The global smartphone market is still RIM’s to lose, with Apple in the pole position to profit from its mistakes. But new ComScore data on the U.S. smartphone market suggest that both should be worried by what they see in their rear-view mirrors:

While Android still claims only 7.1 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, “objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear.” This certainly seems to be the case with Google, which added 4.3 percentage points of market share in just four months. And while Android’s user base may skew “young, male, and cheap,” such increase implies a much wider audience.

That is astonishing growth and has much to do with Google’s open-source approach.

As ZDNet’s Dana Blankenhorn remarks, “Just as the Internet takes friction out of the distribution and development process, open source for Google removes friction from the business process.” In Android land, this means making it easy for device manufacturers and wireless telecoms to evaluate, develop on, and ship Android-based devices.

And ship them they are, to the tune of 60,000 Android devices per day.

As Wired noted after the recent Mobile World Congress:

This year at the Mobile World Congress is the year of Android. Google’s operating system debuted here two years ago….This year, Android is everywhere, on handsets from HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and even Garmin-Asus. If this were the world of computers, Android would be in a similar position to Windows: Pretty much every manufacturer puts it on its machines.

There is one key distinction, though: Android is open source. It makes all the difference.

Apple’s approach is the exact inverse of Google’s, right down to its developer contracts. Apple owns (and tightly controls) the complete iPhone stack, from hardware to software, and also exerts tremendous control over its distribution channels, which makes for a super-slick experience, but also constrains Apple’s success to whatever it, as a company, can scale to deliver.

Apple has sought to alleviate this bottleneck through its App Store, which offers unrivaled access to third-party applications, but Google is improving its own application store and arguably already has critical mass sufficient to appease most users’ application requirements.

Importantly, Google is assembling a community of telecoms and handset manufacturers locked out of the iPhone game. Apple offers an exceptional experience, but the iPhone creates far more enemies than friends with its closed approach–enemies who are congregating on the Android bandwagon.

The downside to Google’s open-source approach, of course, is coordination, or lack thereof. People have rightly raised questions about Android’s fragmentation–(fears that Glyn Moody believes can be put to rest). And while Apple gets top marks for its customer support, Google’s support for its own Android-based Nexus One has been less than ideal.

Indeed, for all the appeal Google’s break-the-mold approach to selling and supporting Android-based phones may have for some, it’s likely that many aren’t ready for such an open approach. Apple’s closed approach is a very comfortable one for consumers.

Even so, as Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco writes, “Open source in mobile is inevitable.” It’s inevitable precisely because the market is so fragmented. Open source offers a way for device manufacturers to collaborate on common infrastructure like Android and the WebKit browser (which even RIM is now recognizing).

And it’s inevitable because mobile revenue models have never been about selling bits, but rather about providing services. This makes it easy for companies like Google to contribute heavily to mobile open-source efforts and still get paid.

In the enterprise, open source is often simply a more convenient way to distribute software. In mobile, it’s more a matter of development: open, pooled development. This is as open source was meant to be. Google gets this, and that’s why its Android platform is gaining ground so quickly on closed-source rivals.

The launch of Apple’s iPad will pave the way for a slew of rival products this year, an Arm executive said Wednesday, predicting over 50 tablet PC devices will be launched globally.

The coming swarm of tablets has even prompted Arm, Intel’s main rival in the mobile microprocessor business, to rent more space at the Computex electronics trade show in Taipei this year to show off the devices, in addition to e-readers, mini-laptops and other devices that use Arm processing cores. ‘The first tablet devices will launch in the second quarter by [mobile network] carriers,’ said Roy Chen, Arm’s worldwide mobile computing ODM manager, during a press meeting in Taipei. ‘You’ll see a lot more in the third quarter,’ he added. He said many tablet-like devices will be launched in China, but companies everywhere plan to launch tablets this year, including the top 10 telecommunications network operators. He declined to name specific companies.

Like many chip makers, Arm often gains an inside view of products its chips are being used in, sometimes when asked for additional engineering support and other times due to partnership programs.

The company showed off two tablet devices at the Taipei news conference, both running Google’s Android mobile OS.

