If you’ve been on holiday (vacation to us Yanks), and (deservedly) staying as far away from any and all news sources, here’s a brief rundown on the bombshells that have blasted MobileLand and longer term, healthcare users:
- Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The ‘inside baseball’ on this is outside our eHealth portfolio so we will leave it to the brainiacs at ZDNet to analyze it all for you and give you all sides. It’s not just hardware…it’s intellectual property and all about the patents to defend Android in court. Follow links at bottom of the article to more articles and analysis–again, on all sides. [17 Aug] Will Motorola change Google’s ‘college campus’ atmosphere? TechRepublic says ‘you betcha!’ (#4).
- Nokia drops Symbian OS here in the US…no big surprise as they are doing Windows Phones, but not till 2012. How long they can last (in the US market) is entirely another question. This takes the prize for ‘whistling in the dark’ interviews: Nokia: ‘We’re way ahead’ of ‘outdated’ Apple and Google (ZDNet again)
- Over the weekend, Sprint announced they are dropping RIM’s nearly new (April) BlackBerry PlayBook. Far from being adopted by business, it failed and fast–RIM has only sold 500,000 Wi-Fi versions in the US in the past quarter versus the iPad selling 9.3 million (no, this is not a typo). Sprint is cutting their losses and moving on. Imagine working at RIM and on top of this, the Motorola Mobility-Google deal….(thud). Wall Street Journal [17 Aug] But ZDNet once again supplies a contrarian POV, saying that Motorola-Google brightens the picture for RIM: RIM: Signs of rebound brewing?