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1) Motorola Inc. agreed to acquire closely held Good Technology Inc., which provides wireless email technology that competes with Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry system.
Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Good Technology, based in Santa Clara, Calif., makes software that allows corporate users to send and receive email and other data on cellphones and various devices, including Motorola's Q and Palm Inc.'s Treo smartphones.
Good Technology, which was initially launched as a maker of MP3 modules for hand-held devices, transformed itself into a maker of wireless email software several years ago. The company has more than 12,000 business customers, Motorola said.
The acquisition will extend Motorola's mobile computing capabilities and increase the company's enterprise client base, the Schaumburg, Ill.-based company said. The transaction is expected to close in early 2007.
Motorola, Sprint Nextel Team on Multimedia Wireless Phone By Patrick Hoffman
November 9, 2006
Motorola and Sprint Nextel announced Nov. 9 the launching of Motorola's i880, an Integrated Digital Enhanced Network handset wireless phone that will have a 2.0 megapixel camera as well as other multimedia features.
"The i880 represents Motorola's philosophy of intelligent handset design while delivering an amazing music experience," Peter Aloumanis, vice president of the U.S. Markets Division for Motorola's iDen Mobile Devices, said in a statement. Motorola's U.S. corporate offices are in Schaumburg, Ill.
The i880 targets a range of users from the home consumer to the business professional.
When asked how this product would be beneficial to a business user, Krissy Zotaley, a Motorola representative, said, "The i880 provides business users with the functionality of international, national and short-range walkie-talkie service and multimedia features that they could always take with them."
2) HP launches Ipaq 5900 – GPS, 802.11, and more
Hewlett-Packard's iPaq rx5900 Travel Companion may not be a smart phone, but it is smart. With a GPS receiver, the Windows Mobile-based device offers business travelers effective navigation, connectivity and entertainment options.
eWEEK Labs tested the iPaq rx5900 on the road while covering the 2006 DemoFall conference in San Diego. The device comes equipped with mobile versions of Microsoft's Office suite applications, but we found that the PDA really excelled when it came to navigation.
Our review unit was loaded with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC with the Security Feature Pack (an update that enables Windows Mobile 5.0-based devices to take advantage of the wireless features in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2.)
The iPaq rx5900 features a 400MHz Samsung SC32442 processor. The device we tested came armed with 80MB of storage memory, 54MB of program memory and 400MB of available memory on the 2GB of GPS-related Flash memory—in short, plenty of memory to meet our various application needs.
The iPaq rx5900 has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $599, which is high for a GPS-enabled PDA without cellular network connectivity options (like those of Research in Motion's Blackberry 8703e on the Verizon Wireless network).
3) 2.6 B Mobile users in 2006
Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service
Friday, November 10, 2006 08:00 AM PST
The number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide will rise to 2.6 billion this year and 4 billion by 2010, thanks to the development of ultra-low-cost handsets, market researcher iSuppli says.
New subscribers in developing nations such as India and China are behind the rapid increase in mobile phone users, the researcher said, while the mobile industry has rallied to the cause with ultra-low-cost handsets.
Africa and the Middle East are also playing a key role in driving new subscriber growth, said Dale Ford, vice president of market intelligence for iSuppli. He believes mobile phones have become such an important tool for people to live and thrive that they are becoming a basic human right.
Prices As Low As $15
The ultra-low-cost mobile phone initiative started early last year as a way to connect people to existing mobile networks. The GSM Association (GSMA) challenged handset makers to design a phone that would cost under $30. The eventual winner, Motorola, won the contest, as well as a contract to supply the mobile phones to network operators in emerging markets including Bangladesh, China, India and Russia, which ordered millions of the handsets under the GSMA sponsored program.
GSMA came up with the contest idea after taking a close look at the actual extent of GSM network coverage across the globe, and figuring out that over a billion more people could be using mobile networks if they could afford the handsets.
The new GSMA goal is to halve the cost of a handset again to $15 by 2008. Chip makers such as Texas Instruments, MediaTek, and Infineon Technologies, which develop the most costly components inside a mobile phone, say the $15 target is achievable, and that $20 handsets could be out by the end of this year.
China and India
ISuppli believes India will drive growth for ultra-low-cost handsets next year. The nation will be home to 405 million mobile phone subscribers by 2010, up from 140 million by the end of this year, the market researcher says.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reports that as of the end of September, there were 129.5 million mobile phone users in the country, a huge increase from 75.9 million at the end of last year.
In China, the figure climbed to 443.2 million at the end of September, up from 393 million at the end of last year, according to the Ministry of Information Industry, that country's telecom industry regulator.
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