AT&T is taking the “there’s a map for that ads” to heart, I suppose. Just a few weeks after the ads started showing up all over the television, AT&T has sued Verizon Wireless for the ads.

The suit says that the ads are misleading and can lead a customer to believe that AT&T has large coverage gaps. The truth is, the ads show the 3G coverage gaps and Verizon puts that in large letters at the bottom of the map when AT&T’s map and Verizon’s map are put side by side in the ad.

AT&T is also looking into getting a temporary restraining order against Verizon for the ads. It is claiming that the ads has caused the company to lose market share.

I would say that AT&T needs to shut up and instead of fighting the claims, do something that actually fixes their network. Every time I read about AT&T, it is bad. Usually, no one has anything good to say about AT&T’s network and the only reason that the company is number 2 in the United States is because it was able to get iPhone exclusivity.

The map of AT&T’s 3G coverage is accurate. There isn’t a lot of 3G coverage across the country and a lot of times, it is slow. It really hasn’t done a lot in the past few years to increase the amount of coverage or speed either. While you can get AT&T coverage in areas that aren’t on the map, the 3G coverage isn’t great…or even good in my opinion. Sprint has more 3G coverage. I think the only company that has as little coverage as AT&T is T-Mobile.

While HP has stayed on the top of computer sales once again, Acer is moving up the ladder. The company has become the second place PC seller in the world in the third quarter; beating out Dell.

Acer now has 12.4% market share according to the research firm Gartner. Sales have increased 23.6% when compared to the same time last year; it shipped 12.4 million computers in the third quarter 2009. Dell only managed to shop 10.3 million in the third quarter. Dell actually showed a 6.7% decrease when compared to the same time last year.

Selling 16.1 million PCs, HP has remained on top and has increased 9% over the last year and still has a 18.4% market share.

Lenovo came in fourth with a 7.4% market share and sold 6.8 million computers.

Overall, I am actually impressed with computer sales over the past year. One would think that computer sales would have fallen flat in the recession as people would have just stuck with what they had versus upgrading to something else. Perhaps Acer has been helped by their line of netbooks. The AspireOne is one of the most popular netbooks out there right now. I personally liked everything about the Aspire One except for the fact that the touchpad mouse buttons were on either side of the mouse versus directly under the touchpad like my full sized Dell notebook.

Netbooks really have started a craze. I see more and more of them everyday it seems. I actually don’t travel with my big laptop anymore. This probably has something to do with the computer’s inability to function without a power cord. For some reason my computer starts to go crazy or just turns off whenever it feels like it. This is the second power issue that I’ve had with a Dell computer. The first one I had wouldn’t even charge the battery after the computer was about 2 years old. My most recent laptop is actually 3 years old now and works pretty good except for the power issue.

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Microsoft is having a hard time in 2009. This year has so far been the worst for the company in years. For the first six months of the year the company saw weak computer sales as well as frozen corporate tech budgets which led to profits declining by 29 percent.

However, things may be looking up for the second half of the year according to CFO Chris Liddell. He wanted to keep everyone’s hopes up after Microsoft missed expectations by $1 billion and the earnings slipped by a steep 29%.

The earnings topped off a fiscal year in which revenues for the company fell for the first time since 1986, when Microsoft first went public. For the entire year, it said that profits went down 17% or $1.62 a share.

Of course investors weren’t happy to hear the news, sending Microsoft’s stock price down $2, which is 7.8%, to $23.56 a share. In April, Intel’s CEO said that it had seen the worst PC sales and that they had “bottomed out” after the holiday season. Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said, “we couldn’t necessarily see the bottom. I think that at least we are seeing signs now of the bottom,” in a response to Intel’s statement.

Liddell also made the statement that the remainder of the calendar year will be difficult for PC makers and the software giant because Microsoft’s success is directly linked to the PC industry which is expected to sell fewer computers this year than last. Right now, netbooks are still all the rage and if they are running Windows, they are running XP which means less profits for Microsoft. If Windows 7 comes out and is good enough, then they will begin making more money off the sales of the netbooks due to a higher royalty.

In hopes of stirring up a little demand for the products, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 on October 22 as well as a new Office suite in the first half of next year, but these alone will not help the company.

Once upon a time Microsoft was the company everyone wanted to own stock in because it seemed like a pretty safe bet. There was no other competition for them as far as operating systems. If there were other operating systems out there no one really ever paid much attention to them. Now, Microsoft is trying to stop Apple from taking more of the market share than it already has and is fighting with a pretty bad recession.

Starbucks had a “sneak peek” of a new marketing campaign on YouTube recently.

The youtube “sneak peek” shows the upcoming full page ads that Starbucks will take out to compare it to competitors.

The high def episodes of tv shows will be available for $2.99 and movies in HD will be available to rent from $3.99 to $4.99.

Search results will be optimized for high def tv’s and will include HD results from Amaon and cable programs.

This is a feature that is long over-due for the TiVo box. Over the past few years, market share has been stolen away from TiVo and given to companies that not only offer a DVR service but also full cable, like Comcast.

TiVo, at this point at least, needs to be able to offer something different.

Blockbuster has a revolving loan refinancing that matures on 9-30-2010 worth $250 million. Blockbuster said today that it may be unable to pay back the loans and will have to liquidate.

