BlackBerry PlayBook: Fail With Consumers, Fail With Enterprise

The challenges facing Research in Motion’s new PlayBook tablet in the enterprise market may not be as daunting as those facing it in the consumer market, but they’re troubling just the same. With few quality core apps, a fragmented app platform (QNX, Adobe Air, HTML5 and Android) and important features that require pairing with a BlackBerry to access, the device would seem to be a non-starter in the consumer market. Which is bad news when consumer preferences are playing an increasingly larger role in enterprise purchasing decisions.

Time Not On Nokia's Side

The transition from Symbian to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform is one of the more challenging parts of Nokia’s new mobile alliance with Microsoft. Implementing a new strategy like this takes time, something that’s in short supply in the fast moving mobile market. And with Nokia complicating its roll-out with joint product roadmaps and shared responsibilities, some observers are beginning to wonder if the company will suffer more smartphone market share losses before it enjoys any gains.

Nokia to Apple: From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee

Nokia’s obsession with Apple has officially crossed over into the Ahabian. Aghast at the U.S. International Trade Commission’s ruling on its first complaint against Apple, Nokia has filed a second, accusing Apple of infringing its patents “in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, tablets, and computers.”

IPad 2 Sellout Sequel: This Time It's Global

Here’s some news sure to furrow the brows of tablet market hopefuls. Once exclusive to the States, iPad 2 stock-outs are now a worldwide phenomenon. Just two days after going on sale overseas, the successor to Apple’s original iPad is in tight supply in many of the countries where it’s just arrived at market and nowhere to be found in some of them.

Rubber Stamp Unlikely for AT&T-Mobile

The Federal Communications Commission hasn’t yet begun to evaluate AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, but according to officials, regulatory approval of the $39 billion deal is anything but a sure thing.

Samsung Scoffs at Tablet Surplus Speculation

Samsung says its policy is to decline comment on market speculation. But today the company made an exception to deny rumors that lousy sales have led to a massive oversupply of its Galaxy Tab Android tablet.

France to Google: Your CEO Is a Hamster and Your "Rogue Street View Engineer" Smells of Elderberries

It’s a pittance to Google, but the $142,000 fine France’s data privacy regulator slapped the company with today for inadvertently harvesting consumer data with its Street View cars does set something of a precedent. Meted out by France’s Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés, or CNIL, the sanction is the agency’s highest ever and the first penalty levied against Google for data collection practices that have drawn complaints from dozens of countries.

Analysts Hail AT&T Deal as a Win…For AT&T

Consumer groups are aghast at the idea of AT&T buying T-Mobile. Legislators are wary. But analysts who cover the carrier are overjoyed. The announcement of the acquisition was met with a fusillade of largely positive research notes this morning.

R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn't Matter

Some additional perspective on Nokia’s massive mobile R&D spend and a point of comparison for its market return. Extrapolating from Bernstein Research data that estimates Nokia spent $3.9 billion on mobile research and development, Asymco’s Horace Dediu has calculated Apple’s mobile R&D spend, and there’s an astonishingly wide gulf between the two.

Buyer's Remorse: 16 Percent of Galaxy Tabs Are Returned

No wonder sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab to date haven’t been what the company expected. Not only are consumers buying fewer of them than previously thought–they’re also returning them more frequently.

Verizon iPhone: What, AT&T Worry?