Archive for December, 2011

RIM sales tumble down!

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

RIM’s Blackberry was a hot topic when it entered the market, but in a year or so, RIM faced their most horrible nightmare, sales Down. Down. Down. RIM’s blackberry Smart phones and playbook tablets have struggled a lot to keep up the top position in mobile sales market in the early 2011.

RIM is weather-beaten by a chain of troubles in 2011, very critically the collapse of the tablet, the Playbook, and the rapid failure of Smartphone demand to its rich competitors like Samsung, Apple and HTC and many more.

Private equity fund owners also took a come across this company, formally based in Waterloo, Ontario, but turned their heads away. The funds dread that a spin around was unlikely in the U.S., an indicator of future for worldwide Smartphone sales. Everyone is unable to predict the fortune of RIM Smartphone and is afraid to decide how much debt the company will manage to suffer if it was acquired in influenced overthrow.

The company’s top executives revealed a declining point of view for the financial 4th quarter and opined that the introduction of a potent form of Smart phones leading an innovative OS system will be postponed till the last part of 2012.

Investors are trying to get in touch with the directors of RIM, but all is in vain. They feel that the company owners are in no mood to change the strategic plans and policies to bring up their sales. Also, the company is not ready to change their top management people.

The android based devices have also helped in ruining the sales of RIM’s Blackberry Smart Phones in U.S. markets. These devices are greatly financed and marketed by U.S carriers. The company extended in different places, with sales beyond the U.S., Canada and Britain growing 31% from a year earlier to US$3.17-billion and making up 61% of RIM’s complete Q3 sales.

Suitors are afraid to invest in the interest of company. Also, no advertising will help to cut this downfall.  Also, RIM has confused their customers by bringing up more and more variety of Smart Phones that it has created a jumbled up situation. In contrast, for instance, Apple has played safely by just introducing few models with upgraded features thus leaving audiences with proper choices. People always have the same query about RIM Smart Phones, “which model to choose?”

Thus, this builds up a lot of pressure on the organization, and expectations of public are increasing day by day. Many of the analysts have criticized RIM publicly. Thus, a very few number of shareholders and investors are having faith in Rim and are waiting for BlackBerry 10 to come out next year and create some magic.

 

LeapFrog hits the all new tablet market!

Monday, December 26th, 2011

In this tech-savvy generation, do you think our kids will be more used to mobiles, tablets, laptops, iPods, etc. more than their books, pens, pencils, papers, etc.? Today’s kids are extra forward-thinking than we ever were. Kids too love using tablets, but not all tablets are suitable for a kid’s hand full of bread and butter all around.

The all new latest technology has also not left the new generation kids untouched. YES. LeapFrog has launched an all new tablet for kids. The most frequently recommended device for kids is the LeapFrog’s all new LeapPad tablet.

LeapFrog does such a breathtaking task of staying on the peak of what kids want and what they take pleasure in!

LeapFrog have gained an expertise in consistently supplying  a variety of kid’s electronics, high quality and durable both to educate and entertain your kids, for 15 years after its establishment. Leapfrog is now a proud owner of a kids Tablet known as LeapPad. They’ve mastered the art of trapping kids into having fun while learning.

The all new multi purposeful learning tablet is especially prepared for children of four years and above. LeapPad caters to the all new generation of digital reading, learning and personal imagination.

As you see, the name says it all; a LeapPad is basically a tablet for kids to draw their attention towards the progressing technology. Kid friendly, LeapPad is a five inch long, touch screen tablet, little larger than most of the Smart phones. LeapPad is surrounded by a solid and enduring film of white, green and black plastic to attract the minds of kids along with a smart design to survive stumbles.

LeapFrog recommends a number of distinctive apps that you can buy online by visiting their app center. The LeapFrog App Center permits you to pay for and download eBooks, games, videos and additional apps to your LeapPad.

To promote creativity and innovations, LeapPad has all in it: a tiny microphone, camera and video recorder. Your little one’s can also practice their ABC’s and 123’s with the brand new writing stylus. LeapPad is going to be on the top list in many of the Santa’s letters.

