Saturday, December 1, 2012

iOS app revenues still four times higher than Android, but Play store growing fast


A new report from mobile app analytics firm App Annie shows that, while revenues for iOS apps are still four times higher than those of Android apps, the gap is beginning to close, thanks to spiking sales in the Google Play store.
The report is the first of a monthly series that the company will make publicly available via its blog.
According to the report, Google Play's revenue jumped by nearly 18% during the month of October, while the App Store saw a decrease of 0.7%. Apps on iOS, however, still bring in about four times the amount of money that Android apps do. In terms of free downloads, the gap is just 12% in favor of iOS.
The picture is changing on a country-by-country basis, as well, App Annie reported. For the first time, the U.S. was not the biggest nation in terms of Google Play revenue, as the top spot went to Japan. The latter country has seen Android app revenues shoot up by a factor of 10 this year, claiming 29% to the U.S.'s 26% in the latest figures. America still far exceeds any other single country in terms of iOS revenue, however, at 33% to second-place Japan's 14%.
The Asian market is quickly becoming a bigger contributor to the growth of mobile apps in general, and Android apps in particular, according to the report. The top three publishers by revenue on the Google Play store in October are all based in Japan, and just two of the top 10 companies on the list were not from either Japan or South Korea. Four Japanese companies made the revenue top 10 for iOS as well.
Part of what's driving this growth, App Annie says, is the popularity of mobile gaming. Nine of the 10 biggest-selling publishers on both iOS and Android were game companies. However, different types of games were popular on each platform -- Western-built strategy and casino games dominated on iOS, while Asian-made brain games and other casual titles were more popular on Android.
Beyond the gaming sector, the most noteworthy discovery made by App Annie may be that productivity apps are selling briskly on both iOS and Android -- a further indication that BYOD and enterprise mobility issues will only grow in importance in the near future.
The full report can be found here.
Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.
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OLPC cancels XO-3 tablet, downplays need for new hardware


One Laptop Per Child has cancelled plans to release its XO-3 tablet, although technology from that project could still be used in other products, OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said.
"The XO-3 is by no means gone. It may emerge in its constituent parts rather than as a whole," Negroponte said via email.
OLPC started off in 2005 as a laptop project and is well known as a hardware innovator, with its first XO-1 laptop being praised for its unique and environmentally friendly design. The XO-3 cancellation comes as OLPC officials say the organization could de-emphasize the focus on hardware design in the long run in favor of education projects.
The nonprofit group announced plans for the XO-3 tablet in 2009 and showed early samples at CES earlier this year. The tablet was supposed to ship earlier this year for US$100, but it was delayed while OLPC finalized the design and sought partners to manufacture the XO-3. The tablet was meant to be a low-cost computing tool for students in developing countries.
The XO-3 was originally priced at $75 and that triggered a backlash, in part because critics said the price was unrealistic. OLPC didn't plan to have the product manufactured itself, as it did with the XO-1 laptop, which too was delayed and eventually shipped at double its promised $100 price tag.
The XO-3 design is still available, and it is more likely that companies use some of the tablet's key technologies, such as flexible power input and charging efficiency, said Ed McNierney, the chief technology officer at OLPC.
"There's a lot of decent tablet technology out there -- it's really a question of putting things together in the right package for the children we're trying to serve," McNierney said in an email. "The Nexus 7 is nice, too, and a more kid-friendly size, and there are other good examples."
The tablet shown at CES had a rugged body, an 8-inch screen and included optional technologies such as a solar charger and support for satellite Internet. It used a display from Pixel Qi that conserves battery life by using ambient light to brighten the screen.
OLPC's priority has always been education and the need to design its own complete hardware systems "may go away," Negroponte said. Tablets are an important learning tool for children, but companies may be able to ruggedize existing low-cost products for use in schools, he said.
"We had to build the [XO-1] laptop, but we do not have to build the tablet," Negroponte said, adding that, "the need for OLPC may morph into something else."
OLPC also designed a hybrid laptop-tablet called the XO-4 Touch, which includes some of the XO-3's features. That product is still scheduled to ship early next year. The XO-4 resembles the original XO-1 laptop but has a touchscreen that can swivel around and fold over the keyboard to make an e-reader.
As an alternative to the XO-3, Negroponte is not opposed to buying low-cost tablets and distributing them to schools. Tablets from companies such as Motorola, which have been deployed as an educational tool in developing countries, have shown good power management and no breakage in rugged environments.
"I am surprised how good they are, as they were not designed for [the] environment," Negroponte said.
Experiments have shown that tablets have made basic learning and computing easier, he said.
"The amazing result is that the kids are showing all the precursors of reading," Negroponte said.
OLPC will continue with hardware design on the XO-4 and beyond for the simple reason that there are now nearly 3 million XO devices around the world, McNierney said.
"That means two things: ongoing support for the existing customers, and ongoing engineering to keep the design current. Existing customers need additional units, spare parts, etc. and that need won't go away," McNierney said.
Components also must be refreshed every 18 to 24 months to keep using readily available parts and to keep the price down.
"That doesn't mean, of course, that OLPC needs to be the organization to do those things in the long run. That's the nice part of being a nonprofit; we do things -- like design hardware -- when no one else is stepping up to do them. If someone else can do them, we can stop," McNierney said.
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com

