"retail" articles
Mobile data revenues are becoming more important as voice ARPU and revenue decline. With voice service commoditized, carriers are developing high-priced, data-inclusive premium mobile service bundles to create new revenue streams and foster differentiation.
The growing consumer appetite for on-the-go solutions is also driving the development and adoption of more intelligent, highly functional mobile handsets. In 2010, smartphone shipments reached almost 300 million units...
Netflix had to have seen much of the anger and harsh words coming. After all, when you shift pricing significantly on a huge customer base, you are going to find a big percentage of consumers suddenly on the wrong side of the demand curve. Also, while many in the industry predicted that a Netflix price change was likely in the cards due to expiring content deals, many consumers may not have seen this one coming. Almost nothing makes the natives quite so restless as an...
Rejoice all of you news-following pay TV customers...well, some of you anyway. Time Warner announced that they would be making simulcasts of their CNN and HLN news channels available online to Comcast, DISH Network, and Verizon subscribers. The content is available via CNN's website as well as on portable Apple devices, complete with all of the ads that we enjoy on the TV-version. The channels will be available on other mobile devices later in the year according to Time...
Microsoft plans to open 75 new Microsoft stores in the next two to three years. A map of the locations show that many will be concentrated in the northeastern United States, California, and Florida. The company also plans to open stores outside the United States as well. Currently, Microsoft has 11 stores open in the United States.
This will not be easy for Microsoft. They will be chasing Apple , which has more than 320 stores, including 86 abroad. The irony here is that...
Verizon wireless is getting rid of its unlimited data plan for new smartphone customers. Their plan is to offer limited data plans that will give users between two and ten gigabytes of data each month. The current unlimited data plan on Verizon Wireless costs existing users $30 per month, and 95 percent of their subscribers use less than two gigabytes per month.
Verizon Wireless customers who already have an unlimited data plan can keep it, but existing customers who want to...
A quick scan of Best Buy’s Website reveals 333 flat-panel TVs available. Of those, 123 are considered Smart TVs (BB’s new term for Internet-connectable). So, 37% of their available TVs are “Smart.” Our forecast for 2011 is that 42% of all flat-panel TV sales will be Internet-connectable. Pretty good validation.
Apple Inc. has reached terms with major recorded-music companies to allow it to launch a digital locker service that would be better than those currently offered by Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., according to sources familiar with the matter.
According to these sources, deals with Warner Music Group Corp., Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Group Ltd have been completed . A fourth deal, with Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, is rumored to be signed this week....
Microsoft Corp plans to buy Internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion. The Skype deal is the biggest in the 36-year history of the world's largest software company.
With around 663 million users worldwide, Skype, which is based in Luxembourg, is the world's most popular Internet communications service company, and the acquisition is expected to become a big push in Microsoft's online services. It is expected to support several of Microsoft's devices such as Xbox and Kinect,...
