RIM collapsing as Apple iPhone wins the enterprise
As speculation turns to iPhone 5 comes news that Research In Motion (RIM) is dead. Sure, this might sound harsh but the company's move to replace its leadership seems unlikely to bring it back from the brink. Apple [AAPL] has unleashed forces RIM has been unable to match.
Fall of the giant
What’s the news? Company co-CEO's, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have stepped down. RIM now has a new CEO, ex-COO, Thorsten Heins. The fightback -- such as it is -- begins with two new model phones scheduled for introduction later this year, hopefully.
These moves reflect declining BlackBerry sales, declining satisfaction levels, decline across the board at the world's once leading smartphone company.
Think back and you'll recall a time when RIM devices seemed to exude rubber-clad cool: if you didn't have a BlackBerry you wanted one, and business users who did possess them loved them so much they'd work in bed with them, creating armies of BlackBerry widows in the process.
Apple made your widows smile
Apple's focus on users meant those BlackBerry widows ended up with their own electronic gadget to use at bedtime, and when their business-focused husbands saw what they were doing, they wanted a little iAction too. Read more...
EU data protection reform to replace national laws
The European Union wants to replace a mishmash of national laws on data protection with one bloc-wide reform, updating laws put in place long before Facebook and other social networking sites even existed.
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Monday that social networks must become more open about how they operate. Under her proposals, businesses — including Internet service providers — would have additional responsibilities, such as having to inform users of what data about them is being collected, for what purpose, and how it is stored. Read more...
iPhone owners most loyal to brand among mobile users
When it comes to brand loyalty in the smartphone market, Apple appears to be ahead of the pack. According to the results of a survey by research firm GfK, 84 percent of iPhone owners said they would choose another iPhone when they next replace their smartphone.
Among users of phones powered by Google’s Android operating system, 60 percent said they would stay with a phone using the same software.
Brand loyalty was weaker among BlackBerry users, with only 48 percent saying they would likely stick with one of Research In Motion’s devices. Last month the Canadian company had a torrid time of it, together with users of its smartphones, when its communication network suffered a three-day outage. Read more...
SanDisk releases new SSDs for old computers
SanDisk has introduced a new line of SSDs (solid-state drives) that it's marketing directly to retail consumers versus computer system manufacturers.
SanDisk is pitching its new Ultra SSD line as a product that can be used to replace hard drives in older systems and thereby increase the performance, durability and lifespan of existing laptops and desktops.
There is nothing that differentiates the new SSD line from a product marketed to equipment manufacturers other than it's being packaged for retail sales.
The Ultra SSD line, which uses the SATA 2.0 specification I/O interface, sports a sequential read rate of up to 280MB/sec and a sequential write rate of up to 270MB/sec. Read more...
What I lost on the Google+ Diet
On July 8, I went on the Google+ Diet, using Google's new social network for all my online communication. As part of the diet, I stopped using Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and several other services. I even stopped using e-mail.
As I explained in my column last week, the purpose of the experiment was to see if consolidating and streamlining all social activity into Google+ was possible and, if so, desirable. (You can follow my experiment here, even if you're not a Google+ member.)
I was able to answer my two questions on day one of my Google+ Diet. Yes, it's possible, and yes, it's desirable.
More interestingly, however, I found out all kinds of surprising things about Google+ and about using Google+ as the one-and-only medium for online communication. Here's what I learned: Read more...