Business

This morning, while perusing Gizmodo I came upon this video from the Onion, embedded above. The video entitled “Historic ‘Blockbuster’ Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In the Past” is funny because it’s so poignant. With online rentals that come in the mail from Netflix (and even Blockbuster itself) and with downloadable rentals from services like iTunes and Vongo, who on earth wants to rent videos off a shelf? It’s hard to imagine this antiquated business model continuing for long, and yet Blockbuster appears to be doing well enough to purchase Circuit City. Within a few years, though, retail video rental will go the way of the Fotomat, and no one will miss it.

This got me wondering: What other business models are about to be displaced by technology?

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This morning AT&T confirmed our sneaking suspicions that it would be the first U.S. carrier to sell the BlackBerry Bold, the latest handset from RIM that was announced this morning.

AT&T is touting itself as the first carrier to offer a BlackBerry with international 3G support, likely because the 3G Curves announced on Verizon Wireless and Sprint last week don’t support HSDPA data connections.

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Mobile WiMAX isn’t dead! Maybe. Sprint and Clearwire have been bailed out by some pretty rich partners. The two companies have agreed to combine their WiMAX wireless broadband businesses to form a new wireless communications company called Clearwire. (Yes, I guess the Xohm brand is dead.) The goal: “to accelerate the deployment of a nationwide mobile WiMAX network in the U.S.”

According to the press release, the new Clearwire is targeting a network deployment that will cover between 120 million and 140 million people in the U.S. by the end of 2010. Intel, along with Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks, have invested a combined $3.2 billion into the new company. I had a chance to sit in on a conference call this morning with both Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and the new Clearwire CEO Benjamin Wolff. Here are some of the highlights.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse claimed that the new Clearwire will still be at least two years ahead of the competition. I wonder if this will hold true given all of the shuffling going on. If this $3.2 billion investment was needed, you would think the deployment wasn’t going so smoothly. How soon can this money make a real difference? And will it make a significant difference before LTE becomes a reality for AT&T and Verizon Wireless? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, we took a second look at the magicJack to see what new features found its way into the device since our initial magicJack review in the fall of 2007. Today we pick the brain of magicJack’s inventor, Dan Borislow, to talk Linux compatibility, number porting, customer service, and much, much more.

LAPTOP: How has the public taken to magicJack? Have sales met expectations?

Dan Borislow: The sales of the magicJack have proven just how much the public has taken to it. Since launching Version 1.0 in January, sales have grown 25% week over week and totaling over 250,000 so far, and we expect to hit 350,000 by the end of April.

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A lot of people expected CTIA 2008 to be a coming-out party of sorts for Mobile WiMax. Not so much. Sure, news of the CloudBook Max was interesting. But at the big unveiling of the Nokia N810 WiMax Edition I attended the demo was run over Wi-Fi. Then it became official that the already limited commercial launch of Sprint’s XOHM network in Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington D.C. would be pushed back from April to “later in the year.” And there continues to be rumors that XOHM will need a huge cash infusion by the cable providers (or someone else) just to get off the ground.

If you believed all of the skeptics, you might just think that Mobile WiMax was doomed to be wireless vaporware. Could XOHM be DOA? We caught up with Barry West, XOHM president and chief technology office, to get his perspective on the biggest obstacles facing the company, as well as on LTE, the competing 4G technology that both AT&T and Verizon Wireless will be rolling out using their precious 700 MHz spectrum auction winnings.

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Anyone who was owned a BlackBerry knows how it can make your life easier. You don’t have to fetch new e-mail messages. They just show up. And over the past couple of years RIM has done a good job making the designs sleeker and sexier (no more need for a geeky holster) while adding welcome multimedia features like music players and sharp cameras. The fact that they last at least a day longer on a charge than your typical Windows Mobile phone (based on my own tests) doesn’t hurt either. So what could be so bad about a device that delivers your messages in real-time, lets you surf the Web anywhere, keeps your schedule, and keeps you entertained between meetings with a nice game of BrickBreaker? If you’re not careful, it can take over your life.