LeapPad is surely going to help you all mom’s and dad’s devices to stay safe as your kids are going to be lured away by the latest features for your tech savvy kid like reading books, listening to music, drawing, writing, etc. The tablet is also well equipped with tilt censor which will interest your kids while playing games and watching videos. The core attraction part of this device is its witty and drooling construction.

A very interesting attribute for parents is that they can go through their kid’s performance in educational games and other apps by connecting their LeapPad to PC.

Your kid is soon going to draw you to an electronic supermarket and ask for this amazing product by LeapFrog- A LeapPad!

It’s amusing, educational and the kids enjoy it… everyone just can’t stop loving it!

 

 

 

 

 

Truck load of Playbooks… wow!

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

With hardly any days left for 2011 to end, Research In Motion executives must have been hoping that all the terrible news was due for the year, and that they possibly can begin looking ahead to placing things perfectly in 2012. But it’s not yet the end to 2011.

The world’s foolish thieves stole 5,200 blackberry playbooks from a truck driver. Maybe the thieves didn’t have any clue about what were they stealing. Last week, almost $2 million in electronics, these playbooks were stolen in another truck which was kept ready by the thieves. The 22 pallets of units were assumed to be departing to RIM’s home province of Ontario, most probably to fill up stock as you see the price-cut PlayBook was selling at a faster speed.

Driver Jason Garant was driving towards Ontario when he halted to have a food and drink break. Within few hours of his break, when he returned back, he found out his truck to be missing along with RIM Playbooks. Cops confirm that there was more than one person involved in this misdeed.

“RIM is aware of the reported theft and is working with authorities,” the company said in an emailed statement. If the playbooks are not recovered, RIM will surely have an extremely unsatisfactory 2011. The FBI’s Interstate Theft Task Force is on the case and was informed that the tablets could possibly go to Miami, but they didn’t have any dubious character.

This Canadian Smartphone maker entered the world of mobile phones market some years back, with a lot of customers getting attracted towards it right from the beginning. By considering its progress, the makers decided to launch an all new tablet named as “Blackberry Playbook” in 2011. But things turned out to be other way round, and the blackberry sales went down at the end of the year. Also, the playbook tablets failed to connect with the consumers as much as it was expected to.

In last 12 months, RIM has faced a great downfall in its market value, disappointing the consumers more when they didn’t launch their newly expected Blackberry 10 as per their announcement before.

This poor reaction forced the company to offer discounts, lower the cost of Blackberry Playbooks right after a month of its launch. Thus, RIM’s dream of ruling the market squashed in front of Apple iOS and phones having Google’s Android OS. Also, a big blow hit the RIM when its Blackberry services were out of order. This made a very bad impact in the minds of people towards RIM and Blackberry phones.

This Ontario based company had a bad to worse year of 2011. The CEO’s and all the RIM executive are leaving no stone unturned to fetch back the company on track. Let’s see how much 2012 proves to be positive to RIM executives and thus we hope that, the all new blackberry 10, having RIM as their operating system will help them to reach out to the expectations of their customers and rule the mobile market.

Twitter strengthens security adopting Whisper Systems

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Twitter has adopted Whisper System , a start-up company for android phones and security-privacy improvement, a firm jointly run by Moxie Marlinspike and Stuart Anderson, to provide its users with better security.

The deal has been finalized in order to improve the security of the social networking website. Though the price of the deal has not been disclosed yet, but an emailed statement from the micro-bloggers said “The Whisper Systems team is joining Twitter starting today”  followed by “As part of our fast-growing engineering team, they will be bringing their technology and security expertise to Twitter’s products and services. We’re happy to have Moxie and Stuart onboard.”

Twitter is very popular social networking site that provides its over 100 million users with 140 worlds to interact with their followers. The site is mainly used by the celebrities, politicians, and other famous personalities.

Despite having a number of big names into the tally, Twitter is getting a tough competition from other networking giants. Thus the deal can be a positive point for them to retain popularity, as Security and Privacy has been a major issue in past few years for social networking and blogging sites. Every website is considering the privacy of its user’s content as the first preference.

