The world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has ended the production of its only WiMax device. It’s another nail in the coffin for WiMax in the battle against the more widely adopted Long-Term Evolution (LTE).
“We have ramped down the N810 WiMax Edition tablet. It has reached the end of its lifecycle,” said a Nokia spokesperson. It is unusual for a product to have a lifecycle as short as N810 Wimax had. Even the trendiest of models tend to be on the market at least a year.
Canadian Nortel Networks Corp has estimated that approximately 80 percent of the mobile phone providers will shift towards LTE and the rest will go for WiMax.
According to Reuters Nokia has not ruled out future WiMax models. “We will continue to follow the technology and its evolution,” the Nokia representative said.
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Citing yesterdays disappointing November hardware sales, CNNMoney has called the Sony PlayStation 3 a “sinking ship.”
The numbers show that the PS3 sold 19 percent less consoles year-on-year from the same period in 2007, and CNNMoney believes that a substantial price cut is necessary if the console wants to see a growth in sales anytime soon.
After being outsold 840,000 to 380,000 for the month by its main rival the Xbox 360, many analysts have agreed that a price cut is necessary before the console falls behind by an “insurmountable margin.”
The CNNMoney article also attributed the slow down in sales to three specific reasons. The high price tag (All Xbox 360 models are cheaper than cheapest PS3), the fact that no one cares about Blu-ray, and the lack of strong selling titles for the platform.
We can all agree that price is an issue, but the other two issues CNNMoney brings up are a bit, for lack of a better word, iffy. Blu-ray player sales and Blu-ray movie sales continue to grow exponentially and show similar numbers to that of DVD when it was the “new” format in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Sony has had some hot selling exclusive titles such as Metal Gear Solid 4, LittleBIGPlanet, Resistance 1 and 2, and Uncharted but software sales arent as strong as that of the Xbox 360, from most accounts. Whether it needs more exclusive titles is up for debate however.
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According to five employees of the cell-phone departments at Wal-Mart stores around the country, the giant retailer will become the second mass-market chain to sell the popular Apple iPhone starting this month.
The employees were contacted by Bloomberg and each said that they were currently being trained on how to sell the device.
In September, Best Buy began selling the device, making it the first mass-market retailer to do so. Before that point, the iPhone was only available direct from Apple or from AT&T stores.
Although unconfirmed by both Apple and Wal-Mart, BoyGeniusReport is saying that they have received a tip that Apple will make a 4GB model of the popular iPhone 3G available at the giant retailer for only $99 USD with 2-year contract.
Having the phone priced so low would make it readily available to most consumers, especially those that don’t care so much about having tons of music or movies on their phone and also want to be able to go out and say “I have an iPhone!”
Apple initially sold a 4GB model of the 1st generation iPhone but dropped it from its lineup when it introduced a 16GB model. The 4GB models’ price back then? $399 USD.
