Nokia Taps Ex-Microsoft Exec As Their Next CEO

Nokia used to be the top of the food chain when it came to cell phones and smart phones. Not anymore. They’ve been in free fall for some time and needed a change in strategy. Stephen Elop who was head of Microsoft’s business division is now the new CEO of Nokia according to a posting on the Nokia website. Another interesting point, he’s Canadian. Perhaps he’ll give Nokia some insight on how to fight Canadian company Research In Motion. Perhaps he can help fight Apple too.

Good luck to him. Given Nokia’s recent track record, he needs it.

Dangerous New Virus From The Old School Hits The Streets

If you get an e-mail that has a title of “here you have” or “Just For you” and you’re running Windows, don’t open it. It’s a dangerous virus that uses methods from the turn of the century… the 21st century…. to spread itself:

The worm arrives via emails with the subject line “Here You Have” or something similar, and the messages contain a link to a site that will download a malicious file to the victim’s PC. The malware then drops itself into the Windows directory with a file name of CSRSS.EXE, which is identical to a legitimate Windows file, according to an analysis by McAfee researchers.

“The URL does not actually lead to a PDF document, but rather an executable in disguise, such as PDF_Document21_025542010_pdf.scr served from a different domain, such as members.multimania.co.uk,” the analysis says.

From there, it’s 2001 all over again, as the worm attempts to mail itself to all of the contacts in the victim’s Outlook address book. The malware also tries to stop any security software or anti-malware programs running on the machine. McAfee’s researchers found that the worm also can spread via network shares and AutoRun.

I can see that I’ll be busy for the next few days judging from this Toronto Star story that says that Google, ABC, Coca-Cola and others have been hit hard. If you don’t want to be one of the unlucky, don’t open any e-mails with the above titles and make sure your virus definitions are up to date.

“Antennagate” And Verizon Cost Apple iPhone Sales…. Maybe

They say there’s lies, dammed lies, and statistics. Well, here’s an example of that. Fortune has a study that says that “antennagate” and Verizon cost Apple iPhone sales:

That’s the major finding of a survey released Wednesday by Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster. His team interviewed 258 cell phone users in downtown Minneapolis to gauge the impact of the iPhone 4′s signal attenuation issues. Although the surveyors didn’t ask about Verizon, the subject came up on its own accord.

Munster’s conclusion: “The antenna issue is removing upside potential for iPhone units, but Verizon is actually the most significant factor limiting demand.”

How many sales did it cost Apple? There’s a number for that:

“In order to quantify a worst-case scenario, we estimate that 40% of all iPhone sales are domestic (was 38% in the June quarter). We are modeling for Apple to sell 11m iPhones in the Sept. quarter, implying about 4.4m domestic sales. If Apple lost 20% of those sales, or 880k units, it would reduce our EPS estimate in the quarter by $0.11, from $3.72 to $3.61.

In any case, here’s were I have a problem with this study. The sample size was 258 people in one city. How accurate can that possibly be? Perhaps someone should do a real study to see what “antennagate” really cost Apple.

Apple Folds Up Like A Cheap Suit When It Comes To Making Apps For iDevices

Apple has had rather draconian and inconsistent rules as to iDevice apps in the App Store. One moment, apps that made fart sounds or had boobies were fine. The next day, they weren’t. Sometimes apps weren’t approved for no good reason, but then they were when the story hit the news. Oh yeah, you could only use Apple tools to make apps. If you’re a developer, that has to suck. That changed today when Apple announced that they were changing the rules on the App Store:

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

If you want to see the submission guidelines, Apple has a PDF that you can read.

Apple really had no choice for a number of reasons. First, there’s the challenge of the Android platform and their much more developer friendly environment. Second is the possibility that Apple was facing an anti-trust investigation because of the App Store policies among other things. So I’m guessing that “El Jobso” felt that he had no choice but to open things up.

However, hell would have truly frozen over if he lets Flash onto his iDevices. I’m guessing that won’t happen, but I figured that they wouldn’t relax their App Store rules either.