Twitter had been very active in terms of its security since January 5, 2009 , when , 33 High-profile Twitters accounts were hacked , when an admin password was guessed by hackers. Distorted tweets were sent from the accounts.  Twitter then, in June 2009 allowed its famous users to verify their accounts, which would help users to differentiate between a real celebrity account and a fake account.

Further in May 2010, a user himself found a bug, that could make other users on twitter follow you even if they do not want to. This series of meltdowns in the security made FTC( Federal Trade Commission) to take some actions against Twitter and it was the first time FTC took an action against a social networking website. FTC set some conditions including some steps to improve the security for user’s personal information. But later on, a new worm XSS was found, that used to retweet itself without user’s permission.

This new deal with one year old Whisper Systems is therefore seen as an improvement in security and privacy of the users of Twitter. Whereas several Security and Privacy researches still have some doubts about this new deal. Christopher Soghian, a security and privacy researches commented  “Twitter isn’t in the business of providing secure communications tools to end-users. – Hell, it still doesn’t even use HTTPS by default,” he further stated that ” i am struggling to understand this deal”.

Whisper Systems is equipped with data scrambling programs that avoid the leakage of the information to the hackers and mainly deals with Android operating system . Moxie Marlinspike is also a very reputed name in the community of Security and Privacy, and is very well known for his work with secure protocols and android.

Canadian e-retailers have a lot more to offer, experts tell online shoppers

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

The Black Friday and cyber Monday sales continue to grow in popularity. The last 2years have witnessed the highest year-over-year increases in visits on Cyber Monday and Black Friday with growth of 16% and 13%, respectively. The Canadian online retailers are catching up with this trend, bringing up different forms of internet based deals, giving a strong competition to the US retailers.

The mirror effect of this trend were seen with Canadians who were caught with the Thanksgiving shopping fever as going to packed malls, cross border disturbances will be a thing of past.

There is certainly a lot more for Canadians to look forward from Canadian e-retailers at a click of a mouse

Onlineshoppers.ca is categorized and easy to use directory of the best online shopping websites in Canada. All Canadian online shopping stores are reviewed and placed in proper categories to make it easier for Canadians to shop and buy online at a convenient time. Also added is a list of great international shopping sites that are located in US that ship to Canada.

CanBuy.ca is a Canadian website that provides links to internet based traders that are either located within Canada or that ship to Canada. They work with traders to overcome the hurdles that keep Canadians from buying online. This site helps customers find the store with best deals and also displays a catalog of online coupons and promotional codes for these Canadian friendly online traders.

Many Canadian e-retailers run deep discounts because they want Canadians to be shopping in Canada and not cross borders. Canadians who are used to shopping from US retailers can now shop through the Canada based sites of U.S retailers. They can be guaranteed on the quality of the product as the same stock as in U.S sites is made available with discounted cross-border duties. They also provide warranty cover and process of returning the product, if required is much easier.

If you still wish to shop on U.S.-based website, one should take the following safety measures before making the purchase

a)     Pay attention to the Delivery policy plus the Return policy in addition to the privacy policy

b)     Read through offers applicable for Canadian shoppers.

c)     Ensure you don’t enrol for subscription or divulge private data as you fill the online form

For all those who are shopping laggards, you need to note that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not holidays in Canada. For any shopping you wish to do online, you will be doing in your work timings. A survey by personnel consultants reveals that 57% of employers in Canada block their employees’ access to shopping websites and about 30% permit right to use but observe the frequency of usage of shopping sites.

Now with the flood of online retailers and excellent discounts schemes, it’s ideal to make the first step, grab the offers and shop at ease at a click of button.

Facebook to raise $10-billion in its IPO

Monday, December 5th, 2011

The world’s most popular social media networking giant is considering to be listed on the stock market. Facebook Inc. is looking to go public by April – June, 2012 and plans to raise $10-billion in its IPO, said a report.

The investment community is extremely thrilled about this Initial Public Offer from Facebook and they are eager to buy shares of Facebook and other fast-growing social networking companies. Investors are sure whenever it takes place the Facebook IPO is sure to garner widespread interest among the investors of all age groups.

