Gears, BIS-B Push and SQlite coming to BlackBerry

Article here.

Blackberry to open App Store

Announcement here.

iPhone to start selling at Walmart for $197, not $99 as hoped

Details of the deal were leaked here. This goes online December 28th.

Orange loses iPhone exclucisivity in France

As a result of complaint by competitor that Orange claims is “most behind in terms of rolling out its 3G network”. Orange has sold 600,000 iPhones in total. Article here.

Consumer reports says Blackjack II and T-Mobile Wing are “best smartphones”

The wired article quotes Rob Beschizza of BoingBoing as saying

Its (Consumer Reports) gadget reviews are often ambivalent and unsatisfying, like an elderly grandmother trying to explain why she prefers sherry to port. To me, a religious devotee of its general coverage, this presents something of a mystery

TapTapTap’s “Where To” sells for $70,000

The group made $50,000 in their first month on the app store, and $200,000 total in the three months they were online. After a split between the founding members / developers they decided to sell it off and go in different directions.. wapo story here.

Palm to unveil new OS at CES 2009 (early Jan)

Off hand, I’m skeptical. Is this really supposed to beat BSD and Linux? Or maybe it’s another derivative, and they have decided not to merge to Windows Mobile as their offerings might suggest. Article here.

iPhone and Blackberry to debut in Korea

Starting in late December or early January. Business Week coverage here.

Mobile phone market to shrink by 6.6%, Reuters poll shows.

Data is from a sampling of industry analysts. Their predictions varied from 13% contraction to 3% growth. Similar poll last year predicted 2.7% growth. Original article here. 

The article doesn’t differentiate between smartphones and non-smartphones.

Major Nokia supplier to let 5,000 workers go, Sony to shed 16,000 workers

Laird PLC, a major supplier for Nokia, is planning to layoff 5,000 jobs in US and Europe, and plans to transfer production to China and Mexico. From layoff blog. Laird press release here.

Business week reports that Sony (owner of Ericsson) will lose 8,000 of its workers (about 4% of its workforce) in an effort to reduce operating costs, and not renew contracts of another 8,000 employees. Original article here.