David Needle

Service plans, extended warranties, model comparisons, salespeople trying to “upsell” you to higher-priced models have all conspired to make buying a wireless phone at retail an increasingly onerous chore, according to a report released this week by J.D. Power and Associates (JDPA). While many of these factors aren’t new, perhaps the most surprising result is […]

SAN FRANCISCO — How should the government handle the 700MHz spectrum auction planned for January? A lot depends on which interested party you ask. During a spirited debate here at the Web 2.0 Summit Thursday, Thomas Tauke, executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications at Verizon, joined the stage with wireless advocate Ram […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Is the rise of the Internet slowly killing television? Not in the view of media execs here at the Web 2.0 Summit, who said TV is merely changing with the times. “Television viewing has gone up every year,” said Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media. “I object to this idea that […]

Reporter’s Notebook: ORLANDO -– Here’s a brief history lesson that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave IT professionals and CIOs at the recent Gartner IT/Symposium here. When a Gartner analyst asked Ballmer what the software giant was doing to exploit the trend of consumer technology being used by hordes of knowledge workers, he chuckled before answering. […]

ORLANDO – As new product waves and innovative technologies roll across the IT landscape, it can be tempting for IT shops to switch horses or least consider another technology provider. Three Gartner distinguished analysts, here at the company’s conference, tackled the question of which of the leading enterprise technology providers has the best portfolio of […]

The impact of software piracy and the illegal copying and distribution of other copyrighted works is hard to measure. The industry and watchdog groups regularly issue alarming statistics on the growing loss of billions in revenue caused by piracy. Of course, it’s hard to know what the true revenue loss is because you can’t assume […]

Consumers in the market for a VoIP phone, specifically a Skype-oriented one, will have a new model to consider next Tuesday when IPEVO begins selling its SOLO phone. The SOLO is a standalone, desktop corded phone that allows you to make Skype voice calls without a computer. With Skype software pre-installed, the company said the […]

Server vendors may use a lot of the same components when it comes to enterprise servers, but customers have a definite preference for certain system brands. A just-released “Vendor Faceoff” study of enterprise buyers by Gabriel Consulting Group (GCG) shows IBM and HP in a two-horse race for the top spot with Sun and Dell […]

Consumer printers are improving all the time. Maybe too much for some casino operators. The California Attorney General’s office announced late Thursday the arrest of two counterfeiters caught feeding fake $100 bills into slot machines at a Tribal Casino in Mendocino County. “These two bandits used home printers to make fake bills that tricked casino […]

Reporter’s Notebook: We’ve all heard by now about the iPhone being hacked so it can be used by other telecom carriers instead of AT&T. That exercise, by a number of groups, was hardly trivial, but neither is finding out something as seemingly simple as the parts that make up the device. “Every time we tear […]