5.3" Smartphone or Tablet? Samsung Note Tries To Be Both

Check out Samsung's new 5.3" Note - I guess it's a tablet. It can also be a smartphone like its Galaxy S II but with a bigger screen.  Whatever, I do like it.  However, I would only be interested if this was just a tablet with cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity but not as a phone.

Here are some well known specs:

Fortune's Post About A Bigger AT&T With T-Mobile In Its Belly Would Mean Lower Cost But Not For Customers

This Fortune post got it right.  The meger between AT&T and T-Mobile would mean it would cost less for the mega-AT&T to serve about 130 million users than serving just 100 million users.  It's simply economics.  What the post failed to say is that these cost savings won't translate to lower bills for the customers.

It's about maximizing profit for the company and, ultimately, adding value to the shareholders.  Billings to customers will be the same.  Elimination of a competitor that prides itself with value mobile plans means it won't have to worry about customers looking for a better value.  It also means AT&T is free to increase prices if it wants since customers will not longer have the choice to go to another GSM carrier.

So, when the author, Scott Woolley of Fortune, said that AT&T overlooked this argument for the merger, it most certainly did not.  In fact, had it brought this argument up, it might not have worked in its favor.

As I've said before, none of AT&T arguments for the merger made any sense at all.  Some of its own figures seem to go against the merger at times.  

Furthermore, othing in AT&T's arguments support the merger mention cost savings would be passed along to customers.  Why?  Because it won't.  And while AT&T dangled a carrot, hiring 5,000 more employees should the deal go through, its history said that job cuts will happen else where in the new company.  

If anything, Woolley should just come out and say what's on everyone's mind.  It's about greed.  Just now, we learned that AT&T has eliminated a popular feature called A-List that allow users to pick up to ten friends that they select for unlimited calling (Electronista).  

Greed.  That's what this merger is about.  Plain and simply.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Source:  Fortune.

Note:  Most of the time, I find mergers to be very exciting news for the market  It generally does create opportunities.  Here through, that's not the case.

20 Million iPads Sold During the Summer Quarter? Not Surprised if True

TUAW is reporting that Apple may have sold about 20 million iPads over the summer quarter.  Is it possible?  Definitely and I can't wait to see just what kind of effect this has on the larger PC market.

Now, the source of the post, DigiTimes, is in my opinion, a click whore but one has to take what they say and compare it with reality.  And the reality is that Apple was facing the mother of all backlog for the iPad 2.

And with back-to-school and the Greater Chinese market, there is a lot of demand.  And while the post said that Foxconn "shipped" twenty million iPads, chances are that Apple sold most of it and kept a couple of million in reserve.

Since it had some in reserve to start the quarter, saying that Apple sold twenty million iPads would not be out of line.

Source:  TUAW.

Best Buy Cuts $50-$150 Off Playbooks; Another Fire Sale Coming?

Looks like we could be in for another fire sale.  This time around, it'll be RIM's Playbook.  Best Buy will be lobbing off $50 on the 16 GB model and up to $150 on the 64 GB model.

I've said this a few times already.  These 7" tablets priced around $500 are going to have to contend with 7" Honeycomb or Android 4 devices that will cost about $300.  

I know the Playbook is a very solidly build device and is probably worth the premium but so is the 16 GB iPad coming in at $500.  And RIM did itself a disservice by releasing the Playbook when it was half-baked as far as the software was concerned.  

I've also postulated that the new $999 is now the $499 for tablets.  If a device maker wants to compete with the iPad at the $499 and up, they would need to offer "premium" features and services that Apple cannot match.  

 

Source:  Electronista.

Sprint Study Shows AT&T Will Kill Jobs, AT&T Responded; Looking At AT&T History, I'm With Sprint

Sprint released an economic study by an University of California at Irvine, David Neumark, said flatly that AT&T's merger history showed that is has eliminated over 100K jobs since 2002.

There are a bunch of other figures that used numbers based on assumptions.  That happened on both sides in this particular matter.  What is given is that mergers ultimately mean job losses due to duplication, especially in this case where both companies are in the same market.  After all, mergers between two companies in the same market is to create value and eliminate waste.

Now, if AT&T had bought a supermarket chain, I would be more prone to agree that it is not not as likely to cut jobs.  After all, it's unlike that its wireless customer service reps are going to be expected to be working at checkout counters or stocking shelves.

And while AT&T did promise to bring back 5K jobs, it did not promise it would not cut jobs elsewhere.

This merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is about killing off a competitor.  AT&T is looking to knock off the only other GSM operator in the US.  No more, no less.

Source:  Techcrunch.

Apple Brings All Cloud Services And Stores Under One Control

Eddie Cue is now a senior vice president, in change of all things Apple that is online.  Though this may not look like much but mark this date.  Apple is going all in with this could business.  

We might not see it today or next year.  However, iCloud will looked markedly different 5 years from what it'll be like in the fall.  In fact it may not take that long.  

When I read this first thing today, I thought the man would be overburdened.  Not so if Apple has a clear head about what they want.  They're past cloud efforts haven't been all that great but it seems with iCloud, they've turned the corner.

Good Post On Why DOJ's Suit Against AT&T And T-Mobile Merger Is A Good Call

I'm pro-biz.  Rather I'm pro-competition.  Merger are good if they create value for the market, meaning us the consumer.  However, AT&T and T-Mobile merger never made sense for me from the start.  It's why I support DOJ's lawsuit against the merger.  And This Mercury News article is one of the better articles on this matter.

Bottom line:  

• Eliminate choices.
• Proposed economic benefits is uncertainty. Using jobs as reason for merger but vague on how much it'll lay off due to duplications.
• T-Mobile prides itself on offering value.  Without a competitior with 33-million users, AT&T and others have no reason to compete on value.
• There are cheaper ways for AT&T to build out its network without buying T-Mobile. AT&T has already said it'll spend less than $4 billion to expand coverage from 80% to 97% of US population, much less than the $39 billion cost of the merger.

Take all that together, you come to one conclusion:  the merger is about killing competition and imposing more crummy customer service and shady billing practices.  Plain and simple.  

Honestly, we've all seen AT&T's practices over the year.  And suddenly, it wants to convince the American public that it's got our best interests at heart. Whatev...

Source: Mercury News.