BlackBerry Ltd. is determined to launch Android-powered cellphones. Analysts anticipated that introducing Android phones would empower the company to retain itself in handsets business.
BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ:BBRY) is looking forward to introduce new gadgets at the ending of this year perhaps, as it is focusing on these two smart phones. Although it is not confirmed that both the phones will run on either Android configurations or only one of it will follow Android.BlackBerry news stated that the company is working on a smartphone, named as Venice, which is expected to come with a slider. According to some sources, the mobile is based on Android operating system and it will run on the Android Lollipop version, which will show considerably fast processing. The slider in the body design is implemented for both the options – physical keypad and the touch keypad.The inclusion of slider is anticipated for the physical keyboard to bring the versatility and variety of options in the smartphone, as the Chief Executive Officer of BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ:BBRY) had hinted before regarding cellphone at the Mobile World Congress.According to the leaked photos, it is observed that the company is going to release the cellphone with the 18-megapixel camera, curved and furnished edges, and the most important aspect, the Android interface based on Lollipop processor.It is also heard that the Snapdragon 808 chip, the processor with the speed of 1.8 gigahertz, will power the device and it also contains a 5 megapixel front camera – one the most improved front camera among all the Blackberry mobiles. Moreover, other rumors state that the new version has a display screen of more than 5.3 inches and 3GB of Random Access Memory.On the other hand, apart from Venice, there is another report about company’s progress towards the invention of another phone, known as Prague, on which it is working. This further creates a confliction that either it is adoption by Blackberry or not.Both smartphones, Venice and Prague, will be released in future, it is difficult to predict which one of these phones will be the Android runner. This set will resemble with the model Z3 and will not contain the touch and physical keypad together, as the rumor reports. The physical keypad is the main attraction for the android users. Excluding the physical keyboard from the phone might not amaze the users.The time will decide the fate of these smartphones, but the expectations are high. The company remains positive about the progress of these products. The corporate giant holds a significant brand name in market, which makes it a center of attraction for the smartphone competitors.
Verizon ranked no.1 network carrier by RootMetrics for the fourth consecutive year.
Verizon Communications Inc. has embraced a new turning point where it has now been ranked as number 1 by the RootMetrics. RootMetrics is a popular company in the United States that is known for testing the performance of networks. Verizon succeeded in getting this ranking after it was successful in beating core rivals in terms of reliability, rating, speed, call, text and data.
Apart from Verizon, several other big names in wireless network communication like T-Mobile US inc., Sprint Corporation and AT&T Inc. were tested as well. These tests were conducted by RootMetrics by the start of the fiscal year of 2015 and came to an end in June. On the basis of performance; this is not the first time when Verizon has topped the list but it has been successful in banging first position for the past four years.
According to the score board, VZ succeeded in getting an accumulative score of 94.5 out of 100. On the other hand AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile scored 91.8, 87.5 and 82.0. Almost 7,323 indoor locations were chosen and 6 million tests were conducted covering a span of 237,506 miles throughout United States.
The reason behind Verizon’s substantial growth is that the company has working on its network operations since the previous year. Almost $10 billion were invested by the company during FY14 in order to enhance the network quality. At this point of time, the core focus of Verizon Communications is to work on new technology.
Verizon at this point is not only interested in making its network operations better but it also seeks to make it customer service better by offering quality services. These rating will be a positive catalyst for Verizon and will help them in expanding their clientele in the present trimestral. The company experienced a massive boom where it has succeeded in adding 1.1 million users in retail post-paid connectivity and 1 million in retail connectivity.
These ratings are likely to affect the Verizon stock price after trade today. A 0.08 per cent increase was in the trade where the stocks were trading at $47.53. Despite the company has been doing relatively well but the stock slump has affected its performance.
Verizon has potential to grow and with such positive rating, their future seems stable. The company needs to now focus and derive ways to overcome the stock slump to embrace stability in the long run.
Google Nexus 5 to ignite fierce competition with its high end specifications.
