August 2010 archives
|
Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: Tom Gara on August 29, 2010 11:42 AM
Tags:
ecommerce
Order at lunchtime, delivered by the time you get home from work - Boutique 1 means every day can be your expensive birthday
It is pretty much conventional wisdom now that the next big, untapped market for web entrepreneurs in the Middle East is online retailing and e-commerce, and in the last few months we have seen a flurry of activity in this space.
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: Tom Gara on August 16, 2010 11:23 AM
Tags:
AMD, ARM, Atic, GlobalFoundries, Semiconductor
 A "clean room" bathed in ultra-violet light at the Globalfoundries microchip plant in Dresden, Germany (Pic by Jeff Topping / The National)
Can Samson slay Goliath? Taking its cue from the biblical tale of the underdog defeating the giant with a sling of a well-aimed rock, Smooth-Stone, a startup based in Austin, Texas, is planning on disrupting the entire microchip industry.
|
|
|
|
|
Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: Tom Gara on August 8, 2010 11:43 AM
Tags:
fibre, google, internet, neutrality, regulator, telecom
Fibre optic networks, like the one above, open up all sorts of possibilities for "fast lane" deals between telecom and internet companies. (pic by Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg)
A big, big scoop in the New York Times last week revealed Google is in talks with the American telecom company Verizon on a new scheme to pay for prioritised delivery of its internet traffic.
Under the scheme, a YouTube clip or a Google Voice internet call would have a special reserved lane on Verizon's broadband network, making the service more reliable and faster than data from other internet companies who have not paid for the privilege.
|
|
|
|
|
Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: David George-Cosh on August 3, 2010 12:06 PM
Tags:
BlackBerry, Etisalat, In, Motion, Research, RIM, UAE
Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry, issued the following statement to its customers yesterday in response to the security issues raised by India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Although several news organisations have quoted parts of the statement, in the interest of full transparency as well as to fully inform BlackBerry's customer base in the UAE, we are publishing the entire unedited copy below:
|
|
|
|
|
Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: Tom Gara on August 3, 2010 11:33 AM
UPDATED: There is some fine print on this; turns out you only get a totally free iPhone if you were on the BlackBerry "unlimited global" package (the most expensive one). Everyone else will need to pay an "add on" fee of between Dh500-1450). You also need to sign up to a 12-month contract, and according to Etisalat call centre staff, the offer only begins in October, once the deadline has been reached (and, we assume, will be withdrawn if BlackBerry and the UAE government reach an agreement).
The UAE's two telecom companies took out full page adverts in today's newspapers, letting customers know what will happen to their BlackBerry packages come October 11, when the government has said it will switch off the BlackBerry service across the country.
du, the smaller of the two operators, stuck mainly to the advice they have been offering on their website (in short: chill, we'll look after you, details to come). But Etisalat, which has about 70 per cent of the mobile market (and an almost equal share of the country's 500,000 BlackBerries) was more specific:
If you were a BlackBerry subscriber on July 31, Etisalat will offer you a pretty good deal to help come to terms with your loss: keep paying the same monthly fee, and they will give you a new, high-end smartphone alongside a data and SMS package. The packages are much better deals than you would get as a regular customer.
The free phone is a choice of an iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Wave, Nokia E72 or a Nokia N97 (yo Nokia fans, is that an N97 Mini in the picture?). The iPhone appears to be a 3G / 3GS, not the new iPhone 4.
If you're the kind of person who rolls with a BlackBerry in one pocket and an iPhone in the other, or just have a spare smartphone lying around, you can choose not to take the free handset, and in return get a monthly bundle of free minutes (between 150 and 550, depending on the package).
There are still plenty of questions about this deal, and the details are still not available. But you can assume that this sets the benchmark for what du will need to offer. And it is also fair to see this as an escalation of how serious the TRA was in announcing the BlackBerry ban. While it has been widely interpreted as a negotiating tactic, the fact that (government-owned) Etisalat is going to start handing out free iPhones to hundreds of thousands of BlackBerry customers shows that there is some real momentum behind the government push to kick BlackBerry out of the country.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Subscribe |
|
 Subscribe to Beep Beep (RSS) |
|
About Beep Beep |
A journey into technology in the Middle East. If it beeps, buzzes, shines or glows, you'll read about it here on Beep Beep. Read more
Send your tips to beepbeep@thenational.ae |
|
|
Search |
|
|
|
|
Beep Beep resources |
|
|
|
Blogs and archives |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Blog topics |
|
|
|
Business blogs at a glance |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