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Facebook loosens ties with Zynga


Facebook and Zynga have loosened their ties in an amended agreement that does away with most of Facebook's exclusive rights to Zynga games, but also permits Facebook to develop its own games from March next year.
The social networking company, however, said it did not plan to develop its own games. "We're not in the business of building games and we have no plans to do so. We're focused on being the platform where games and apps are built," it said in an emailed statement on Thursday.
In a regulatory filing on Thursday, Zynga said the amendments, which among other things remove the requirement that Zynga show advertisements served by Facebook and offer Facebook Credits as payment on its games sites such as Zynga.com, would be in effect until May 13, 2015.
Zynga's use of the Facebook platform with respect to Zynga sites will also be governed solely by Facebook's standard terms and conditions for game developers, thus ending the games developer's special relationship with Facebook, which was a sore point with other developers.
"We have streamlined our terms with Zynga so that Zynga.com's use of Facebook Platform is governed by the same policies as the rest of the ecosystem," Facebook said in its statement. "We will continue to work with Zynga, just as we do with developers of all sizes, to build great experiences for people playing social games through Facebook."
The amended agreement also eliminates the requirement that Zynga use the Facebook platform as its primary non-Zynga platform to launch social games, and removes the need for Zynga to use the Facebook platform as the exclusive means of login for games not hosted on the Facebook site, the social networking website said in its filing.
Under the amendments, however, any social game launched by Zynga will generally be available through the Facebook website concurrent with, or shortly following, its availability on another social platform or a Zynga property.
The requirement does not however apply to Zynga mobile games, social games owned and operated by a third party, social games that cannot be launched on the Facebook web site due to technical limitations, and any downloadable social games or any Zynga games launched in China or Japan, according to Zynga's filing.
A third-party social game offered on Zynga websites will also have to be offered to Facebook if the game is acquired by Zynga. If Facebook allows real money gambling games on the Facebook web site in countries where Zynga has real money gambling games, Zynga will subsequently launch such games on the Facebook web site, if certain conditions are met.
The Zynga filing states that Facebook "will no longer be prohibited from developing its own games," which gave rise to speculation that the social network may be planning its own games to compete with Zynga and other developers.
Zynga reported in the third quarter that 84 percent of its quarterly revenue was generated from the Facebook platform, down from 93 percent a year earlier.
In its quarterly report in October, Zynga had listed among its risk factors the possibility that "high-profile companies with significant online presences that to date have not developed social games, such as Facebook, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corporation, may decide to develop social games." The games company said it was investing in its Zynga platform, mobile and other platforms, and also in integrating and operating some of its games on additional platforms, including Google+, Mixi and Tencent.
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Sony sells 160,000 PS Vitas in first week of US holiday season


