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Posts Tagged ‘Lucrative Market’

Vodafone’s Wayfinder is first victim of free smartphone navigation services

Back in January 2009, as Vodafone was preparing to close a £20 million ($30 million) deal to buy Swedish mapmaker Wayfinder, it was seen as a bold move from a carrier intent on entering the apparently lucrative market for location based services. Fast forward to the present day — past the bit where free Google Maps Navigation destroyed TomTom and Garmin share prices, and past the introduction of free turn-by-turn navigation to Nokia’s Ovi Maps — and you’ll find Wayfinder gently sobbing into a handkerchief as it permanently closes up its doors. Vodafone’s Anna Cloke gives us the reason for it with devastating concision:

“We could not charge for something that others gave away for free.”

So there we have it, the paid navigation services deathwatch has its first fatality, and it’s the unfortunate nature of the beast that plenty of others will be following suit, unable to resist the destructive effects of the free and ubiquitous services now on offer.

[Thanks, Chris]

Vodafone’s Wayfinder is first victim of free smartphone navigation services originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Final Cut dominant among Oscar documentary nominees

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Multimedia, Software, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs and the iPad both appeared on TV during last night’s Academy Awards, but they weren’t the extent of Apple’s presence.

Cnet reports this morning that the majority of the “Documentary Feature” and “Documentary Short” nominees — 9 out of 10 in fact — were made using Final Cut Studio, Apple’s professional video editing package. Cnet spoke with some of the filmmakers, including Dan Wilken, online editor of “Food, Inc,” who sung the suite’s praises. “…[switching to Final Cut Studio] made the most sense economically and allowed us to do everything we needed.”

Final Cut isn’t the only professional editing software available but it is the most popular; market research firm SCRI International claim is has a near 50% market share among nonlinear editors.

With this in mind we get an even clearer picture of Steve’s motivation for showing up. Certainly to have fun and experience the show, cheer on Up and other Disney offerings and keep his company and products in the minds of a very lucrative market.

TUAWFinal Cut dominant among Oscar documentary nominees originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vodafone Continues Its Move Beyond The Mobile Market With New, Cloud-Based Service

Vodafone is launching a cloud-based service designed for business people and consumers who are looking for a way to back up the data on their desktops, laptops and netbooks. The move is significant as Vodafone is making another move move beyond the mobile market and is using cloud-based services to get there.

Vodafone’s service is built upon Decho’s Mozy platform, the popular backup service, which consistently receives ringing endorsements. Mozy has been on a tear as of late, closing deals with China Telecomm and McAfee.

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Vodafone will initially offer the service to its European customers. But considering that Vofafone does own 45 percent of Verizon, it would make sense that the service could roll out to the US market. The company has a presence in 70 countries.

The service is designed primarily for small businesses though it is being used currently by large companies like General Electric, said Charles Fitzgerald, VP of Product Management for Decho.

“We have two offerings today, one aimed at consumers (MozyHome) and one aimed at small businesses (MozyPro),” Fitzegeral said. “The business customers for Mozy today range from mom and pop shops to multinationals like GE, but the sweet spot is definitely small business.”

Businesses will have administrative control capabilities in order to manage multiple users.

With the service, Vodafone is finding its way into the lucrative market that is coming with the massive wave of media that people are producing and storing on their computers. Netbooks have grown tremendously in popularity but have limited storage capability. People are connected to any number of devices. They face threats from malware and viruses. Vodafone is banking that combination of factors will give it an edge with the business customer who is looking for a one-stop shop to access, organize, protect and share their media.

The announcement comes on the heels 1 million Sidekick customers losing their personal data. Fitzgerald says the Mozy service allows customers with one more backup.

The Sidekick fiasco underscores how critical backup is and the importance of protecting your own data,” Fittzgerald said “Vodafone PC backup (and any online backup) gives user another, redundant way to protect their data. Unlike the SideKick model, where there is only one copy of the data, there is redundancy across the primary PC and the online service and we encourage customers to also have a local backup.”

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