WirelessDoc

Sprint: Seeing No Deal, Weisel Downgrades - Tech Trader Daily. Should Google buy Sprint?

Sprint: Seeing No Deal, Weisel Downgrades - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com.

“Current price levels do not fully reflect recent changes in the Sprint business and the wireless landscape, including the launch of the Any Mobile plan, Palm Pre discounts and modifications to executive compensation, all of which we feel reflect challenging fundamentals in the hyper-competitive U.S. wireless market,” Breen wrote in a research note.

It looks like the T-Mobile deal is uncertain.

Imagine, if you will, a Google purchase of Sprint. Device manufacturers supporting Android will find a sympathetic carrier for an already extensive 3G network. Sprint already has very competitive voice and data plans, so this would represent an immediate attraction to new customers, with a solid path for the future.

There must be some obvious reason why this deal can't be done. I'm just saying.

Motorola's plan to spin off its money-losing mobile phone unit: emergence of consumer-driven technology

Joel Dreyfuss of Red Herring in his "TechSpin: Motorola's Lessons in Consumer Marketing," makes that point that tech companies traditionally tried to entice businesses to buy into their product based on the list of features they can come up with, resulting in the feature-itis phenomenon.

Now, new products need to work from the bottom-up, by first appealing to users with both style and function. (Need I mention the iPhone?)

I guess this means that businesses will have to adapt to provide support for those converged devices that the employees best think fit their digital needs and lifestyle. It's only fair if you want your people to be connected to you 24/7.

In a way this has a connection to healthcare IT. As more patients begin to expect to see their doctors and nurses using the digital equipment that they're seeing in news reports, it will be important for hospitals and practices to adopt new technology to position themselves as being up to date.

Intel leaves the OLPC after dispute | One More Thing - CNET News.com

Link: Intel leaves the OLPC after dispute | One More Thing - CNET News.com.

According to Intel, Negroponte asked the chipmaker to stop selling its Classmate PC while it was part of the OLPC, which is currently shipping its XO laptop based on a chip from AMD. The Classmate PC was one of the sources of friction between Negroponte and Intel before they joined forces in July. Negroponte went on 60 Minutes in May and accused Intel of dumping Classmate PCs below cost in order to keep OLPCs out of the hands of needy children.

No official word from OLPC yet.

OECD brief on US science and tech industries

This is a briefing, OECD SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRY SCOREBOARD 2007 BRIEFING NOTE ON THE UNITED STATES (PDF) that's part of a larger report, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2007: Innovation and Performance in the Global Economy produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on their Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry Web site.

Some highlights:

The United States has the highest share of investment in knowledge (as % of GDP), reaching 6.6% in 2004 compared to an average of 4.9% for the OECD as a whole, mainly due to significant expenditure on R&D. [I wonder if Ireland has better numbers--I'll check later.]

With regard to R&D performance, business enterprise remains the main sector in the United States (70% of the total in 2006), although the share of higher education institutions has been steadily increasing (14.3% in 2006 compared to 12.1% in 2001).

The United States accounts for the largest share of total venture capital in the OECD area (39%), and ranks among the highest in terms of venture capital investment as a % of GDP (almost 0.2% in 2005). In the US, most of this investment is concentrated in high-tech sectors (almost 90% of total venture capital).

The United States continues to attract the largest number of foreign doctoral students: about 10 000 obtained a doctorate in science and engineering (S&E) in 2005, or 38% of all S&E doctorates awarded.

It would be useful to look at these and the other stats listed in the main report, to track the trends. I have their CD OECD Health Data 2007: statistics and indicators for 30 countries which includes software that allows you to crunch your own comparisons as well as look at the trends. I'll have to see if this is possible for their tech data.

Palm will report a loss; SVP engineer departs

Palm has warned that it might show a slight loss for the first fiscal quarter.

The company’s outlook for the quarter represents a substantial drop in earnings from the year-ago period, when the company had a profit of 16 cents a share, or 21 cents when special items were excluded.

The NY Times story reports that "Palm shares lost 29 cents in after-hours trading Wednesday."

Michael Farese, Palm's SVP of engineering, has accepted the position as the new CEO of BitWave Semiconductor.

HP releases its first mass-market PC in Australia with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

It's not known what options HP will be offering with this system.

HP releases its first mass-market Linux PC

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Worldwide PC industry has an upturn

This report from the latest Economist shows that "There's life in the old dog yet."

"When the personal computer (PC) turned 25 last year, many anniversary articles read like obituaries." Certainly, consolidation will continue to be the story, the latest examples being Acer's takeover of Gateway.

Personal computers | There's life in the old dog yet | Economist.com

Technorati Tags: Economist, PC, Acer, Gateway, Dell, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo

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New competition for wireless modules in laptops

I was listening to the Wall Street Journal's 9/29 This Morning podcast which had an item talking about favorable economic reports, specifically the 5.5 point gain in the NASDAQ Futures, however this past Thursday, both Sierra Wireless and Novatel Wireless had "slipped" on the news that Intel and Nokia will be providing wireless internet modules pre-installed on laptops.

MarketWatch adds details to this story: "Sierra Wireless stocks sink on Nokia-Intel collaboration."

Nokia said early Thursday that it has developed an HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) module that Intel will deliver to notebook-computer makers as part of its next-generation Centrino Duo platform. Embedded modules are mini-modems that reside inside laptop computers and other wireless devices. Sierra supplies HSDPA modules to some of the world's biggest laptop makers, including Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Lenovo Group Ltd. (0992.HK).

Sierra Wireless has also signed an agreement with Intel to provide  "WWAN modules [that] will be incorporated into Intel's UMPC (ultra-mobile personal computer) platform architecture."

Startup laundry list

This is Nick Denton's list of preferred advisors, services and technology. Even if you're not a startup it's still useful.

It includes: Skype, Google Groups, TypePad...worth checking out.

[By way of Fred Wilson's Musings of a VC in NYC blog]

IBM releasing Tablet PC

Another scoop via Scoble:

From CNET: "China's Lenovo Group is expected to announce its new X41 Tablet Series (X41T) in coordination with IBM, which developed the convertible laptop. This is the first computer released by China's Lenovo Group following its purchase of IBM's legendary PC business earlier this year."