Michelle Maisto

Sprint’s $20.1 billion deal with Softbank, Japan’s third-largest wireless carrier, is being complicated by the U.S. government’s distrust of China-based telecom equipment providers ZTE and Huawei. In October 2012, the carriers penned a deal in which Softbank would receive a 70 percent stake in Sprint in exchange for $20.1 billion—money that Sprint has already begun […]

BlackBerry surprised analysts by posting a profit for the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2013, which closed March 2, a few weeks after the long-awaited launch of its BlackBerry 10 mobile platform and BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. “To say it was a challenging environment to deliver improved results in could be the understatement of the year,” […]

NEW YORK—In a car market rampant with claims about the most-efficient brands and greenest vehicles, Ford executives are looking for an application that can help consumers to understand how they personally can create a more fuel-efficient experience. During a keynote address at the New York International Auto Show here March 27, Ford officials announced a […]

T-Mobile Says Americans Are Ready for a Change T-Mobile invited the press to an event where the decor was purgatory-meets-shackled-in-the-dungeon. “Everyone loves smartphones, everyone hates contracts,” CEO John Legere said. “[The other carriers] put you in smartphone purgatory—or smartphone hell.” T-Mobile is doing away with contracts and selling its phones separately from its services. “I […]

NEW YORK—T-Mobile CEO John Legere on March 26 spelled out, with what’s quickly become a trademark mix of frankness and sass, what T-Mobile is now offering and where it’s going. The top executive of the nation’s fourth-largest carrier—with an acquisition of fifth-largest carrier MetroPCS in the works—said (again) that current wireless carrier practices have “America […]

Enterprises have spent the last several years learning that the consumerization of IT is an unstoppable market force that ensures that employees will bring their favorite mobile devices and applications to work, no matter the draconian policies that are put in place to try to stop them. Rather than waging a futile battle against the […]

BlackBerry officials have been quiet regarding the first-weekend U.S. sales of the BlackBerry Z10. After the smartphone launched abroad weeks ago, the company was quick to report happy news. In the United Kingdom, first-week sales were nearly three times the brand’s best performance there to date, while in Canada, it had its best-ever launch date […]

T-Mobile CEO John Legere has been promising some very un-carrier-like moves from T-Mobile, and ahead of the big media event planned for March 26 in New York City, it has begun to deliver. T-Mobile is now offering a contract-free smartphone plan starting at $50 for 500MB of 4G data (after 500MB, network speeds will slow […]

Apple has acquired WiFiSLAM, a Silicon Valley company focused on mapping indoor spaces. Apple confirmed the deal to The Wall Street Journal, but wouldn’t confirm an estimated sales price of $20 million. A spokesperson told The Journal that Apple “buys smaller technology companies from time to time” but wouldn’t comment on any financial particulars. The […]

It’s a dangerous world out there for iPhones—and not only when Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is around. Ride the New York City subways for a day and you’ll see Apple’s glass-and-aluminum beauty hidden in enough bedazzled, animal-patterned or otherwise simply gaudy protective cases to feel certain that the iPhone, as it’s being interacted with daily, […]

The subsidies that wireless carriers pay to offer the Apple iPhone are a well-known cross they bear. Certain telecoms, however, have apparently gone from shrugging their shoulders in resignation to grumbling in the ear of the European Commission. While no carrier has filed a formal complaint against Apple, EC antitrust regulators are now investigating possible […]

Samsung and Its 2013 Smart TV Lineup Dave Das, Samsung’s vice president of U.S. home entertainment, said Samsung’s newest Smart TVs—its sixth generation of them—feature “some of the brightest pictures and darkest blacks ever seen on a TV.” During the rest of the presentation, the lines between TVs and other smart devices seemed to fade. […]