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6 million to flee AT&T for Verizon iPhone?

May 27, 2010
Filed under: Tech News — Cole @ 9:15 am

AT&T could lose 40% — or 6 million of its estimated 15 million iPhone customers — when and if Apple makes a model of its smartphone that runs on Verizon’s cellular network, according to a note to clients issued Tuesday by Davenport & Company’ Drake Johnstone.

But several factors mitigate against a wholesale migration:


  • Sticky plans. AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega told an audience at a J.P. Morgan event last week that 80% of his customers are on family-talk or business-discount plans, which are notoriously hard to unravel.
  • Termination fees. Starting June 1, AT&T is raising its iPhone ETF (early termination fee) from $175 to $325 — a penalty that is reduced $10 every month of a two-year contract. That’s lower than Verizon’s $350 ETF, but it still means you pay $95 if you leave AT&T even just one month before the end of your contract.
  • Improved service. Those dropped calls and sluggish downloads aren’t quite as bad as they were 12 months ago since AT&T has scrambled to beef up its wireless network in major U.S. cities. But the carrier is running out of time. Johnstone — like many analysts — believes Verizon will get the iPhone in 2011. There are rumors that it could happen a lot sooner than that.

  • Via All Things Digital.


    Microsoft allows outsiders to peek inside Outlook

    May 24, 2010
    Filed under: Tech News — Cole @ 1:44 pm

    Microsoft announced on Monday two open-source projects that let developers view data from Outlook without the need for the e-mail and calendar program itself.


    One is a software development kit for reading the .pst files that Outlook uses to save personal files; the other is a graphical tool for viewing the internal data structure of the .pst files.


    “Combined, the documentation and tools advance interoperability with data stored in .pst files, reflecting customer requests for greater access to data stored and shared in digital formats generated by Microsoft Outlook and for enhanced data portability,” Microsoft said on its interoperability Web site.


    Both tools are posted under an Apache 2.0 license on the CodePlex site.


    The move builds on Microsoft’s announcement last October to open up Outlook’s .pst file format.. The documentation itself was posted in February. Microsoft said the new graphical tool released Monday will offer a better understanding of the documentation released in October.


    First playable Google doodle marks 30 years of Pac-Man

    May 22, 2010
    Filed under: Tech News — Cole @ 12:47 pm

    Internet giant Google marked the 30th birthday of Pac-Man by featuring the classic arcade videogame in the first-ever playable doodle on its home page.


    Web users who opened Google’s homepage after 1500 GMT Friday — which is midnight in Japan, where Pac-Man was born — were greeted by a small-scale Pac-man game set around a barely discernible “Google” in the middle of the game’s colorful maze.


    The game designed by Toru Iwatani was first released by Japan-based Namco into arcades on May 22, 1980.


    The Google doodle Pac-Man comes complete with the arcade game’s trademark music and sound effects, and an “Insert Coin” button where Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” button usually is.


    But even though Pac-Man grew to become the best-selling coin-operated game in history, the Google doodle was decidedly less popular with Internet users.


    “WHAT IS WITH THE ANNOYING PACMAN AUDIO PLAYING ON YOUR SEARCH PAGE TODAY?” wrote one of more than 200 visitors to Google’s help page, most of whom were complaining about the Pac-Man doodle.


    “Have you guys been hacked? I thought I had contracted a virus,” wrote another.


    Most of the messages contained too many expletives to repeat.


    Other online comments were more charitable, but wondered about the effect the doodle on productivity.


    “All the game details are spot-on, right down to the impulse to ignore work, friends, familiy and play for hours,” wrote Lance Ulanoff of PCMag.


    The playable Pac-Man doodle will stay on Google for 48 hours.