approximately 1.2 million from January through October, giving HP a total run of about 200,000 TouchPads through its brief existence.
Something seems a bit amiss with NPD’s numbers, though, as Google’s own statistics say that 3.4 million Honeycomb tablets had been sold as of last month.

Android Market now available for HP TouchPad, Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire; but with issues

Google has rolled out a minor update to the Android Market Website so that it now recognizes devices that didn’t originally ship with the Android Market.

In other words, if you install the Android Market on an officially unsupported device such as the HP TouchPad, Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, or Amazon Kindle Fire, you can now see your device from the Amazon Market Website.

What that means is that you can visit the Website in any Web browser, find an app you want to download, and send it to your mobile device automatically.

HP rumored to ready its TouchPad tablet to run on Windows 8

The 10" TouchPad touchscreen tablet made headlines when HP announced the closure of its hardware division, part of its Palm acquisition, in order to better concentrate on enterprise software.

That news came as a blow to webOS enthusiasts and long-time Palm supporters, but came with a happy note attached:
Discounts on the remaining stock of TouchPad tablets that saw the device drop to US$99 (€69).

In its discounted form, the TouchPad proved popular.
Stock flew off shelves, Websites were rendered unusable through traffic, and those who managed to bag a tablet or two found themselves celebrating the bargain of the year.

Alpha release of Android for HP TouchPad is up to grab

The CyanogenMod team has released the first version of the group's modified Google's Android Operating System (OS) for the defunct HP TouchPad tablet.

Warning TouchPad owners to "lower you expectations", the alpha 1 release of CyanogenMod 7.1 for the HP TouchPad has been released with the group saying that "many things won't work as well as they will eventually."

A version of Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the CyanogenMod firmware replaces webOS that comes installed on the TouchPad.
Many enthusiasts purchased cheap HP TouchPad's in the firm's stock clearing 'fire sale' precisely so that they could eventually obtain a high-spec Android tablet.

Tablet price war started - Manufacturers start cutting their price down

What's the sweet spot for tablet pricing?

We're finding out as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Research In Motion (RIM, BlackBerry maker), HTC, and others learn that trying to sell a tablet at the Apple iPad's starting price of US$500 (€373) may be a fool's errand.

Lenovo and North American retail group Best Buy are the latest to bring down pricing, selling the 10" Lenovo IdeaPad K1 tablet with 32GB for US$329 (€245.75), down from US$499 (€372.75).
And that 10" tablet comes with a dual-core Nvidia processor and Google's Android 3.1 Honeycomb.

At Best Buy, HTC also recently knocked down the 7" HTC Flyer to US$299 (€223.35) from US$499.
This happened - probably not coincidentally - right after the US$199 (€146) Amazon Kindle Fire was announced - which is selling briskly, thank you.

Get ready to load Android on your HP TouchPad tablet

The developers working to bring Google Android to the HP TouchPad have released a video (after the break) — showing how to install Android.

The video also shows that once Android is installed, you’ll be able to switch between Android and the webOS Operating System (OS) that comes with HP’s tablet at will.

HP discontinued the TouchPad in August, after it had only been on the market for about 45 days.
Basically the company made a gamble when it acquired Palm for US$1.2 billion last year and used the company’s software and hardware expertise to launch a new line of smartphones and tablets running webOS instead of a competing Operating System such as Google's Android or Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.

Amazon Kindle Fire and RIM PlayBook are so similar and so different

The Amazon Kindle Fire looks strikingly like the poor-selling liquidation-prone tablet from Research In Motion (RIM).

But that won't stop the Kindle Fire from flying out of Amazon's warehouses.

Analysts we talked to this week have a common forecast.
Amazon will sell millions of the Kindle Fire tablet soon after it becomes available on 15^th November 2011.
Easily beating other Google's Android tablet rivals in sales volume. And crushing its doppelganger, RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook.

In fact, the only thing possibly holding back Amazon from selling 5 million tablets (the high end of analysts' forecasts) in the months after the Kindle Fire becomes available is component supply bottlenecks.
That's exactly the same kind of benign problem that Apple has and other Android players - and RIM - wish they had.

HP TouchPad was expecting a 'little 7" brother', the TouchPad Go

Three slides have emerged from what appears to be an official HP presentation which depicts the smaller HP TouchPad tablet that was christened the TouchPad Go.

The tablet, which was never commercialised, shares the same hardware as its bigger brother except for the 7" screen (compared to a 9.7" one), it has a weight of around 455 grams and is 13mm thick.

The TouchPad Go packs a Qualcomm APQ8060 SoC, a dual core part clocked at 1.5GHz, 1GB RAM, either 16GB or 32GB (no 64GB option), an XGA screen, a rear five megapixel camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing one, WiFi, Bluetooth, HP Beats Audio and built-in GPS, all powered by webOS 3.0.

Amazon to purchase webOS from HP - Rumor

Amazon just launched its US$199 (€146) Kindle Fire, much to the excitement of gadget lovers.

But amid speculation that Amazon jumped onto the Google's Android bandwagon too quickly, there are talks that Amazon is planning to buy Palm from HP for its webOS platform.

Retail giant Amazon launched its Kindle Fire tablet with the Amazon consumer in mind.

MeeGo is dead; long live Tizen! - Intel

Intel has decided to support Tizen, another open source platform, and dropped MeeGo, its mobile open source Operating System (OS) baby.

Partner this latest news with Intel’s ambiguous support of Google's Android, the question begs to be asked:
What is Intel’s intention?

Here’s the breakdown on Intel’s lack of mobile monogamy and the details on just what Tizen means for you in the channel …

Intel has officially joined the Linux Foundation and the LiMo Foundation, both open source organizations set up to profess, populate and proliferate mobile Linux alternatives into the marketplace.

Meg Whitman needs all the help she can get as HP new CEO

Meg Whitman’s primary job as Hewlett-Packard (HP)’s new CEO will be to restore a sense of direction at a company that has lost its way after a decade of leadership lapses and disjointed deal-making.

With 320,000 employees, more than US$125 billion in annual revenue and a broad swath of businesses, the technology conglomerate needs a leader who can quickly decide on a clear path and convey that to customers and shareholders.

The company’s stock hit a six-year low Friday, a day after Whitman got the job following HP’s firing of Leo Apotheker.
HP has lost US$60 billion in market value since Apotheker’s predecessor, Mark Hurd, resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal last year.

Android and BlackBerry favored by European customers for business over iPhone

eWeek Europe readers like Google Android phones for business, according to a poll which also revealed strong loyalty to the Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry platform, and lower-than-expected Apple iPhone support.

With a 42% share of the market, and plenty of business apps, it is no surprise to find the Android topping our poll of business users.
However, the support for RIM’s BlackBerry platform surprised us, given the company’s poor financial health, and market research that suggests users are not sticking with BlackBerry phones.

Android phones came top, with 37% of the vote in our poll which asked:
“Which is the best mobile phone platform for business?”