Sony sold over 160,000 PlayStation Vitas during the opening week of the holiday shopping season in the U.S., a key test for its flagship handheld game.
The Vita launched in December 2011 in Japan, but several months later in most other markets, so the next few weeks will mark its first holiday season in much of the world. The Vita is increasingly competing not just with Nintendo's portable 3DS console, but with the growing armada of tablets and smartphones on the market, many with high-resolution screens and multi-core processors.
Sony has already downplayed its expectations for its portable game consoles. The company slashed its annual sales target for the Vita and previous generation PlayStation Portable to 10 million earlier this month, 17 percent lower than its previous goal.
In its first three weeks of sales in Japan last year, the PlayStation Vita racked up an impressive 500,000 sales.
Sony also said its PlayStation 3 game console performed well during the opening week of the U.S. holiday retail season. The company sold 525,000 consoles from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24, including various game bundles.
Sony aims to sell 16 million PS3s this fiscal year worldwide, including a slimmed-down version released earlier this year.
The company's game division, Sony Computer Entertainment, said that total sales from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24 were up 9 percent compared to a year earlier, a figure that combines consoles, game software and peripherals.
Sony said it sold out of several bundle packs that include games along with consoles, including a Vita bundles that include Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified, and Lego Batman 2, which sold out during the week.
In addition to its traditional game console business, Sony is also pushing heavily its online gaming network. The company has also begun rolling out its fledgling gaming platform for Android-based phones, PlayStation Mobile, which certifies third-party devices and games to provide a "PlayStation-like" gaming experience to users on their existing hardware.

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Adidas Heads to the Cloud to Control IT Spending


Adidas Latin America decided to implement cloud-based procurement software to improve internal compliance and consolidate spending management. The company is a regional subsidiary of theAdidas Group sporting goods empire, which includes brands such as Adidas, Reebok and Rockport.
Procurement at $1.4 billion Adidas Latin America was complex--involving different currencies and languages--and disjointed. Some countries had developed homegrown procurement solutions; others had paper-based processes.
"If we were a small organization, that might have continued to work," says Adidas Latin America's head of IT Christian Bader. "But we were growing fast, and we weren't getting the visibility we needed."
Seeking to improve internal audit compliance and streamline spending, Bader evaluated several spending-management solutions and decided on Coupa for its multinational support, total cost of ownership, integration with the ERP system, and capacity for customization.
By opting for a hosted system, Bader was able to fully implement Coupa in Panama--where the company's Latin American operations are based--in six weeks earlier this year. Bader started with the country that had the most advanced procurement processes already in place and adopted an 80-20 attitude. "You will never cover all the cases you need to handle in one system," Bader says.
"We wanted to address the most common processes and keep it simple." Cash advances for travel, for example, will not be done in Coupa. "I'd rather leave it out than blow up the whole system to get it in," Bader says. Next up is Chile, where there was no software in place, so the implementation will take longer, one department at a time, starting with human resources. Later this year will come Argentina, Peru, Brazil and finally Mexico--simply because they were already deep into a massive warehouse management system implementation. IT is managing the introduction of the cloud-based system remotely from Panama City, keeping the cost of the project low. Bader opted to add on Coupa's business intelligence tool, the Spend Optimizer, so employees can see on their own how much they're spending and on what.
"We shifted the ownership and workload [associated with that] from finance, which should not have to do it, to the people actually doing the procurement," Bader says. Soon, Adidas Latin America will centralize its spending management and consolidate its business with certain vendors, leading to lower costs.
Adidas Latin America's complex account structure made integration between Coupa and SAP difficult. "It created a lot of stress, but we solved it," says Bader. "We should have addressed it before we started the project, but we were moving too fast."
But change management was the biggest challenge. "Our experience, especially in Latin America, is that you have to get the buy-in of the full organization, from the warehouses to marketing to HR to IT," says Bader, a German who joined the Latin American subsidiary in 2004. Bader held town meetings to address doubts and concerns.
"You can't just go out there and force it," he says. "Especially in Brazil--forget it! You have to do this with them and take the time to convince them, or you will fail."
Stephanie Overby is regular contributor to CIO.com's IT Outsourcing section.
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Apple starts selling thinner, higher-priced iMacs