The other thing which would push Facebook to go for the IPO is the number of employees who have received stock options as an incentive to work at the startup. Though it is not clear how many of Facebook’s 3000 staff are shareholders, but the company earlier this year mentioned it will cross 500 shareholders and that in accordance with SEC regulations, it will have to file IPO no later than 30th April 2012.

In a press release Facebook said that DST and Goldman Sachs had approached them with a lucrative prospect to strengthen its cash coffers and boost its monetary flexibility. Goldman Sachs says they were extremely happily on intense media coverage it started getting due to their association with Facebook

A another journal said that founder CEO of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is undecided on any terms of the IPO and the firms CFO David Ebersman is in dialogue with Silicon Valley bankers about the IPO. Though Facebook have not decided on any bankers to manage their IPO it had drafted the initial prospectus and the formal S-1 filing will be done by the end of the year.

Experts say that Facebook when it does debut in 2012 will control any of the other dotcom companies waiting to public. The money that Facebook would drive from the IPO will allow it to make more acquisitions and refine or work on new projects such as Facebook phone or netbook. Also once Facebook gets a trade-able stock, as always it will attract more engineering talent and it will be a powerful bullet for them.

Facebook launched in 2004 is favourite amongst all age groups across the globe and has completely reshaped how people share information and interact with others on the Web. It now counts 800 million users, with over 500 million users logging into the site daily. Companies often explore an IPO once they reach $100 million in revenue. Facebook is set to debut with more than $4 billion in revenue, making it IPO bigger than ever.

Achieve Profitability targets with the best in Fax Servers

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

Companies need efficient machines as well as efficient people to achieve the targets and goals of the company. Machines that can enable this are mobile phones, computers and fax machines and fax servers.

Fax servers like the FaxFinder help companies gain momentum towards the company’s goals. Some of the major benefits of the FaxFinder entail increased savings in fax subscription services, enhanced employee productivity with achieving ROI faster, and the compliance to the recommended industry-specific regulations.

There are very few fax servers like the FaxFinder which provide all-in-one facilities while providing enhanced faxing capabilities like

  • Providing faxing over a WAN to reach small and remote offices and field sales staff from a central corporate office.
  • Conversion of Inbound faxes to TIFF and PDF formats while delivering it to a recipient’s inbox or any network folder or even printing it on a network printer.
  • Faxes that are outbound can be sent via a web client or through the application supported by Microsoft Office.
  • Security and convenience in faxing for users of LAN that require a increased privacy for the sender and the recipient.
  • Webinars are held by the FaxFinder on demand.
  • FaxFinder also supports developers using the API of the FaxFinder and the Multi-Tech engineering resources.
  • All FaxFinder servers are compliance tested by Avaya DevConnect and Shoretel. The IP Fax Server supports T.38 and SIP real-time faxing protocols. It is a model that is 2-channel and upgradeable up to 8-chanels. The Analog Fax Server supports 1, 2, 4, and 8 port models and has fax communication with a super G3 V.34/33.6K capabilities.

FaxFinder is especially suited for families with the features that are as attractive as the two-year warranty. These are:

  • This server is known for its security in sending faxes through a fax transmission that is clientless through T.37 which is email to fax and a web form. Also sending faxes that are client compatible through Windows 7, XP, Vista, 2008, 2003 and other Microsoft Office applications.
  • It is easy to access phonebooks used for corporate and personal purposes including the address book in Microsoft Outlook.
  • Simplified management while faxing multiple documents in one fax.
  • Capability for providing intimation on failed faxes through e-mail.
  • Ability to access the web interface from any location due to its simple administration, updates on firmware and back-up of the configuration.
  • Archival facilities in the network storage for faxes that are inbound and outbound. Also the ability to create an on-board storage for the same.
  • Enabling approvals for outbound faxes.
  • Printing received inbound faxes automatically.
  • Choice of DTMF and SIP headers for routing faxes via e-mail.
  • Reliable and quick transmission through Error Correction Mode (ECM).
  • Third party applications and integration possibility through web services like API.
  • Accessibility for remote employees to the extended fax services.

FaxFinder intends to pave the way for the future in fax servers, not just by increasing profitability for the company but for families and all users of fax.