Sony Ericsson - Q3

Bert Nordberg, President and CEO of Sony Ericsson commented, “We delivered a solid 73 million Euro improvement in income before taxes as we rebounded from the previous quarter with a 33 percent increase in sales. Android-based Xperia™ smartphone sales now account for more than 80 percent of sales and we have shipped 22 million Xperia smartphones to date. We will continue to invest in the smartphone market, shifting the entire portfolio to smartphones during 2012.”

Units shipped during the quarter were 9.5 million, a 9% decrease year-on-year due to a decline in feature phone shipments, partially offset by an increase in smartphone shipments. The 25% quarter-on-quarter increase was due to the higher volume of smartphones shipped.

Sales for the quarter were approximately Euro 1.6 billion and essentially flat year-on-year.

Sony Ericsson estimates that its share of the global Android-based smartphone market during the quarter was approximately 12% in volume and 11% in value.

http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/corporate/press/pressreleases/pressreleasedetails/q3financialpressrelease2011-20111014

Starbucks eyes juice-bar business

from msn.com:

>>Starbucks (SBUX) as a juice bar? According to news reports, the coffee giant may soon add smoothies, wheatgrass and acai to its menu.

The New York Post reports that Starbucks has just hired Yohana Bencosme, the former manager of the trendy Manhattan juice bar Liquiteria. Bencosme's new job is to train staffers in Starbucks' Seattle headquarters.

....

Would juice bars make sense at Starbucks? The very idea triggered a 3.5% drop in the stock price of Jamba Juice owner Jamba (JMBA) on Thursday.

Starbucks is desperate to bring in more afternoon traffic and even offers an afternoon discount to morning customers in many areas. Smoothies and other juice items would help draw the lunch and afternoon crowds. They would also appeal to children.

Jamba Juice comes to Manila

from http://business.inquirer.net:

>>The latest craze in the US is opening its Philippine flagship store in Bonifacio Global City on November 11.

Jamba Juice hopes to establish its position as a healthy yet tasty option to the growing active lifestyle of Filipinos.

Jamba Inc. tied up with Max’s Group of Companies to develop 40 Jamba Juice locations in the Philippines over the next 10 years.

“The Philippine market is a market that we feel we could be strong here,” answers Sharon Fuentebella, EVP for Max’s Group of Companies and managing director of Jamba Juice Philippines on why they’re choosing the country.

She adds that since tropical fruits are endemic here, the creation of their famous juices will be enjoyed by most Filipinos.

Jamba Juice will sit on a 130-square-meter area with 50 seats and over 100 juices and smoothies to choose from. This will be the first store for the Southeast Asia region.

Jamba Juice of Bakersfield Quickly Boosts Traffic and Sales by Ten Percent

Bakersfield-based Jamba Juice Franchise owner with four stores uses Trumpia's SMS Marketing and Facebook postings to build its mobile marketing database, boost in-store traffic and increase sales.

Baskersfield, CA (PRWEB) October 11, 2011

Jamba Juice of Bakersfield, which owns and operates four local franchises of the popular better-for-you beverage and food company, is using Trumpia's bulk SMS and QR Code Marketing combined with Facebook marketing to increase its in-store traffic by around ten percent. As a result of the increased traffic, Jamba Juice of Bakersfield has realized a significant boost in its sales.

Trumpia is the leading solution provider for Multi-Channel Marketing and Messaging, offering mobile text, email, voice broadcast, IM and social media in a single, unified web-based platform.

The Bakersfield-based business attributes some of its success to creating and placing signs at each store, inviting prospective customers to connect for special daily deals by texting its mobile keyword, Jamba, to its premium short code, 99000, or scanning a Quick Response (QR) Code.

The business also promotes its daily deals on its Marketplace Jamba Facebook fan page, encouraging people to opt-in to its mobile marketing database to receive special coupons that are usable at this particular outlet, which is just one of its four locations in the north-westernmost part of the city.

For example, the Jamba Juice franchisee routinely posts messages on its Marketplace Jamba Facebook fan page that call upon visitors to text its mobile keyword to receive a “buy one get one free (16oz) smoothie deal.” In doing so, the business is growing its Facebook following and, at the same time, using Trumpia's mobile text marketing feature to get more customers to come into the store.

Using both Trumpia's SMS text marketing and QR Code marketing features in this way, Jamba Juice has grown its opt-in mobile database to around 1000 customers in just two months across all of its four stores.

Jamba Juice of Bakersfield typically sends out mobile coupons and deals to this SMS marketing database at least once a week. Customers can redeem the coupon simply by showing the coupon message stored on their phones.

“While we considered many marketing options, we decided to exclusively use Trumpia's mobile text and multi-channel marketing platform,” said Brett Thomas, owner of Jamba Juice of Bakersfield. “We're glad that we did and we were right about our hunch that Trumpia would provide us with the most direct, immediate and affordable way to connect with local residents and quickly build a loyal following. The return on investment that we've enjoyed since we began using Trumpia's platform has been tremendous.”

“Jamba Juice of Bakersfield's use of our SMS text marketing and cross-channel messaging capabilities is a perfect example of how small businesses can harness the power of Trumpia to quickly build their market presence, establish their brand and gain results – more quickly than any other marketing strategy or tactic,” said Derek Rhie, co-founder and director of sales and support for Trumpia. “We're honored to help Jamba Juice of Bakersfield and other small business owners build vibrant, successful businesses in a tenth of the time it would take them to do so with a single channel or more traditional media.”

Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/11/10/p1978020/jamba-juice-of-bakersfield-quickly-boosts-traffic-and-sales-by-ten-perc#ixzz1ajcBUOD8

InfoRelay Expands Data Center Footprint in Dallas

Additional Network Capacity Addresses Recent Growth and Redundancy Needs

InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc., a leading IT solutions and connectivity provider, expanded its Equinix data center footprint in the Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas areas to accommodate a significant increase in demand for colocation and high availability data center solutions in the face of a growing cloud services market.

The Dallas Equinix data center is located within one of the key telecommunications hubs within Dallas: the InfoMart building. This facility serves as a key Internet and peering exchange point for many networks. The 61,573 square foot data center features industry-leading security and interconnection options. InfoMart will continue to play a major role in InfoRelay's portfolio as it continues to adopt to the shifting industry landscape and increasing adoption of cloud technologies.

Besides Dallas, InfoRelay maintains primary network Points of Presence (PoPs) within multiple markets nationwide, including Los Angeles and Southern California, San Jose and the Silicon Valley area, Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, and New York City. Within each market, InfoRelay provides high availability server colocation—the ability for clients to host their servers in secure server cabinets owned by InfoRelay. Each cabinet includes power from redundant UPS and generator-backed power systems, and is cooled by a redundant cooling infrastructure. In addition to highly redundant colocation, InfoRelay also provides bandwidth, disaster recovery, and network security solutions to over 150,000 Internet users through its main product line.

By supporting a growing number of shared hosting providers, cloud providers, and content and dedicated server hosts, InfoRelay has gained insight into providing high availability IP services over a self-healing network architecture.

“Our expanding footprint in Dallas is a direct result of our commitment to having the highest quality service for our customers. With the recent blooming interest in cloud services, geographic diversity as well as scalability are a must for any top-end hosting provider,” commented Mr. Joseph Vajda, Director of Network Operations for InfoRelay.

The expansion will take effect November 1, 2011.

Cadillac CUE: GM's luxury brand ups the infotainment game

from www.autoblog.com:

>>Capacitive Screens Finally Come to Cars

Although resistive touchscreens are the norm for most vehicles, in part to their durability, availability and low cost, Cadillac is finally bringing a fully capacitive touchscreen (think iPhone screen) to market. The engineers we spoke with admitted that the barrier to entry was much higher, requiring more time and expertise to get the screen up to automotive grade, but the results – both graphically and interactively – are a clear indication that what's succeeded in the consumer electronics space is on its way to vehicles.

But where Cadillac has upped the game is with its industry-first, proximity-sensing, haptic feedback and multi-touch interface.

..

The same goes for the haptic feedback setup, which integrates with the capacitive screen to give the user a subtle pulse when selecting a function or what engineers described as a "sandpaper" sensation when scrubbing through a list.

Cadillac’s Connected Car System Arrives in Style

from Wired:

>Cadillac strips down the typical cluttered dashboard electronic interface, reducing radio and entertainment controls to four physical buttons. All of the buttons are haptic-feedback enabled, which means you’ll feel a pulse of vibration to let you know that you’ve activated a button. The idea is that the driver spends less time fumbling with the dashboard controls, and more time paying attention to the road.

“We’ve seen things from competitors that are almost like you’ve got a typewriter in your car,” said executive director of interior design Dave Lyon in an interview. “It’s way too distracting.”

Cadillac CUE Infotainment System Test Drive

from http://blog.laptopmag.com:

>Including haptic feedback with a touchscreen display would seem like a no brainer at this point, but Cadillac is the first to include it as part of an in-dash infotainment system. During our hands on we tried scrolling through a list of XM Radio stations and found that the haptic feedback was quick and responsive without feeling overwhelming. It made scrolling through lists and selecting various settings feel much more natural.

Cadillac unveils CUE infotainment system for connected driving excitement in 2012

from Engadget:

>>Cadillac may be an unlikely exhibitor for a mobile conference, but it is using CTIA as an opportunity to unveil the Cadillac User Experience (CUE). CUE is its new car infotainment system that will debut next year, first in the XTS and later in the ATS, before spreading to the company's entire line. It combines an eight-inch capacitative multitouch LCD and haptic feedback with proximity sensors for a more rewarding user experience.

video - minute 1.40: haptic

SAY HELLO TO SIRIUS XM LYNX

from the IV MB, by jedi767:

>>It looks like the first new SiriusXM 2.0 Radio has been outed by the FCC. According to a test reportand Label information from the FCC website the first new radio from Sirius XM will be the Sirius XM Lynx.
..
Not mentioned in this list and thanks to the Immersion Logo inside the unit, this new radio will most likely feature Haptic Touchscreen Technology by Immersion.

Fire Damages NYSE Data Center In New Jersey

from WSJ:

>>The parent of the New York Stock Exchange reported late Sunday that an electrical fire had damaged its New Jersey data center, though exchange trading systems housed there were unaffected.

The blaze was contained to one room that housed connections linking firms to other New York communications hubs, according to a notice sent Sunday night to clients. There were no injuries as a result of the fire, the notice said.

Merged RTS-Micex Preps Data Integration Strategy

from www.waterstechnology.com:

>>Officials from the integrated exchange—which has yet to be named—are currently reviewing facilities operated by datacenter providers Equinix and Interxion to determine the preferred location