PC Tech World: third

Showing posts with label third. Show all posts

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Provo, Utah is the third city to get Google Fiber

Google Fiber is growing in Kansas City and, as recently reported, coming to Austin, and today Mountain View revealed a third city that will enjoy its high-speed internet: Provo, Utah. The news broke today on the official Fiber blog, Provo's website and the city mayor's personal blog -- what official wouldn't be happy to break that news? If the agreement is approved by the city council, Google will buy the city's existing iProvo network and upgrade it to Gigabit technology. The deal would bring free 5Mbps service to homes already on the iProvo network (for a $30 activation fee) and offer free connectivity for 25 public institutions. The council will vote next Tuesday -- but we can't imagine any verdict other than a resounding "yes."

[Thanks, all]

Source: Google Fiber blog, Provo Insights

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Gartner: half of smartphones sold are Apple or Samsung, Huawei third for the first time

Gartner 2012 handset sales down 17 percent, half of smartphones sold are Apple or Samsung

We saw last quarter that while mobile phone buyers were on the decline in general, smartphone sales were way, way up. That's how 2012 finished off as well according to Gartner, with cellphone purchases down 1.7 percent overall from 2011, but sales of higher-IQ models up 38.3 percent year-on-year. Samsung and Apple fared particularly well in the latter category for Q4 2012, making up over 52 percent of smartphones sold compared to 46 percent in Q3. Meanwhile, being embroiled in the odd security row didn't stop upstart Huawei from hitting the smartphone podium for the first time with 27.2 million handsets sold in Q4 2012, a 73.8 percent jump over last year -- but a distant third behind Samsung's 64.5 million units and 43.5 million for Apple. Meanwhile, Nokia dropped 53.6 percent from last year with 39.3 million units sold, though it's likely too soon to tell whether WP8 will boost it anew.

Speaking of Redmond's Windows Phone ecosystem, it grew a modest 1.2 percent in Q4 to grab 3 percent of the market just behind BlackBerry, which tumbled 44.4 percent but stayed in third spot on 3.5 percent of devices. With new products now in the market, the two OSes will likely see a protracted battle for third spot over the next year, according to the survey outfit. Android widened its margin to control a whopping 69.7 percent share of the smartphone OS market compared to 20.9 percent for iOS, a bump of 87.8 percent over the quarter. Otherwise, your Badas, Symbians and others are battling for scraps, and will soon have certain new Linux-based predators to watch out for, to boot.

Source: Gartner

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Businesses expect their mobile workforce to increase by a third

Seven million more mobile workers by 2014

New research from O2 reveals that in the next two years, two thirds (65%) of British businesses expect 30% more of their employees – equivalent to just over 7 million people – to become mobile workers as the demand to work more flexibly, on the move, out of the office or from home expands.

In response to the anticipated influx of requests to out of the office, nearly three quarters (72%) of British companies are putting in place plans to transform their communications infrastructure, with 85% focusing on flexible working.

Over two thirds (67%) of businesses are already moving towards a growing trend of 'consumerisation', by allowing employees to connect their personal devices to the business network.

O2's findings suggest such progress will deliver huge benefits to UK businesses. Those identified by businesses include:

Improved business agility (91%)Cost savings (83%)Improved productivity across the business (79%)

Additionally the introduction of bring your own device (BYOD) working has encouraged 85% of enterprises to start moving to a fully consolidated voice, mobile and data network. More than half (55%) of enterprises surveyed said that they now consider consolidation a high priority for their business, an increase of nearly a quarter (24%) since 2011.