One of the devices was from Compal Electronics, a Taiwanese electronics maker and the second largest contract laptop manufacturer in the world. The device carried a 7-inch screen and used Nvidia Tegra 2 chips inside, which include Arm cores. Compal is offering two versions of the device, one with Android and another with Microsoft Windows CE, and two choices of screen sizes, 7-inch and 10.1-inch. The device includes an HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) slot so it can be connected to a high-def TV.

The other tablet was simply named the Armadillo and had a smaller screen than the Compal device. It used Arm cores in chips from Freescale Semiconductor, as well as the Android OS, but was on display to show off a quick boot-up system from Japanese software maker, Ubiquitous. The software, called QuckBoot, had the device up and running instantly.

Google Inc. last month said it would provide ultrahigh-speed Internet connections for up to 500,000 people in the U.S. Now the search giant must deal with the challenging part: building the network and making sure there are services available to take advantage of it.

Since its ultrahigh-speed announcement last month, Google has reached out for advice to several communities such as Cleveland that have already embarked on such projects. Among other things, Google asked about the need to have online programs that prove the benefits of an ultrahigh-speed service, says Lev Gonick, chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

In an email Mr. Gonick received from a Google contact last month about the project, he recalls the company said “we have a lot to learn.” Mr. Gonick is currently leading a Cleveland initiative that would connect 104 houses, several hospitals and Case Western Reserve University to a 1-gigabit per second ultrahigh-speed Internet service. The service, expected to go live this month, is about 100 times faster than the top speed available to most Americans.

“We know that other companies have been in this business a long time,” says a Google spokesman. “We’re not pretending to have all the answers.”

Installing fiber-optic cable at Ohio’s Case Western Reserve University.
.Google’s outreach comes as it confronts the hurdles in building its ultrahigh-speed Internet network and services to go along with it. The company plans to target a very small number of communities and says it may target as few as 50,000 households or as many as 500,000. But regardless, building such a network is a giant construction problem, with the cost potentially surpassing $1 billion if Google pursues the higher number, say people who have embarked on similar efforts.

In addition, there isn’t online content designed for people with such high-speed Internet connections, which could make the completed network underwhelming.

“Beyond the cost issues and economic challenges in terms of what it takes to develop the infrastructure, to me one of the most significant barriers is that we don’t have a vision of what we’re missing and what [ultrahigh-speed Internet connections] will enable us to do,” says Jim Baller, a Washington lawyer who is consulting with Google on the project.

Google’s decision to build an ultrahigh-speed network comes amid increased attention to Internet access. The Federal Communications Commission is getting ready to unveil next week a comprehensive broadband plan that is expected to call for higher-speed service. And Internet-equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. is expected Tuesday to announce its new technology that facilitates ultrahigh-speed Internet connections, although the details aren’t clear.

In an interview in February, Google product manager Minnie Ingersoll said that Google will likely partner with a contractor to help build the network, which it will manage. The builder must first connect fiber-optic cable to individual homes and install special electronics that can send and receive data at a rate of 1-gigabit per second. Then it must connect the fiber from the houses to larger cables running through neighborhoods. This in turn connects to a larger cable ring that circles entire cities.

Putting this infrastructure in place is a time-consuming construction job that often requires digging up roads, says Herman Wagter, one of the leaders of a 1-gigabit project in Amsterdam.

A Google spokesman says it doesn’t have a project price tag in mind yet and that it is exploring new deployment techniques that could lower costs.

A key part of Google’s plan is to have cities and towns apply to be one of the locations that will receive the ultrahigh-speed Internet service, the company has said. Getting community leaders on board early should help Google gain the right of way to lay all the fiber-optic cable needed to complete the project.

But even if Google builds such a network, leaders of ultrahigh-speed Internet projects in other cities say they have found there often isn’t a market demand for it. In Amsterdam, private sector companies are allowed to sell service on the 1-gigabit network but so far no one is offering speeds faster than 200 megabits per second because there isn’t yet a demand for it, says Mr. Wagter.

