Nicholas Kolakowski

Microsoft and Nokia apparently played with the idea of purchasing Research In Motion, according to a recent piece in The Wall Street Journal. That report quoted unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” who described the status of the talks as “unclear.” RIM’s value to Microsoft and Nokia is arguable. Certainly, the Canadian phone maker boasts […]

In something of a victory for Microsoft, a preliminary ruling by the International Trade Commission has found that Motorola Mobility’s Android devices infringed on aspects of one Microsoft patent. But the judge also declined to find Motorola Mobility in violation of six other Microsoft patents. Microsoft insists that Google Android broadly violates its intellectual property […]

A keynote by Microsoft’s CEO has long anchored the beginning of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and the company usually accompanies that speech with a huge booth on the convention floor. Starting in 2013, however, Microsoft will decline to provide a keynote speech or booth at CES. “We have decided that this […]

Apple has reportedly gone through with its plans to purchase Israeli flash storage company Anobit for some $500 million. That news comes from Reuters, itself quoting the Israeli business daily Calcalist. Apparently, Apple will also build a research and development complex in Israel. Rumors of Apple’s Anobit buy had circulated since earlier in December, when […]

Should Research In Motion kill its PlayBook tablet? Last quarter, RIM took a substantial charge against its PlayBook inventory, totaling some $485 million before taxes (or $360 million, once those taxes are taken into account). During a Dec. 15 earnings call, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis suggested the company remains “committed” to the device, which he […]

Apple scored a minor victory in its battle against Google Android, with the International Trade Commission (ITC) banning certain HTC smartphones from import in April 2012. However, observers believe HTC will have little trouble altering its devices in order to sidestep the ban. The patent in question, considered a minor one by analysts, concerns the […]

Novell’s antitrust suit against Microsoft hit something of a brick wall Dec. 16, with a deadlocked jury and the possibility of still more action in the long-running case. Novell claims that Microsoft relied on illegal practices to crush WordPerfect, a rival to Microsoft Word-specifically, by withholding critical Windows 95 technical information, which in turn made […]

At September’s BUILD conference, Microsoft took an auditorium of developers on a deep dive into the upcoming Windows 8. Among the features revealed in passing was a rather unique way of safeguarding the operating system from unauthorized users: a “Picture Password” that required touching parts of an image in order to move past the initial […]

AT&T has decided to end its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA, the company announced in a statement Dec. 19. “AT&T will continue to be aggressive in leading the mobile Internet revolution,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson wrote in that statement. “Over the past four years, we have invested more in our networks than any other […]

Microsoft’s week centered on a flurry of applications for various smartphone platforms, yet another sign of the company’s continued shift toward a more mobile-centric mentality. Those apps included one for its SkyDrive cloud storage on Windows Phone and the iPhone. “In addition to their OneNote notebooks, iPhone customers can now access all of their files […]

Amazon is selling Kindle devices at a rate of 1 million per week, according to the company. The online retailer revealed those sales numbers just as its Kindle Fire, a full-color tablet, joins the battle against Apple’s iPad for holiday shopping dollars. “We’ve already sold millions of units, and we’re building millions more to meet […]

Research In Motion reported revenue of $5.2 billion for the third quarter of its fiscal 2012, up 24 percent from the previous quarter but down 6 percent from the same quarter last year. That was slightly lower than Wall Street analysts estimated, according to Barron’s. Net income fell 71 percent year-over-year, to $265 million. BlackBerry […]