Take the academic study done by David Vance, assistant professor of accounting at Rutgers-Camden university, and Nada Kakabadse, professor of management and business research at the UK’s University of Northampton. It found that a third of BlackBerry users show signs of addiction “similar to alcoholics.” For those scoring at home, that’s not good. So what are some telltale signs you’re a BlackBerry addict? I’ve devised a list that’s designed to poke a little fun at our compulsive behavior–I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a bit of an addict–but as Jimbo from the Simpons once said: “Inside every joke is a little kernel of truth.” Is it possible someone more literary said the same thing? Probably, but I’m too busy checking my BlackBerry to read.

Top Ten Signs You’re a BlackBerry Addict
10. After a cross-country flight you wait for all your new messages to download before you alert loved ones you’re still alive. Read the rest of this entry »

Can you picture a BlackBerry jam-packed with Mac OS X or Windows Mobile 6.1—or both? It’s a long ways off, but yesterday we got one small step closer.

AP reports that Motorola is now an investor in VirtualLogix, a company that’s working to bring the power of virtual machines to the sphere of cell phones. What does that mean?

As Jerry Chen, a division director at VMware, explained to LAPTOP in an interview on this new technology, a virtualized machine is one physical computer that’s capable of doing the jobs of several other computers. Users can have a single machine that’s optimized for multiple major tasks with a single virtualized computer running multiple operating systems—switching between the two without a hitch.

That means, with a virtualized cell phone, you could do the following: Read the rest of this entry »

Today, Toshiba announced the availability of five additions to its business-centric Satellite Pro line that are designed to offer mobile professionals and students a variety of display sizes and configurations to fit their computing needs. All five models (totalling 9 different configurations) feature DVD SuperMulti drives, widescreen TruBrite displays, ExpressCard slots, Windows Vista or XP operating systems, and embedded support for Computrace notebook recovery and protection system. Read on for breakdowns of the new systems.

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If there was ever a good blue screen to have appeared on your system it was WordPerfect. Of course, that was the 1980s and you were running MS-DOS. But what if you could get that pleasant blue screen on your Microsoft Vista PC? (It will NOT replace the devilish Microsoft blue screen of the Windows era, but it might make you feel better.)

Yesterday Corel launched WordPerfect Office X4, its competitor to Microsoft Office 2007. Through my limited hands-on with the product it proves to be a solid alternative to Office. The interface is easy to get used to and the new Import PDF tool is seriously helpful. You can easily import an image-based PDF file, which is immediately transcribed into editable text.

But what really gets me is the “throwback” WordPerfect 5.1 mode on the new version. When I met with Corel a few months ago about the product, they claimed people missed working in the old WordPerfect interface. I, for one, do. To reminisce: When I was in 2nd grade I would come home from school, launch up WordPerfect on my father’s computer and write away in my “diary.” I recall writing something along the lines of wanting to be just like Doogie Howser.

If you’re into the nostalgia, here’s how to set it up.

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Today, Dell announced the Vostro 1310, the newest addition to the company’s small-business notebook line. (Check out our full review here.) Unlike previous Vostro models, which closely resembled Dell’s Inspiron line, the 1310 sports a complete redesign, featuring a 13-inch display (compared with 14 inches for the Vostro 1400) and an overall thinner and lighter chassis, complete with a slot-loading optical drive. On the security front, Dell preloads McAfee Total Protection for Small Business, plus you get a fingerprint reader and TPM 1.2. Users still have easy access to Dell’s 10GB of online backup, the Network Assistant, and PC TuneUp.

The 4.8-pound notebook comes with a starting price of $749, but the unit that arrived in our offices was configured to $1,357 and came packed with the following features.

• 2.1-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 processor
• Windows Vista Business operating system (also configurable with Windows XP Pro)
• 2GB of RAM
• 160GB hard drive
• Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS discrete graphics (with 128MB memory)
• 13.3-inch WXGA anti-glare display
• Slot-loading 8X DVD±RW optical drive
• Six-cell battery
• 1.3-megapixel webcam
• ExpressCard/54 slot
• FireWire
• 4 USB 2.0
• Ethernet
• VGA
• Fingerprint reader
• TPM
• 802.11n Wi-Fi Read the rest of this entry »