More than a month after Apple unveiled new all-in-one desktops, the company today started selling its redesigned iMacs.
The 21.5-in. iMac, with standard configurations prices at $1,299 and $1,499, will ship in one to three days from ordering. The larger 27-in. iMac, which costs $1,799 and $1,999 for its two models, can be pre-ordered starting Friday, but won't ship for two to three weeks, Apple's online store showed.
The new desktops are $100 more than their predecessors.
Apple introduced the new desktops on Oct. 23, but said then that the computers would not ship for weeks. The same week, CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the delays, saying then that iMac supplies would be "constrained for the full quarter in a significant way."
The delays were unprecedented for Apple. Since the new iMacs' Oct. 23 unveiling, Apple has had none to sell on its online store, having also pulled the previous generation from the market. Only remaining inventories of the older models -- which were introduced in May 2011 -- were available at Apple's retail stores and those of its authorized resellers.
The most innovative addition to the new iMacs was "Fusion Drive," an option that combines 128GB of flash storage with a standard platter-based hard drive of between 1TB and 3TB. The hybrid drive significantly speeds up some chores, such as starting the iMac and opening often-used applications.
Apple charges an additional $250 for the option when fitted with the 1TB drive that comes standard with each iMac. To boost Fusion Drive to a 3TB drive costs $400: $250 for Fusion, an extra $150 for the move from 1TB to 3TB. The lowest-priced 21.5-in. iMac cannot be configured with Fusion Drive.
Analysts have said that Fusion Drive is likely composed of a Seagate platter hard drive and an SSD, or "solid-state drive" provided by Anobit, an Israeli company that Apple acquired in December 2011 for a reported $500 million.
The new iMacs feature Intel's "Ivy Bridge" 2.7GHz, 2.9GHz or 3.2GHz quad-core Core i5 processors, 8GB of memory, 1TB hard drives, and Nvidia graphics chipsets with 512MB of RAM. The desktops also shun optical drives -- Apple's been dumping the drives from systems as it rolls out new designs, leaving only the non-Retina MacBook Pro laptops and the low-volume Mac Pro tower with built-in DVD/CD drives -- and retained the previous models' screen sizes and resolutions.
While the 21.5-in. iMac has long been the best-selling desktop in the U.S., the line faces increased competition from Windows all-in-ones, said Steven Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group.
"Windows desktops have done well all year, with all-in-ones accounting for 20% to 30% of [Windows PC] retail sales," said Baker in a Thursday interview. "They make great touch devices."
Windows 8, Microsoft's new operating system, emphasizes touch capabilities. Apple's iMacs are not touch sensitive.
The new iMacs can be ordered today from Apple's online store; the 21.5-in. model is available today at Apple's retail stores. A 27-in. iMac ordered Friday will purportedly ship between Dec. 14 and Dec. 21.
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com.
Read more about macintosh in Computerworld's Macintosh Topic Center.

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Apple's iPad Mini, iPhone 5 head to China