Even if there was demand, there are technical reasons why a 1-gigabit connection wouldn’t mean someone can download material on the Internet at that rate. Traffic on the Internet passes through several different networks in order to get to its destination and can only travel as fast as the slowest link in its chain. So someone with a gigabit connection likely wouldn’t be able to download videos or other content appreciably faster than someone with a slower connection because that content will almost always go through slower hops along the way.

That’s the case in Pulaski, Tenn., where a network capable of delivering 1-gigabit connections is currently capped at 50 megabits. Pulaski, about 75 miles south of Nashville, doesn’t have a large enough connection to the rest of the Internet to make 1 gigabit to the home viable. Because of that, “traffic in our little town can fly around at the speed of light,” but viewing a YouTube video isn’t any faster than in other parts of the country, says Wes Kelley, chief executive of Pulaski Energy Systems, which operates the network there.

In Cleveland, Mr. Gonick is trying to get around the lack of services for ultrahigh-speed Internet by encouraging local organizations connected to the gigabit network to develop ones for other people on the network. “We’ve held a number of brainstorming sessions” trying to come up with services, he says. “We don’t have a cookbook for it.”

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc said the first iPads will be in U.S. stores on April 3 and hit nine international markets later in the month, easing concerns that manufacturing constraints could delay launch.
The news sent shares of Apple surging as much as 4.3 percent to an all-time high of $219.70 on the Nasdaq, as analysts said the speedy international rollout could help build sales momentum.

The 9.7-inch touchscreen iPad, which is designed to surf the Web, play video and games, and read digital books, is the most anticipated product launch from Apple since the iPhone in 2007.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the tablet in late January, but the company did not announce any international markets until Friday, when it said the tablet will go on sale in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

“I think it eases concerns that were circulating about supply. There’s always so much speculation around a launch, and this alleviates those fears,” said Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross, adding that the breadth of the international launch should reassure investors.

Cross expects the iPad to be a major growth driver for Apple eventually. She estimates the company will sell 4 million to 5 million units in the first year, which will add $1 to earnings per share.

The April 3 launch date means Apple won’t likely book any iPad revenue in the current fiscal second quarter, which closes at the end of March. Nonetheless, Barclay’s analyst Ben Reitzes said the launch plans added some “welcome clarity.”

“Not only is the device available April 3 in the U.S., but we believe availability in nine other countries by the end of April is likely quicker than many thought, lending potential upside to consensus estimates into mid year,” he wrote in a research note.

Analysts are currently forecasting Apple’s fiscal 2010 earnings per share at $11.62, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, up from $9.08 last year.

There has been some debate on how successful the much-hyped iPad really will be. While most agree that the device is well-designed and appealing to consumers, some analysts are not convinced there is a big market for tablet computers.

The iPad will have to compete for consumer attention with a myriad of established devices, including smartphones, netbooks and dedicated e-readers like Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle.

Apple said that an iBooks application for the iPad — which will compete with the Kindle — would be available as a free download on April 3.

A BIT LATER THAN EXPECTED

The U.S. launch date for the iPad model with short-range Wi-Fi wireless links, starting at a price tag of $499, is slightly later than the previously expected late March launch.

Oppenheimer & Co analyst Yair Reiner said there were some supply constraints around the iPad, which was not unusual for a major product launch. But he said that would not be an issue in the long run.

“I think supply constraints can have some short-term impact in the first quarter, obfuscating the true demand around launch time, but the longer term is more important,” he said.

Customers looking for versions of the iPad with third-generation (3G) high-speed cellular data links will have to wait until late April, said Apple.

AT&T Inc, the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone, will provide wireless connections for the iPad. But AT&T’s top executive said earlier this week that he expects consumers to mostly use Wi-Fi to connect the iPad.

Beginning March 12, U.S. consumers will be able to go to Apple’s website to preorder both the Wi-Fi-only model and the version with 3G and Wi-Fi, or reserve a device to pick up at a store on April 3.

Research firm iSuppli estimated the total materials costs for each device is $219.35, with a $10 manufacturing cost.

Cisco Systems will be making a major announcement Tuesday that the technology company says “will forever change the Internet.” But could this new announcement include an AppleTV-like set-top box that does everything?