There are some major key players in the smartphone industry like Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Apple Inc. that are reigning over the industry since a fairly long span of time. These companies have a successful business model where two variants of their smartphones are doing well recently. However now, Google Inc. is also going to try this legacy where two variants of its Nexus 5 will hit the market. The company has joined hands with LG and Huawei to come up with Nexus 5 which will be a successor to the popular Nexus 6 phablet.To date no company has been able to give competition to Apple iPhone however now the search engine title is all set to snatch the thrown away from Apple through its Nexus 5. The company succeeded in getting ample traction, where leaked images of Nexus 5 have circulated all over the Internet. These leaks were showing the device from several angles. As speculated, the device is likely to be equipped with a fingerprint sensor similar to the sensor used in the Touch ID of Apple along with a camera boasting of 20.7 MP.Along with that, the Nexus will have a display of 5.2 inches along with USB Type C port and front speakers which is now extremely common in the latest smartphones. LG on the other hand is all geared up to come up with a metal body for Nexus 5 where earlier plastic casings were used. Moreover, the company will also use the same processor they used in LG G4 which is 6-core Snapdragon 808. The device boasts of some high end specifications which is likely to make it an instant hit in the smartphone industry.The device is likely to make its way to the market by October, FY15 along with the Android M operating system by GOOG. Rumors are now circulating that Google might launch the Operating System earlier i.e by the end of August. So this also indicates that Nexus 5 might also be launched earlier.LG previously also worked on Google Nexus series and was extremely successful. This move will again bring them to stability and is likely to be a bigger hit making a strong mark in the market. Samsung is working on S7, Apple is working on iPhone 6s and now with the launch of Nexus 5, the industry is likely to embrace fierce competition.
Verizon Communications Inc. is looking forward to introduce the advanced fiber technology with the fastest speed, which will counter the speed up to 10GB per second. The technology has cleared all the field tests and the company seems keen and confident for the future.
Verizon internet will deliver fiber optics service to the FTTP network. The devices permit Verizon to provide business services, like switched Ethernet do for local area network (LAN). In order to assure about the upcoming technology Vice President, Lee Hicks, acknowledge that the technology contains the capacity between the ranges of 40 to 80Gbps, “adding new colors of light onto the existing fiber,” along each color FiOS increase its potential by 10Gbps.
The final product test was done at the firm’s head office in Framingham. The organization released its NG-PON2 (next Generation Passive Optical Network) with the 3-miles frequency strength range over the head office. The trial concluded that Verizon’s other “Gigabit-capable passive optical networks” (GPON) and the advance NG-PON2, both can deliver signals together. Two companies, Cisco Systems and PT Inovacao, provided the NG-PON2 equipment for the field trial.
The compatibility allows interchangeability on a condition when equipment is imperfect. Verizon Prepaid ONT (optical network terminal) turns to another idea with something innovative. In simple terms, the speeds are exceptionally rare to be less than 10Gbps, considering that the company has variety of backup choices. In upcoming months, the company will invite the dealers to purchase the software and hardware needed for the Fiber optics service.
On the other hand, one thought comes in the mind that why the users required the fast speed of up to 10GB per second as the speed of few megabytes per second are fine enough to satisfy a user. The arrival of high resolution, HD videos, 4k videos, live streaming, online movies, and the cloud technology addiction, require the foremost speeds and become necessary for the users. The main reason for the high-speed internets and the best benefit gainer is the Cloud services, which facilitates uploading and downloading through a quick process.
The VP of the Verizon Online, Mr. Hicks, indicates about the upgrade that it is not a big deal for the company to elevate the Fiber Optic Service. The company can smoothly bring improvement in FiOS by adding the electronics, such as integrated circuitry, to the current fiber network. This will definitely lock new standard for the companies just like the Profject Fi of Google Inc.
The excellent news for the company is that the United States District Court announced that the Verizon Company is offering the fastest Wi-Fi speed internet, and truly, 10Gbps is high target for the competitors to chase. This opens a new paradigm for the company overall.
In past few weeks, an American research and advisory firm, “IDC” issued the starting results of its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, which gives the important figure regarding “cell phone and smartphone markets for handset dealers, software developers, service providers, component suppliers, and investors collectively.”
The 2nd quarter of 2015, turnout to be the 2nd highest among all the quarterly shipments, as reported in a media release. Internationally, an increase of 35 million is observed in the smartphone shipment per year, from 302.1 to 337.2 million, which also shows a rise in China stock market.After a precise research with IDC's Mobile Phone team, Anthony Scarsella (Research Manager), observed about the growth and stated, “The overall growth of the smartphone market was not only driven by the success of premium flagship devices from Samsung, Apple, and others, but more importantly by the abundance of affordable handsets that continue to drive shipments in many key markets.”At the same time, trade of superior smartphone accelerated in tech markets, the main reason for the flow in market was local dealers, who actually set the momentum. It is expected in future that vendors will push mobile phones that will offer advance features on cheap prices.Senior Research Manager, Melissa Chau, observed that the variation seen in the market prevails in an increasing manner because most of the investors are targeting the renowned brands, such as Apple and Samsung.She further elaborated the condition of China mobile market by saying these lines, “While the Chinese players are clearly making gains this quarter, every quarter sees new brands joining the market. IDC now tracks over 200 different smartphone brands globally, many of them focused on entry level and mid-range models, and most with a regional or even single-country focus.” Although Samsung is one of the finest cellular brands in the international market but a particular company among five top companies that suffered from backslide in annual shipment volume, around 1.7 million less than the volume in the 2nd quarter of 2014, which was around 74.9 million.The Korean giant was one of the five top organizations, which witnessed a fall in shipments volume year-over-year. While it is regarded as the market leader, its shipments fell from 74.9 million in the second quarter of 2014, to 73.2 million in the second quarter of 2015. Collectively, stock market share dived to 21.7% from 24.8 percent in the past year. Samsung did not receive the same response for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge throughout the quarters, unlike the response in the past, which was attained from older galaxy models. The same is the condition with iPhone, besides the fact that Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, and Lenovo are showing rise annually.
