A behind-the-scenes profile of this week's auction for a group of patents from Nortel revealed a "fast and furious" battle between technology giants Apple and Google.
Canadian telecommunications equipment maker Nortel announced late Thursday that a consortium of companies, including Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research in Motion and Sony, placed the winning bid in a high-profile auction for a collection of more than 6,000 patents.
According to a recent disclosure report, Apple spent $560,000 lobbying the federal government in the first quarter of 2011, roughly one-third the amount that Google and Microsoft each spent in the same period.
Smartphone sales in the U.S. have become a majority of new mobile phone sales, and Apple's iPhone is leading that growth while Android has plateaued, according to the latest data from Nielsen.
Software sales from Apple's mobile App Store as well as competing options like the Android Market are expected to continue their huge growth in the coming years, reaching $14.1 billion in direct revenue in 2012 and nearly $40 billion by 2015.
Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop said Tuesday that his company expects to begin selling its first phones running Windows Phone later this year, before ramping up volume shipments in 2012.
Though Microsoft has touted its forthcoming update to Windows Phone 7, codenamed "Mango," as having better HTML5 performance than Apple's iPhone, new tests run using an iPhone 4 with the iOS 5 beta outpace the Windows Phone results.
The prospect of writing software for "Windows 8" in HTML5 and JavaScript has reportedly "horrified" Microsoft's development community, which is anxiously awaiting more information.
IDC released new long-term forecasts for worldwide smartphone operating systems on Thursday, predicting that Apple's iPhone will fall from 18.2 percent market share in 2011 to 16.9 percent in 2015.
Gartner lowered its forecast Wednesday for global PC growth in 2011 as demand for netbooks continues to slump and Apple's iPad causes disruption, while Microsoft is reportedly considering launching its own brand of Windows 8 tablet PCs next year.
Apple unveiled a new iMessaging app that brings SMS-style messaging to iOS devices that lack a mobile data connection, such as WiFi-only iPads and the iPod touch. The technology behind the software presents several advantages for mobile devices over offerings from rival Google and Microsoft, and is also likely to soon find its way to iChat on Mac.
A group of pranksters disguised themselves as construction workers on Saturday in order to post a Windows logo onto the facade of a future Apple Store in Hamburg, Germany.
A new rumor claims Microsoft will announce an Xbox LIVE subscription TV service next week at the E3 conference on the heels of Apple's unveiling of its iCloud service.
While the iPhone has outsold Research in Motion's BlackBerry line for some time now, a new survey found that Apple's handset has now surpassed RIM in terms of active U.S. users.
The anticipated ability of Apple's iCloud network to take some processing and traffic burdens from wireless carriers' networks has been predicted by one analyst to cause "collateral damage" for rival handset maker Research in Motion.
Microsoft has provided a look at how it plans to bring Windows to more mobile devices in the future, leveraging ARM processors and using HTML5 as the basis of a new app platform.
Nokia reacted quickly on Wednesday to a report claiming its phone business was acquired by Microsoft for $19 billion, calling it "baseless." But one Wall Street analyst had another word to describe a hypothetical deal between the two companies, at least for Apple investors: "heaven."
Influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn called Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer "the biggest overhang" on the company's stock at an investment conference on Wednesday, saying he should step aside and "give someone else a chance."
After Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared to confirm earlier this week that the next generation of Windows will arrive next year, a spokesperson has clarified the comments as "a misstatement."
Both Barnes & Noble and Amazon announced new versions of their e-readers on Tuesday: a touchscreen e-ink Nook and a Kindle 3G with "special offers," in an ongoing price war, while Microsoft previewed the "Mango" update to its Windows Phone 7 operating system.
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Josh Ong
Slash Lane
Daniel Eran Dilger
Neil Hughes
