HTC Corp., a Taiwanese handset maker, has released expectations that its revenue will drop this year due to delayed product launches, weak contract-order demand, and disappointing Chinese sales. Although it had once predicted a 10 percent increase in revenue, HTC now expects revenue to fall by a single-digit percentage amount.
 
Last year, HTC’s revenue increased 29 percent to US$ 4.65 billion, but growing competition on the part of companies like Motorola and Sony Ericcson, both in the process of incorporating Google’s Android operating systems into their handsets, has removed HTC’s biggest advantage.
 
HTC manufactures T-Mobile USA’s G1 phone, which makes use of …read more

With the massive successes of the iPhone and the Blackberry, Motorola has been thrust to the sidelines as a largely irrelevant cell phone maker that has not yet managed to regain the mobile market. However, the impending release of Motorola’s android smart-phones may be able to reverse the ailing company’s fortunes. 
 
Motorola has revealed that its plan is to get back to being a competitive member of the cell phone market but that it is not completely dependent on the success of its new smart-phones. Investors, though, seem to be confident that Motorola will perform well after stepping into the smart-phone …read more

In a move that signals changing ambitions on the part of Sprint, America’s third-largest cell phone service, has decided to acquire Virgin Mobile USA for $483 million in shares and cash. Virgin Mobile USA, a low-end prepaid mobile company, will allow Sprint to continue its foray into the prepaid market.
 
Sprint, which will post its quarterly results tomorrow, already has a prepaid network called Boost, allowing users to pay a set monthly fee in exchange for unlimited calling capability. Thus, Sprint’s decision to buy out Virgin Mobile USA has puzzled some analysts, considering that Sprint already owned 13.1 percent of the …read more

Image: FlickrAlthough Toyota once operated the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. auto-assembly plant as part of a joint venture with General Motors, GM’s bankruptcy forced it to pull out of the plant. This has left Toyota with the difficult decision regarding whether or not it should close the plant, especially after its CEO promised that it would not close any of its North America plants.
 
However, Toyota has announced that it will make the decision “quite soon,” depending on whether or not the plant will receive aid from California lawmakers, as well as on an analysis of the plant’s financial viability. …read more

If your company has issued you a cell phone, you may have to start deciding whether or not you really need to send that email or text message, especially if you are watching your budget. That’s because the IRS has issued proposals to more strictly enforce a law that views company-issued cell phones as a taxable benefit.
Opponents of the law point out that it was passed in 1989, a time when cell phones were large, impractical, and only used by the most elite executives. Under the law, those who use company cell phones should keep a detailed log of their …read more

As most of you probably know, the EU recently moved to permit cell phone use on flights within European airspace. This post from FlyAwayCafe discusses a bill recently introduced in Congress which would ensure that the US does not follow suit.
I can only applaud this – those of us who travel in trains are already bombarded with the incessant chatter of the woman who simply can’t resist telling Aunt Bertha about the fungus growing underneath her toenail, the aggressive salesman telling how he pawned off a mediocre product on an unsuspecting customer, or even the attorney who relentlessly waives …read more