Microsoft, HTC, Sony and Nokia together against Apple

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Microsoft, HTC, Sony Ericsson and Nokia have made a formal request to be declared invalid the trademarks App Store and AppStore that Apple has. This formal request has been done in the European Union due to consider the trademarks a generic name.

According to The Wall Street, theses companies challenged the rights of Apple trademarks App Store and AppStore by submitting a formal request to the office of the European Community market.

Microsoft, HTC, Nokia and Sony Ericsson claim that these terms are "Too generic" to be a trademark of company.

Microsoft and other leading technology companies are trying to invalidate the registration of the trademark of Apple and the App Store AppStore because for them it should not have been granted.

They thinks that “App Store” means exactly what it says, a shop of applications, and is too generic.

Apple registered the Trademark in Europe in July 2008 just a few weeks before to of launching the App Store for the iPhone.

In January 2011, Microsoft filed an opposition to the mark with the Patent and Registration Office of the United States, arguing that the term is "generic and not registrable"

Here we have two sides. For one hand there are Microsoft, HTC, Sony Ericsson and Nokia. They think that the trademarks used by Apple are to generic to be patented. It is possible that they have reason. However just a judge will give them the reason or not. For other hand we have Apple. Apple has paid for these trademarks so at the moment they have all the right to explode the names.

Source BBC

Cyber security plan proposed by White House

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The White House lose thousand dollars every year in cyber attacks.

The US government has submitted a proposal to protect the infrastructure and networks from attacks in order to ensure the privacy of internet users.

The legislative proposal of the administration of President Barack Obama calls to the Department of Homeland Security to assume the task of protect the government computers. It has to be monitoring the detection of intruders and prevention systems.

Obama believes that It would also require upgrading the safety standards of many federal government contractors. The proposal aims to prevent attacks from United States and other countries, including many apparently originated in China.

This new law in the White House would give a new debate in the U.S. Congress about cyber security.

"The cyber security vulnerabilities in our government and infrastructure are crucial and a risk to our national security, public safety and economic prosperity, " said by the White House in a statement.

The office of leader of Senate Democrats, Harry Reid, took the initiative in the Congress on cyber security, gathering proposals sponsored by the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Jay Rockefeller, and of Homeland Security, Joe Lieberman.

A government official said that the White House would like that the Congress approve this year a proposal on cyber security, after a deep discussion that included representatives of industry, privacy advocates and community.

Hackers are responsible for attacks on millions of computers, threatening systems operated by the U.S. government, companies electrical energy and financial companies.

Democrats in the Senate introduced new legislation in February after reports of attacks on computer networks of Nasdaq OMX Group and five multinational oil and gas.

The authorities broke up in April a malware network used to take the control of more than two million computers worldwide and may have led to theft over $ 100 million (70 million euros).

A government official said the White House proposal was result of two years and working environment

In conclusion I think that this measure not only has to be assumed by the US government. Every country must to protect and guaranty the security of people. Currently we are in a moment where everybody have access to internet. The purchases by internet are growing exponentially. It is necessary for ensure the development of the technology more mechanism to protect this new ocean that is internet.

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Source: elEconomista

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Nokia is going down

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Nokia continues receiving bad news. The Korean manufacturer Samsung is already the first in Europe on mobile phone sales. According to the quarterly technology report by IDC, the market share that Samsung has obtained is 29.3%, surpassing the Finnish brand that has passed to the second position with a share of 27.9%.

Samsung increased its sales by 5.3% with 13.2 million units, while Nokia’s sales fell by 10.3% with 12.5 million units sold. In this quarter, the Western European mobile market grew 5% with 45 million phones sold, which 21.2% were smartphones, whose sales grew by 76%.

At the same time, Apple became the first Smartphone mobile manufacturer, with an increase of 49% and a market share of 20.8% in this segment. They sold 4.4 million units, while Nokia reduced its share to 19.6% and 4.2 million units sold.

Nokia was the only major manufacturer that reduced his sales of Smartphones and they did so by 15%. Apple, who only sells smartphones, reached in the third place of general phones with a market share of 29.3%.

RIM (Blackberry) and HTC are sellers of smartphones as well. They placed in the fourth and fifth place in the general sale of phones. They have a market share of 7.8% and sales of 3.5 million. RIM suffered a rise of 48% while HTC rose a 271%.

In the specific market for smartphones, these two manufacturers occupy the third and fourth place with a market share of 16.5%.

In this segment, Samsung is the fifth largest with a market share of 12.1% due the sales of 2.6 million units, an increase of 744%.

Referred to the operating systems for smartphones, Android is the first on sales with a market share of 35.7%, followed by Apple's IOS with a 20.8% and Symbian with a 20.5%.

In the following chart we can see how the Nokia OS has decreased during the last two year:

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Mobile OS Market Share

In conclusion, with the Nokia's results, we can see how the movement by the company to joining with Microsoft has been done due to solve this kind of lacks in the market.

The mobile phone market it is more active than ever. The companies put in the market every year new models to try to compete with the successful iPhones or Samsung. All this competence is really good for the customer due to this means that we are going to have access to products the more quality and chipper.

Source: elEconomista

Microsoft Acquire Skype

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Today we have one of that news that we are required to post.

Microsoft has confirmed the purchase of the Internet communications company, Skype, by 8,500 million dollars (about 5,900 million euros) they will pay in cash to the group of investors led by Silver Lake.

The acquisition will increase the accessibility of real time video and voice communications, providing "benefits for the consumers and for the company generating new business and making” has said the giant in a statement.