Good News And Bad News For Mark Hurd…. He Gets A New Job And Then Is Sued

Good news for Mark Hurd. You might remember him from HP where he was the CEO who was dumped because of a “scandal” to say the least. He didn’t remain unemployed for long as he now has a new job:

“Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he’ll do even better at Oracle,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. ”There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark. Oracle’s future is engineering complete and integrated hardware and software systems for the enterprise. Mark pioneered the integration of hardware with software when Teradata was a part of NCR.”

Great. I hope someone is double checking his expenses.

The bad news for Mark Hurd. He’s being sued by HP:

HP released a statement Tuesday morning saying that “Mark Hurd agreed to and signed agreements designed to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information. HP intends to enforce those agreements.”

And:

“Despite being paid millions of dollars in cash, stock, and stock options in exchange for Hurd’s agreements to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information during his employment and following his departure from his positions at HP as chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president, HP is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Hurd has put HP’s most valuable trade secrets and confidential information in peril,” the suit says.

That has to suck if you’re Mark Hurd. But the good news is that these sorts of suits are usually settled out of court. You can also expect that any co-operation between HP and Oracle is likely out the door at this point:

“Oracle has long viewed H-P as an important partner,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in a statement. “The H-P board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees. The H-P Board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and H-P to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace.”

I think that translates to F-U. This should be fun to watch.

Wind Mobile Majority Owner Calls Canadian Competition “A Joke”

I spotted this story between flights on The Globe And Mail website today. Naguib Sawiris who is the Executive chairman of Orascom Telecom Holding SAE and Weather Investments SpA, which makes him the majority owner of Wind Mobile had this to say about his competition Canada:

Mr. Sawiris said the Big Three Canadian telecom players are “a joke,” and that he would never invest in them because they are “too big, too slow.”

“I have been offered by two of them to buy me out at a very significant profit,” Mr. Sawiris said. “But that means I’m a broker, not an industrialist. It’s against my saga, against my history. I’m not the kind of guy who goes out for the money. It’s about success. And this, I would consider it as a bribe.”

I encourage you to read the rest of the story as it’s very interesting.

In any case, he’s pretty bombastic for a guy who’s just shown up on the scene. Given that Wind only has 100,000 or so subscribers as I type this, we’ll see if he’s still acting like that this time next year. Still, it is refreshing to hear someone with the desire to stand up to the incumbents in Canada’s telco market.

Sony Releases New Readers For E-Book Lovers

Do you love e-books? Do you want something not named Kindle or iPad? Sony might be able to help you with that. I was sent a press release detailing the launch of their new Reader series of e-book readers. Here’s the highlights from the press release that I was sent:

·         Touch Screen for Everyone

o   Based on the popularity of the full touch screen on its previous Touch Edition Readers, Sony equipped the entire line of new Readers with improved, optical touch screen technology designed specifically for digital reading*.  The new, first-to-market technology enhances ease of use and increases reading clarity, creating an immersive reading experience for consumers. Book lovers can now escape into their favourite books with the lightest swipe of a finger or stylus pen.

·         Improved E Ink Displays

o   All three devices utilize E Ink® Pearl electronic paper displays, which delivers a paper-like display that is readable in direct sunlight. The screens offer a high contrast ratio with 16 levels of greyscale, ensuring that text and images are crisp and easy to read.

·         A Reader Pocket Edition that Will Wow You

o   The new Reader Pocket Edition is the thinnest, lightest e-reader on the market, sports a five-inch, full touch screen and a smart, lightweight design that’s easy to slip into a purse or jacket pocket for convenient, on-the-go reading. It is available in chic colours, including silver and pink.  It has 2 GB of onboard memory, which lets you carry up to 1,200 of your favorite books, and retails for $199.99.

·         A New Reader Touch Edition: More of Everything Readers Love

o    The new Reader Touch Edition features a six-inch full touch screen and an intuitive design with 2 GB of onboard memory. In addition, it offers dual expansion slots for up to 32GB of additional memory, and the ability to play MP3 and AAC audio files. It’s available in black, silver or red for $249.99.

