Pascal Cagni, vice president and general manager of Apple Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, has reportedly left the company. Le Figaro reports that Cagni, who joined Apple in 2000, tendered his resignation Wednesday. Sources close to the company confirmed to AllThingsD that this is indeed the case, though they had no explanation for Cagni’s sudden departure. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Continue reading →
Technology licensing company SimpleAir said on Thursday that Apple has licensed the company’s patents, ending a legal dispute between the two companies. SimpleAir said that the agreement was confidential and did not announce terms of the deal. The Marshall, Texas-based company sued Apple back in September 2009. A trial had been set for April, but the two companies reached a tentative deal at the courthouse just before the case began, SimpleAir said. The firm has also sued a number of other companies in the mobile space, including Microsoft, Nokia, Sony Ericsson (now a part of Sony), Samsung, LG, Huawei and HTC. SimpleAir bills itself as “an inventor-owned technology licensing company with interests and intellectual property in the wireless content delivery, mobile application, and push notification ... Continue reading →
Microsoft and Motorola have enough patent disputes going that it is hard to keep track, let alone declare a winner. That said, one thing has clearly shifted. Microsoft is now taking on Google directly, given that the Motorola deal closed on Tuesday. So a German court decision Thursday that certain Motorola Android products infringe on Microsoft patents can officially be chalked up as Microsoft’s first direct hit to Google. The ruling was actually a split one, as the court ruled that Motorola does infringe on a patent related to text messaging but does not infringe on another patent related to localization. “We’re pleased the court agreed today that Motorola has infringed Microsoft’s intellectual property, and we hope Motorola will be willing to join other Android ... Continue reading →
We’ve known Facebook is serious about photos: Heck, it dropped a cool $1 billion on Instagram, the immensely popular mobile photo sharing app. What we didn’t know, however, is that Facebook was essentially building its own version of a stand-alone mobile photo sharing application, ostensibly to compete with Instagram before it took over the mobile photo sharing world completely. How do I know that? Because Facebook will launch the product this afternoon in Apple’s App Store. It’s called Facebook Camera, and it’s essentially Instagram redux. One, it’s a standalone Facebook application, separate from the Facebook app proper, much like the company’s Facebook Messages app. Facebook Photos product manager Dirk Stoop told me in an interview this morning, it’s an instant portal to one of Facebook’s ... Continue reading →
Android app developers now have one more business model to consider. Google said on Thursday it is adding support for in-app subscriptions, allowing apps or services within apps that are paid for on a monthly or annual basis. The subscriptions will be auto-renewing unless a customer chooses to stop them. “Developers just set the price and billing interval and Google Play manages the purchase transactions for them, just as it does for other in-app products and app purchases,” Google Play product manager Ibrahim Elbouchikhi said in a blog post. The move comes roughly a year after Google added in-app payments. Google says that 23 of the top 24 grossing Android apps use in-app payments and that revenue from in-app payments exceeds that generated from paid ... Continue reading →
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which distinguished itself amid great adversity during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, is about to enact large staff cuts and may cut back its print publishing schedule to several days a week, according to two employees with knowledge of the plans.Newhouse Newspapers, which owns the Times-Picayune, will apparently be working off a blueprint the company used in Ann Arbor, Mich., where it reduced the frequency of the Ann Arbor News, emphasized the Web site as a primary distributor of news and in the process instituted wholesale layoffs to cut costs.A request for comment from the newspaper’s editor, Jim Amoss, late Wednesday night was not returned.The plans have been kept under wraps, but the newspaper will likely cease to exist as a ... Continue reading →
Longtime Research In Motion executive Patrick Spence is leaving the company, the BlackBerry maker confirmed on Wednesday. Spence, RIM’s head of global sales and a 14-year company veteran, “will be taking on a leadership position in a different industry,” RIM said in an e-mail to AllThingsD. His last day will be June 15. “The sales function will report directly into Kristian Tear, our newly appointed COO, when he starts this summer,” RIM said in a statement. “In the interim, the sales function will report to Thorsten Heins.” Spence is the latest RIM executive to depart the company in recent months, following January’s appointment of Heins as CEO. In March the company announced the departures of software CTO David Yach and Chief Operating Officer Jim Rowan. ... Continue reading →