I think that Blockbuster should go to an entirely online business. It could minimize its operating costs and be able to compete directly with Netflix. It does have some kind of deal when it comes to certain DVD releases to be only rented through Blockbuster. This could be a selling point for it to directly compete with Netflix.

Analysts have crowned Amazon the online winner of the holiday spending season, at a time when consumers dramatically cut back purchases. Executives cited its lowered prices and discount shipping program, Amazon Prime, that helped boost sales and encourage repeat purchases.

“It looks like they took a lot of market share and made substantial gains,” said Jeffrey Lindsay of Sanford C. Bernstein. “The good thing is that Amazon hasn’t had to discount to the extent that people feared to achieve this.”

Amazon is killing the competition at this point. While Circuit City is liquidating, Best Buy is cutting jobs and countless other retailers are scaling back, Amazon is flourishing? I think it may have something to do with more price conscious shoppers. When you can buy something on Amazon and pay a percentage of the price you can find the item for in an brick and mortar, chances are you’ll shop at Amazon…
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The first-ever touchscreen BlackBerry has a new feature to touchscreen smart phones; when you touch the on screen keypad, it “clicks” because of a spring supported screen.

The Storm is currently only available on the Verizon network in the U.S.

You can watch more about the phone and its release:

Let’s take a moment to look at my reasons for “No” for right now. The domestic car companies, aka “The Big Three”, have been in trouble for several years, this economic slowdown has only been happening for less than a year. They have been losing key market share to better and cheaper built foreign cars. All have been plagued with commodity price increases, which puts a a squeeze on their profit margins. Unions which are constantly demanding better pay and more costly working conditions without helping to increase production in many ways. Most have refused in many ways to make a better fuel efficient vehicle, believing that even as oil went up, consumer’s would still pay $4 a gallon to fuel their Suv.

Their competitors have moved some of their US based factories into the lower southern states, where unions are not a problem, and they can produce a car for cheaper wage as well as save on import costs. These problems have hurt “The Big Three”, but not so much as the damage to their reputations, most people do not see value in the domestic vehicle made in the US, simply as a cheaper alternative to a well built foreign car. True “The Big Three” do sell a lot of cars to the lower working class in the US, but as many people know, foreign cars are now starting to work their way into these markets as well. It is not a hard question for many people to answer if they want a Honda Civic, over a Chevy Cavalier for about the same price.

For a time domestic trucks where the only safe haven for domestic companies, but Honda and Toyota have driven hard into these markets and are beginning to grab market share in these areas as well. The US car company needs a “Major” overhaul in not only how they make cars/trucks, and fuel efficiency, but where they make there cars as well. Again all these problems where happening before the current economic crisis occurred. The economic crisis has only hasten these companies demise, and now they want the taxpayer to foot the bill for them to come to there senses.

Yes if these companies fail, tens of thousands of people will lose there jobs, and this alone is a worthy cause in itself to try to bail out these companies. However, we can not just throw money at this problem. These companies must show a clear and sustainable business plan, one that actually “works”. They must show government and us, that they will not only change their ways if they receive the money, but they will use it in a way to change their businesses to create more jobs and expand to reclaim their market share not continue to lose it. Better made cars, greater fuel efficiency, lower cost are the key places to improve in, but also the hardest places for these companies to make major gains in without drastically changing their game plan. Only then should the American people’s money be “invested” in these companies, and hopefully not only there current employees but future employees will benefit from it.

What would they do with the money? I sure hope it would go into something like R&D to find some new ways to improve fuel efficiency and lower emissions.  I still wouldn’t buy a GM.

So what’s wrong with Sprint?

As a Sprint subscriber (yes, I know. I should probably go into hiding for admitting that now), I am disappointed with the marketing tactics used. Sure, maybe in political advertising attacking your opponent doesn’t work, but when you’re trying to gain some market share in the cellular industry, sometimes you have to point out every weakness of your competitor. Look at Verizon…they are one of the top 2 cellular companies in the US, and their ads are specifically targeting Sprint. Poor little Sprint Why wouldn’t Verizon pick on At&t? Well, I believe that Verizon is trying to move as many CDMA (At&t is GSM) customers to its side as possible…

If Verizon Wireless can put Sprint out of business, that is one less carrier it will have to compete with.

I think Sprint can make a comeback. Hopefully.

Their new phone is an attempt to regain some of that market share they lost in America. Currently, they are still the largest cell phone company in the world. That fact can be attributed to Nokia distribution in foreign markets.

In my opinion the Finnish company should focus more on innovative technology, or even give the American markets something that Asian markets have that we don’t. I would like to see more than 2 megapixels in a phone or a touch screen phone with a full keyboard that is less than 2 inches thick (or a Treo). Nokia has so much room to grow and become so innovative but they are missing the boat.

So, if I could make the terms of the bailout, I would make sure that NO executive of any of the bailed out companies would receive any sort of super bonus for leaving the company.

Also, i would like to see legislation passed in the bailout that would prevent any of the banks from holding enough of the market share to collapse the entire financial system.

Another plus is for everyone who willingly and knowingly issued a sub prime mortgage be convicted of some kind of crime. If nothing else, some should be charged with falsifying documents.

If the bailout is passed, hopefully the money will be given to a bipartisan group to decide where the money goes rather than just Paulson.