Exactly what Cisco will be announcing is still under wraps, but some folks are speculating that the announcement will include several products that will provide a grand vision of Cisco’s end to end vision of the Internet that will include new infrastructure products as well as new consumer devices for the home.

One of the products that could be announced is an AppleTV-like cable set top based on technology from Scientific Atlanta, according to the blog SiliconAngle. Cisco bought Scientific Atlanta four years ago and it has been selling the company’s set-top boxes to cable companies. But it has yet to use the platform to launch a consumer product line.

According to the SiliconAngle blog, this new box supposedly will “do it all.” It will combine digital video recorder functionality found in a Tivo, video streaming from the Web, Internet access, wireless connectivity, and telepresence. It will also have massive amounts of storage for home media.

Cisco has already talked about testing telepresence in the home. Currently, the company sells a very high-end video conferencing telepresence system to large companies.

“It makes sense,” said Zeus Kerravala, a senior vice president at Yankee Group. “Cisco must have bought Scientific Atlanta for some reason other than traditional set top box market. And it’s tangential to the router/switch business.”

Other components of the announcement could include a partnership with service providers for ultra high speed access to the home and 100 Gigabit Ethernet on some new routers. Cisco will likely wrap all these products and announcements into a grand vision of how it sees the future of the Internet.

Cisco has been hyping the event, which starts at 8 a.m. PST Tuesday morning, for a couple of weeks. It sent notices to reporters and analysts inviting them to view a Web presentation about a “significant announcement” that it claims “will forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments.”

Initially, blogs buzzed about Cisco possibly announcing a super-fast fiber network to test ultra fast broadband technologies. Google had announced plans to build its ultra-high speed fiber test bed the same week Cisco sent out the media advisory.

But Cisco has quieted those rumors by stating that the company’s strategy remains to partner with carriers. It’s not looking to compete against them.

Others have speculated the new announcement might also include products that will help wireless operators upgrade their networks to 4G wireless technology. Cisco, which has traditionally provided wired infrastructure to Internet service providers, recently bought a company called Starent Networks that helps wireless operators connect their wireless networks to the wired Internet.

The purchase was important for Cisco because it gave the company technology it was missing. Before its Starent acquisition, Cisco was unable to offer an end to end solution to wireless operators. But it’s competitors could. For example, competitors Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson already provide similar wireless Internet access infrastructure gear that Cisco got from Starent, as well as equipment that Cisco has traditionally offered Internet services providers. Now with the Starent gear, Cisco can compete head-to-head with these rivals on an end-to-end basis.

“The timing is right for Cisco to make a big wireless platform announcement,” Kerravala said.

But are any of these announcements truly going to change the Internet forever? Probably not.

“I can’t imagine any of these new products or announcements having that kind of impact,” Kerravala said. “That’s a bold statement. But I think Cisco is trying to gain mindshare in the consumer network and wireless markets. So this is likely the hype cycle they’ve created to do that.”

Wednesday night, Google added gesture search for Android phones, which allows a user to “write” a gesture (such as a letter) instead of type in a character.

It’s an alternative form of input, and one that may be of use to some. Google Gesture Search should be available in the Android Market as of Wednesday evening, although if you don’t have an Android 2.0 phone (or higher) you’re out of luck.

Basically, here’s the way it works: tap the gesture search app, and then “draw” a letter, such as a “G”. Google will open all of your contacts that include “G” as the first letter in either the first or last name. One nice touch: if the algorithm can’t quite read your handwriting, it will include contacts incorporating both letters, as the illustration to the left shows.

A left-to-right swipe erases the word, while a left-to-right swipe “backspaces” one letter.

Calling it an alternative form of input, however, may be a bit generous. On my Android MyTouch 3G, tapping the contacts shortcut, then the search key, then the first letter of my desired search term brought up a list of contacts, just as gesture search supposedly does. Granted, my soft keyboard isn’t perfect, but it’s not bad, either; on the surface, gesture search seems like engineering a solution in search of a problem. Furthermore, negative comments have already begun to spring up on the Google blog announcing the new gesture search, complaining that sub-Android 2.0 users are being shut out of new innovation.

