Palm moves 50,000 Pre smartphones in opening weekend
[Via ZDNet]
Update: A new WSJ report now says analyst ranges are between 50,000 and 100,000. Heck, maybe Palm sold eleventy billion.
industry posts
Take it from Garmin-Asus -- making a smartphone ain't exactly easy sauce. Regardless of the facts, ViewSonic has decided it prudent to jump head first into the tumultuous waters known only as "the smartphone industry," announcing today plans to create its very own offering that'll undoubtedly compete with the likes of HTC, Samsung, LG, Apple and the rest of the gang. The portfolio addition brings it a major step closer to realizing a "3- to 300-inch product line," but outside of a launch pattern, no details whatsoever were dished out. We're told that China will get the phone first, with Europe and the Americas following suit. We'll go ahead and start the vaporware watch now, just so we aren't caught off guard when there's nary a mention of this at CES 2010.

Quite honestly, we can't imagine now as being an awesome, jovial time to be heading up any division of Sony Ericsson. Thus, we're not too awfully shocked to hear that Najmi Jarwala, President of Sony Ericsson USA and Head of Region North America (comprising the US and Canada markets), has decided to leave his corner office at the end of March in order to "pursue other career opportunities." The announcement comes just a weekend after SE proclaimed that its Q1 sales were down some 50 percent, and with the outfit's somewhat lackluster showing at MWC (Idou notwithstanding), we can't imagine things magically turning around in the near future. At any rate, Anders Runevad (pictured), Executive VP and Head of Global Sales & Marketing will be taking over until a successor is named, and that's assuming anyone is willing to walk into such a severely precarious situation.
You've had a nice run, 2G, but the time has come to start looking beyond to bigger, better and (most importantly) faster things. With LTE just over the horizon, NTT DoCoMo is proactively announcing the phase out of its mova and DoPa 2G services. The 2G mova services encompass car phone and Pre-Call prepaid -- which got their roots in March of 1993 -- while the 2G DoPa packet communication service sprouted up four years after that. Both of these longtime favorites will be disconnected at the close of 2012, with the company noting that "associated services and related billing plans will also be terminated at the same time." Anyone still relying on this stuff will be contacted sometime over the next three years to ensure that they aren't shocked and surprised when December 2012 arrives, and they'll be encouraged to make the not-at-all-painful shift to FOMA 3G services. It's better in the fast lane, we promise.