BlackBerry recruited Carl Wiese to replace John Sims as the president of global sales.
For a very long time, BlackBerry Limited is trying to revamp and revive its business in the smartphone industry. For many years, the company is doing little or no business and is nowhere near the smartphone giants in the market. Currently, Apple and Samsung are the market leader despite BlackBerry being the pioneer of smartphones and the concept behind it. But for a very long time, BlackBerry is just a lost brand in the middle of nowhere. Hence, the company is considering various management and leadership changes in order to revive its sales.One of the recent changes in the management is the departure of the president of global sales, John Sims. It was a very sudden decision and the spokeswoman of the company decline to comment anything regarding this sudden departure. However, a replacement has already been arranged and Carl Wiese will be filling up the vacant position. Mr. Carl Wiese is the former vice president of sales Cisco. And he will be joining BlackBerry as the president of global sales.The company wants to drive its global sales efforts and it believes that Mr. Carl Wiese can help it do so in the coming times. In recent months or years, the company posted poor sales domestically and internationally. But under the leadership of Carl Wiese, the company will be focusing on the growth of BlackBerry and enhance the go to market strategy of the company.The CEO of the company, John Chen, expresses his happiness regarding the joining or Carl Wiese. He said, “We are deeply committed to working with our customers to bring them the most innovative and secure solutions, and Carl will be central to that effort. Carl has extensive experience in enterprise software and emerging technology solutions, which will be instrumental as BlackBerry moves toward stabilizing revenue and sustaining profitability.”Carl Wiese provided great services to Cisco for 12 years and is expected to succeed John Sims at BlackBerry. His departure was quite unexpected and sudden and no one yet knows what really happened. His resignation came after 18 months of his joining as the president of the global sales at BlackBerry.The company has been posting disappointing results in every quarter and has been missing analysts’ expectations as well. BlackBerry Ltd. set a few targets to achieve in the coming times however the latest quarterly reports indicates that it might not be in the reach of the company to do so.
Alcatel-Lucent has secured 4.53 billion Yuan with China Mobile and 3.59 billion Yuan with China Unicom in two separate contracts to bring the Chinese infrastructure in line with the country's industry and information technology guidelines by 2017.
China Mobile (NYSE:CHL), along with China Unicom, has reached two separate agreements with Alcatel-Lucent for the upgrade of networks for telecommunication providers for a value totaled at $8.12 billion. According to breakdown of the details, the French telecom giant secured agreement worth 4.53 billion Yuan and the China Unicom contract is valued at less than $4 billion. Both contracts have duration of two years and cover fixed broadband access, optical networking functions, as well as software-defined networking amongst others.Alcatel-Lucent said that it would support the Chinese organizations in their endeavor to meet the “Broadband China” initiative, which is set by the Chinese government to increase broadband coverage throughout the nation by the end of this decade, i.e. 2020.By the year 2017, according to guidelines set by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, households in developed and underdeveloped areas will have access to 100Mbps of broadband, whereas residents of mainstream cities will see broadband services of 30Mbps. Fiber optics are expected to cover 80% of administrative villages, on top of rural and urban areas expected to have 4G coverage.The deal is seen as key for China Unicom’s. The cloud unit of China Mobile is already in a partnership with US-based Akamai Technologies to help Chinese businesses expand web presence on the global scale. It comes on top of China Mobile recording its biggest decline in profits since the turn of the 21st Century, attributed mostly to its huge expenditures on network development.Alcatel-Lucent snapped up other contracts with the same companies last year, in areas of Ethernet core routing, as well as being selected in two regions to supply five routing equipment to China Telecom. The strong focus on the Asia Pacific region is evidenced from financial reports showing that it was the only region where the French telecom equipment provider has been able to increase revenues in the Q3 results, clocking in more than 720 million euros, and a massive rise of more than 22%.To be clear, Alcatel-Lucent will cease trading under its current name, and will instead be named as the Nokia Corporation, on the back of a memorandum of understanding between the two sides to merge by early 2016, as part of a $15.5 billion deal.China Mobile’s stock price ended the day at $64.66, a gain of 1.20% the previous day. The company has little amount of time remaining before it starts trading as Nokia Corporation.