Conspiracy-theory types may also see Google’s use of gestures as an indirect response to the Apple-HTC suit, which names a gesture patent. If so, Google’s innovation may be more strategic in nature.

Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM) has started laying out the details of its upcoming 3G femtocell chipset, which supports both CDMA and GSM standards, on its QCT Connect Website.

The CDMA pioneer is listing a number of technical features for the upcoming chipsets:

A combined radio chip and 3G baseband controller

Support for 3G CDMA standards as well as GSM technologies, such as High-Speed Packet Access Plus (HSPA+)

A 1GHz Snapdragon processor and a GPS receiver

The chipset will be a “potential platform for future applications” such as a multimedia gateways, Qualcomm says on the site. The vendor has so far said that it will deliver samples in the second half of the year.

It is not yet clear why multistandard 3G support is part of Qualcomm’s package. Femtocells have traditionally been sold through carriers to boost capacity in a user’s home, so support for either CDMA or GSM has typically been the approach that vendors take.

The positioning of the femtocell as a possible future multimedia gateway, however, is more usual in the market. Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), in particular, is said to be interested in combining femtocell technology with cable TV and wired Internet access. (See Cisco Femto Spotted at AT&T.)

In fact, both Cisco and Qualcomm invested in UK-based ip.access Ltd. (See Qualcomm Invests in ip.access.)

Might Apple fans have to wait another full month to get his or her hands on the company’s latest and greatest device, the iPad? It’s possible, according to Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek.

He said the iPad launch, currently expected in late March, may be “somewhat limited” by an unspecified “manufacturing bottleneck” at the device’s manufacturer, Hon Hai Precision. That could make the launch a U.S.-only event and limit available units to 300,000 in March–which might even prompt Apple to delay the debut until April, Misek said.

That sort of delay would not augur well for the so-called “third category” device, where the strength of consumer demand is still uncertain.

But shareholders didn’t seem spooked. Apple’s shares barely registered the news as they climbed more than 2 percent on Monday.

“We believe that the only material impact from the iPad delay could come in the form of frustrated consumers and some modest loss of lustre for the company’s product launch,” Misek wrote in a note to clients.

March 1 (Bloomberg) — Qualcomm Inc., the largest maker of mobile-phone chips, plans to buy back as much as $3 billion of its shares and will boost its dividend by 12 percent.

The program replaces a $2 billion buyback plan, which was recently completed with a $1.7 billion repurchase, San Diego- based Qualcomm said today in a statement. The quarterly dividend will now be 19 cents a share, up from 17 cents.

The company is trying to make its stock more attractive after a 23 percent slump this year made it the worst-performing technology issue in the S&P 500 Index. The shares dropped the most in almost a decade on Jan. 28 after Qualcomm lowered its 2010 revenue forecasts and predicted second-quarter profit that fell short of analysts’ estimates.

Even with the increased dividend and buyback plan, Qualcomm has more than enough cash to raise them further, according to a report by JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Steven O’Brien.

Qualcomm is one of the richest companies in the semiconductor industry, with more cash and equivalents than Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker. It ended its most recent quarter with $18.9 billion in cash and marketable securities, up from $17.7 billion three months earlier. The company has used buybacks and dividends to return $12.6 billion to investors since 2003.

Qualcomm gets most of its profit from licensing technology used in mobile phones and phone systems. Its chips, which generate the majority of sales, are the key component in phones, translating radio signals into sound and data.

The planned $3 billion buyback represents 5 percent of the company’s current market value. The shares fell $1.12, or 3.1 percent, to $35.56 today in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, before the company announced the repurchase plan.

Dell’s tablet computer, due out in a few months, will be the first of several, company says.
Hype over the iPad doesn’t mean other players aren’t in the tablet game
Dell’s tablet, tentatively called the Mini 5, due out “in a couple of months.”
Company says tablet will be the first of several, which could have screen size to rival iPad
Analyst says device will need services to back up the hardware

Say the words “tablet computer” and ten bucks says it’s Apple’s iPad that springs to mind. But that doesn’t mean other companies aren’t busy building their own version of a touch-enabled, multimedia-sporting, slab of portable computing goodness.