This purchase has been the investment more expensive in the 36-year history of the company founded by Bill Gates, surpassing the 6,000 million dollars paid for aQuantive inc.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been happy with the surgery because "together we are going to create the future of communications in real time so the people can stay connected with family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world. "

Microsoft's plan for the newly learned is that Skype could be compatible with their services Xbox, Windows Phone, Kinnnect and while that will sync with the applications of Messenger, Hotmail, Lync, Outlook or Xbox Live, and has even been committed to "continue to invest in platforms that do not belong to Microsoft."

Skype will become a division within the company, being responsible for management of Tony Bates, who will report exclusively to Steve Ballmer. "Microsoft and Skype share a vision of bringing innovative software and products to our customers," said Bates.

Skype was founded in 2003, Skype has 170 million registered users and over 207 million minutes of voice and video conversations recorded in 2010. It has been a pioneer in the creation of rich and meaningful connections to the conversation both personal and business.

In 2005 EBay bought the company for $ 2,600 million in cash and stock. Although this investment was not satisfactory and the online auction site sold a 70% stake in 2009 to Silver Lake Partners for U.S. $ 2,750 million.

Under the leadership of Silver Lake, Skype has advanced exponentially in their area of business, getting a monthly increase of 150% of minutes, with a great opportunity to develop new sources of income and feed their peer-to-peer.

In my opinion Microsoft it is doing a good strategy. With this acquisition and with the alliance with Nokia it is obtaining a good position in order to compete in the market. With this acquisition how it has been explained in the post Microsoft is going to implement the Skype software in his own products. At this way they are going to create an advantage.

It is true that we are talking about huge quantities of money but if you have the money why do not do the deal?

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Source: FInancialTimes

New FaceBook Plan

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Hello again!

It seems that this week the Social Networks are more actively than ever. Today is Facebook who is on the cover.

Facebook has launched a new compensation system that allows users to see certain ads on the social networking site Facebook and benefit it with credits that they can use to purchase goods in bids of 'Facebook Deals' Groupon style, or rent movies in the network.

They think that the incentive at the moment is not very high. Facebook provides a credit for 'click' on an ad. Each credit is the equivalent of 10 cents of dollar (0.07 euros).

Facebook wants to expand the service and it is working with Sharethrough, SocialVibe, the media SupersonicAds and Epic to publish adds in the program, and TrialPay which will provide analysis.

Sharethrough CEO, Dan Greenberg, has quoted that this movement is "one step away from the interruptive advertising. " Greenberg, whose clients include Microsoft and Nestlé, said that his network "does not show its just traditional advertising, but rather the show as entertainment brand that consumers will want not only view, but to share with their friends. "

At first you could only redeem these credits for their own content to the network but considering that Facebook has increasingly offering more services and content, the possibilities are endless.

The aim of this new type of advertising is to help rewarded game developers to monetize their applications through advertising and, incidentally, to popularize the use of Facebook Credits.

In my opinion I think that we are seeing a very good marketing and financial strategy on Facebook. For one hand with this new possibility the customers are going to start to see more advertisement in order to obtain some profitability. But for other hand Facebook is going to improve his profits and they are going to obtain more impact in Internet.

Source: The Times

Twitter acquire Tweetdeck

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Hello my friends!

Today I would like to talk about the most famous blue bird in the network, Twitter. The company has purchased TweetDeck for $50 million. For people that do not have any idea about TweetDeck. TweetDeck is an Adobe AIR desktop

application for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc... Like other Twitter applications it interfaces with the Twitter API to allow users to send and receive tweets and view profiles. It is the most popular Twitter application with a 19% market share as of June 2009, following only the official Twitter.com website with 45.79% share positing new status updates.

Here we have an example of how look like TweetDeck:

Image: www.classroomtweets.wikispaces.com

The agreement, apart from the $50 million, it will include shares of microblogging. This movement represents one of the biggest acquisitions by Twitter so far. The intention by Twitter is to raise the number of “official” members.

In February, UberMedia, a company from Pasadena funded by Bill Gross, was thinking about to buy TweetDeck: This attempt to buy was unsuccessful due to UberMedia valued the company behind the price suggested by Twitter. Some people think that UberMedia has been buying Twitter applications because they want to create a rival social network.

The terms of exclusivity for UberMedia expired in April. For these reason TweetDeck has the possibility to accept the Twitter's offer.

In December, Twitter was assessed in $3.700 million. However the people think that if the company was sold in the market his price would be $7.000 million.

We can see how during these last years, the social network companies have making a lot of noise. This shows the important effect that these services have in the society. I sure that the competence as Facebook or MySpace will follow very close these acquisition and they will take the necessary measures to maintain their members.

Source: BBC

Sony under cyber attack

Image: www.airbornegame.com

Hello everybody again!

Today I would like to write about the important attack that has suffered Sony. His two online departments, PS Network and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) have been hacked. This attack has not been as the last attempts, in this case, the hackers have managed to steal about 75 million accounts. In these accounts there is the information about bank accounts, personal information etc.

Due to this attack and with the desire will be no repeated, the server online has been down during 2 weeks. During this time nobody has had access to the online games. The Call of Duty: Black Ops, one of the most playable games at the moment has been paralyzed. This fact has been Sony to lost a lot of money and confident.

Referred to Spain and according to sources Sony Computer Entertainment Spain, it has been stolen data from 114 users. In this sense, the Spanish subsidiary of the Japanese company insists that have not been stolen the necessary codes to make transactions.

The company in a press conference has tried to calm people. They have been working in the system to protect it of futures attacks. However the people are not so agree. The risk of possible theft from bank accounts has made people distrust. The company recommends that the users monitor their bank accounts for any unexpected movements.

The company as an offsetting will give some extra content for free. I do not know if these measures will be enough for the people. The image of Sony has been heavily damaged. We saw how his “pretty girl” the ps3 was hacked months ago. Now have been the servers. What will be the next?

Source: elEconomista