·         Additional New Features Across the Entire Line

o   New features allow for easier reading of PDF or personal documents. Intuitive content zoom, adjustable contrast and brightness control, as well as automatic multiple page creation will make documents designed for a standard sheet of paper easier to read on a smaller screen. Also, personalized standby screen options will allow users to use their favourite photos as a screen saver and the collections functionality will allow them to group their favorite reads.

o   In addition, the new Reader line is more global than ever, offering users the ability to look up words and phrases with the built in New Oxford American and Oxford Dictionary of English eDictionaries, as well as 10 translation dictionaries in languages such as French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. Wordsmiths across the globe can now create “word logs” to track the words they’ve looked up in both chronological and book order, while quickly switching between dictionaries.

o   With Reader™ Desktop Edition for Apple’s Mac OS X and Microsoft® Windows® and Reader™ Mobile Edition for Apple iPhone and Google Android-based smartphones, users can now synchronize their reading among multiple devices. These free applications, available later this year, will offer an intuitive digital reading experience with an elegant interface and access to Sony’s Reader Store for browsing and purchasing content. The desktop application also includes the ability to easily manage content directly on the Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition models.

The Sony Readers are now available globally.  Book lovers should check them out.

It’s Official! India Wants Access To Google And Skype

They said they were going to do it. Now it’s happening. India wants to get access to Google and Skype. Not only that, they want access to VPNs too and more:

“The ministry of home affairs has made it clear that any communication through the telecom networks should be accessible to the law enforcement agencies and all telecom service providers including third parties have to comply with this,” an official told the Times of India.

“Any company with a telecoms network should be accessible,” an Indian Home Ministry official told the BBC. “It could be Google or Skype, but anyone operating in India will have to provide data.”

Demanding access to all the corporate VPNs is a great way to make companies more skittish about outsourcing to India. You can bet that once companies start pulling the plug on doing business with these clowns, they’ll pull this stupidity off the table. Besides, anybody they really want to catch won’t be using these technologies now that they know that they could potentially be watched.

Great going India.

Rogers To Release BlackBerry Torch On September 24 [UPDATED]

If you’re Canadian and you’re itching to get a BlackBerry Torch, circle September 24 on your calendar. According to my “best friends at Rogers” the Torch will be hitting on the streets on that date:

Just wanted to let you know that the BlackBerry Torch 9800 will be available from Rogers on September 24 for $199 on a three year contract.

We’ve just published a post on RedBoard along with a demo video featuring BlackBerry’s Michael McDowell:  http://redboard.rogers.com/2010/redboard-video-blackberry-torch-9800-available-from-rogers-september-24/

Currently, I have no word on when any other carriers plan to carry the Torch (excuse the pun). But when I hear anything, I’ll post it here.

UPDATE: Multiple sources have told me that pretty much every Canadian carrier will be carrying the Torch on the same date.

Apple To Stream Media Event Live…. To Apple Devices Only [UPDATED]

As I type this “The Steve” is holding a media event right now. The good news, you can watch it live. The bad news, you have to have an Apple device to do it:

“Viewing requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad.”

Dumb move Mr. Jobs. The only Steve that can strongarm the universe like has the last name of Ballmer. Guess what, you may be gaining marketshare, but you’re not him. If you want to actually gain marketshare, you might want to broadcast these media events to the people who own competitive products like PCs. Oh, while you’re at it you should open it up to Firefox and IE users too because if you have to use Safari, then it’s not as open as you claim it to be.

In any case, I’ll report back later on whatever “El Jobso” announces.

UPDATE: “El Jobso” announced the following:

• New iPod Nano with Multi-Touch available in 8 and 16 GB sizes with a built-in FM radio.
• New iPod Suhffle with the return of buttons
• New iPod Touch with the same screen as iPhone 4 and it comes in 8, 32 and 64 GB sizes
• New Apple TV with streaming only feature (unlike the current one which has storage). There’s also a change to a rental only model for movies. The big news is that Netflix subscribers can also stream to the new Apple TV.

Also, sometime tonight version 10 of iTunes with social media features will hit the streets as well, plus sometime soon version 4.1 of iOS will hit the streets. Jobs also announced iOS 4.2, due later this year, with “everything for iPad” including wireless printing.