Dell’s first effort at a tablet will be the Mini 5 (a name that is still in beta) — a slice of plastic and glass with a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen that according to Michael Dell will debut “in a couple of months.”

The Mini 5 will sport a 5-megapixel camera on the back, a separate front-facing camera that can be used for video conferencing, a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1-GHz processor.

The 5-inch screen also means it will be be closer to the Sony PSP in its form factor than the longer legal notepad design of the iPad.

The Mini 5 will run the latest version of Google’s Android operating system, version 2.0 or higher. And instead of the 4:3 aspect ratio of the iPad, Dell’s tablets will support the 16:9 ratio. Widescreen films anyone?

“It’s a device optimized for media consumption,” Neeraj Choubey, general manager of the tablets division at Dell told Wired.com. “It will offer the full Web-browsing experience so you have something that you are holding in your hand that replaces everything the smartphone does and takes on quite a bit of the features of a laptop.”

The Dell 5 Mini will also just be the first in a series.

“We are going to have a family of tablets,” says Choubey. “The first one is a 5-inch screen but we want to scale that up to a variety of screen sizes.”

That means future versions of the Mini 5 could have larger screens that will be closer in size to the iPad.

Dell wouldn’t comment on pricing, beyond saying it will be “competitive,” or when it will launch this year. Apple’s iPad ranges from $500 to $830.

With the launch of iPad in January, the tablet PCs are going through a renaissance.

Though PC makers have offered slates and convertible notebooks for nearly a decade, consumers haven’t bought them in droves. With its 9.7-inch display, sleek design and Apple’s relentless hype, the iPad could alter the way we experience mobile computing. And Dell knows this.

Three years ago, Dell started expanding its product line to include mobile products. Dell smartphones are now sold in Brazil and China and it hopes to bring a version to North America. Meanwhile, the company set up a tablet division, and three weeks ago Choubey joined Dell from venture capital firm Venrock.

As he sees it, the Mini 5 will offer the apps that are available on smartphones, a set of specialized tools and programs for business users, a strong movies-and-music experience and Web surfing — Flash and all included. Take that, iPad.

Along with the apps on the Mini 5, users will have quick access to e-mail, YouTube, Amazon’s MP3 store for music, as well as spreadsheet, presentation maker and documents. It will also support voice recognition.

And these are characteristics that will be common to all tablets from Dell.

Still it will be a hard sell to consumers, says Van Baker, an analyst with research firm Gartner.

“If all you are bringing to the market is another media-playing or handheld-gaming device, then it’s not going to work,” he says. “It’s all about the services you have behind the device.”

And that’s where the iPad scores, with its strong developer ecosystem and 100,000 apps, along with iTunes and iBooks, says Baker.

Dell is betting it can offer that and add a compelling value proposition for business users: a promise that its tablet won’t just be a coffee-table device but instead a powerful productivity tool.

“There’s no reason why you can’t use the tablet to take notes in class,” he says.

Dell will also offer services such as syncing that will allow users to move music, documents and other data between their PC and tablet easily.

“At a very basic level, you would have a service that will share content across the devices seamlessly and have it in the cloud,” says Choubey.

Dell also hopes to draw on the Android ecosystem by offering developers the opportunity to port their Android apps to the Mini 5 and its successors.

For the Mini 5, though, its PlayStation Portable-like form factor could be a big drawback, says Baker. The Dell Mini 5 is closer in its looks to gadgets better known as mobile internet devices or MIDs, a category that has been languishing despite products from companies such as Lenovo and Archos.

“If the Dell Mini 5 is this small and it is pocketable, then why isn’t it a phone?” asks Baker. “If I am going to carry a second device, it better have something that’s a significant advantage over what I can do with my phone. With the iPad, the value proposition is a much larger display.”

But Choubey says the innovation is not just in the form factor but also in the business model. Dell will work with carriers to bundle inexpensive data plans for the Mini 5 and other tablets.

“That type of model — the way iPad was able to do with AT& T — will become more prevalent with these tablet devices,” he says. “It allows the carrier to increase number of devices per user.”

Apple introduced a $15 for 250 MB, or an unlimited $30 a month, no-contract data plan for use with the iPad.