Apple today announced that it will start selling the iPad Mini, fourth-generation iPad and iPhone 5 in China over the next two weeks, putting those new products on shelves in time for the January 2013 kick-off of Chinese New Year sales.
Analysts expressed surprise that the new iPads -- particularly the diminutive 7.9-in. Mini -- were reaching the Chinese market, having previously predicted that the tablets wouldn't start shipping there until early 2013.
"We are very surprised by the accelerated launch of the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad in China that we did not expect to occur this year but rather sometime in 1Q13," said Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets in a note to clients today.
Apple will start taking reservation requests for the Wi-Fi models of the iPad Mini and new iPad on Dec. 6 for pickup the next day, Friday, Dec. 7, when the tablets hit Apple's own stores and some authorized resellers in the People's Republic of China.
The iPhone 5 will be available for pre-order Dec. 13, and for pickup and sale on Friday, Dec. 14.
White expected the iPad Mini to sell "like wildfire" in China.
"We have noticed the growing popularity of the Samsung Galaxy Note in China during our trips to the mainland this year, and we believe this trend will play into Apple's hands with the iPad Mini," White wrote. "[With its] smaller form factor and lower price point, we believe Apple will be able to sell the iPad mini in meaningful volumes."
The Galaxy Note, which boasts a 5.5-in. screen, has been dubbed a "phablet" by some to describe its dual phone and tablet traits. This week Samsung said it had sold 5 million units of the Galaxy Note II in the device's first two months of availability.
White said that the iPad Mini's entry-level price of $329 will be about half that of the Galaxy Note II now in Chinese stores.
Apple's China online store has not yet posted prices for the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad. The latter, however, will probably be priced the same as the third-generation iPad, which costs 3,338 yuan ($535) for the 16GB Wi-Fi configuration.
The December introduction of the iPhone 5 puts that model in front of Chinese consumers a month faster than its predecessor, the 2011 iPhone 4S, which reached the market in mid-January 2012.
China Unicom and China Telecom are the two Apple-sanctioned carriers on the mainland. The government-owned China Unicom is the world's third-largest mobile carrier, with an estimated 233 million wireless subscribers. China Telecom, once state-owned, is the country's third-largest mobile provider, with 222 million subscribers.
Together, China Telecom and China Unicom have a 3G mobile subscriber base of about 133 million.
Greater China, an Apple sales region composed of the People's Republic, Hong Kong and Taiwan, accounts for a large share of Apple's total revenue. In the company's 2012 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 29 2012, Greater China generated $23.8 billion, or 17% of all Apple sales for the year.
During the July-September quarter, China revenues were up 26% over the same period the year before.
But Apple sales in Greater China have stalled recently as economic growth there has slowed. Earlier this month, for example, research firm Canalys said that in the third quarter Apple fell off the Chinese smartphone market's top-five list after placing fifth and second in the two previous quarters.
Both White and Brian Marshall of the ISI Group believe the iPhone 5 will reverse that trend, with White arguing that the redesigned phone will be the new status symbol in China, prompting upgrades from owners of the iPhone 4 and 4S. Marshall noted that the iPhone 5 is the first Apple smartphone able to run on all three of China's biggest carriers.
Marshall also pointed out that the American company has still not tapped the most lucrative market on the mainland. "[A] big question remains however ... when will China Mobile, the world's largest carrier with 700 million wireless subscribers, start selling the iPhone?" he told his clients in a research note Friday. "Our best guess is 2H13 as two main negotiating points remain: 1) carrier subsidy levels, and 2) joint marketing costs."
Analysts, however, have been predicting an impending partnership between Apple and China Mobilefor years, to no avail.
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com.
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DOE wants 5X battery boost in 5 years


The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today's within five years.
To accomplish this, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu is taking some lesson from U.S. history.
The DOE is creating a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that's intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced an atomic bomb.
"When you had to deliver the goods very, very quickly, you needed to put the best scientists next to the best engineers across disciplines to get very focused," said Chu at a press conference Friday that was streamed live from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The center will be located there.
The Battery and Energy Storage Hub project will involve six national labs, five universities -- Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, and University of Michigan -- and four private firms, Dow Chemical, Applied Materials, Johnson Controls, and Clean Energy Trust.
While physical proximity will have a role in the research, Chu said electronic communications and video conferencing will help achieve similar results.
The intent is to organize research in a way that can "change the rate in which something is actually done," said Chu. The key is moving technology innovations from the lab to the private sector as quickly as possible, he said.
Improving battery technology is seen as pivotal to transportation and storage, particularly around the need to store solar and wind energy.
Chu said the idea of seeking a 5X improvement is really around getting the battery and energy storage prices to a point where they will gain widespread adoption.
"We look very carefully at the price points," said Chu, who cited the impact of falling prices on cell phones of PCs, as examples of how low prices trigger mass adoption.
Chu said the effort it's "very, very important for American industrial competitiveness that research be intimately linked with manufacturing in a way that will propel the United States forward. This is what the whole Hub concept is about."
The intent isn't to aim for incremental improvements of existing technology, but to seek new approaches and "rapidly drive towards electrochemical energy storage solutions beyond the current limits," according to DOE's proposal.
DOE, in its solicitation for proposals, said current battery research is typically focused on one particular problem "and thus lacks the resources and the diverse breadth of talent to consider holistic solutions."
The goal of the Hub is to create a "critical mass for the best, most innovative and far-reaching ideas."
"Based on new understanding, the Hub should foster new energy storage designs that begin with a 'clean sheet of paper' -- overcoming current manufacturing limitations through innovation to reduce complexity and cost," said DOE.
Chu personalized the results.
When his home lost power recently, Chu said he did some calculations and said with battery storage improvements someone could halve the number of solar panels on their roof, "you can be 80% self-sufficient and blackout immune," he said. If prices were less than $10,000 for that system, "I would get that," he said.
Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @DCgov, or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed . His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.
Read more about emerging technologies in Computerworld's Emerging Technologies Topic Center.

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