Sprint’s public sector marketing director, Gerald Evans, recently posted a message on his personal blog noting that Sprint planned to launch the Wi-Fi version of the BlackBerry PlayBook on June 5th for $499.
The post has since been pulled, so it’s unclear if the tablet will make its debut on Sunday, but we suspect it was a slip on Evans’ part and that the launch is likely to take place on that date. Sprint has also announced that it will offer a 4G WiMAX version of the tablet sometime this summer; there’s still no official word on a launch date or price for that model, however.
An International Trade Commission (ITC) judge has ruled that Kodak did not infringe upon camera patents held by Apple. Reuters is reporting that an administrative law judge rejected the Cupertino-company’s claims, with a final decision by the ITC due on September 19th. Kodak, although not as prominent as it once was when film reigned supreme, still holds a treasure-trove of patents.
“Many investors see Kodak’s value in its lucrative portfolio of intellectual property,” reads the report. “It has more than 1,000 patents and it made an estimated $630 million in 2010 from its licenses. But analysts have said this revenue from licenses is unpredictable and the portfolio might eventually dwindle.” Kodak has a pending suit filed against both Apple and Research In Motion, again surrounding smartphone camera technology, that is set to be decided upon on May 23rd.
During its regular conference Apple announced that 10 million iPhone were sold in 2008 calendar year, since last month has been sold more than 6.8 million iPhone 3G. Executive Director of Apple, Steve Jobs said: “Apple has surpassed RIM! And RIM – a quality company selling quality products. Apple became the third largest global supplier of mobile phones.
iPhone 3G together with Apple TV brought $11.7 billion revenue and $2.4 billion profit. But given the status of the Apple TV, this profit is largely a credit to iPhone.
Nokia and Samsung are the first and second handset manufacturers respectively, and RIM sold 6.1 million BlackBerry smartphones at the moment.
