Motorola said that its newly re-envisioned Razr led its increases in total phone shipments and revenue in the fourth quarter. But considering Moto’s vastly reduced market share, those increases didn’t lead to much.

Motorola shipped only 5.3 million smartphones and 200,000 tablets in the fourth quarter. In comparison, Apple shipped 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads in the same period.

Total device shipments were 10.5 million for the quarter, while for the year, the total was 42.5 million, including 18.7 million smartphones and 1 million tablets. Like other Android smartphone makers not named Samsung, Motorola continues to feel the pressure of a very crowded and competitive market.

As Om wrote earlier this month, the market is fracturing between two smartphone giants – Apple and Samsung — making it harder for any vendor without a distinguishing operating system to catch up. Nokia is hoping it can become just that challenger by embracing the upstart Windows Phone OS. Its Lumina Lumia Windows device sales were about 1 million for the fourth quarter, but the company has only begun to ramp its new smartphone line.

Despite a five-percent boost in device revenues, Motorola posted a loss of million, which the vendor attributed to reorganization and write-off costs in advance of its acquisition by Google. Whether Google plans to use its considerably resources to revive the ailing vendor or plans to simply reap its patent portfolio is still an open question. Regardless, Motorola said it expects the .5 billion deal to close early this year.

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As one thin-film solar company falls (Solyndra), another one is scaling up. Silicon Valley startup, Stion, on Friday officially opened the doors of its factory in Mississippi, marking a milestone for the company as it seeks to expand production quickly in an increasingly competitive market.

San Jose-based Stion makes solar panels that use copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS) instead of conventional silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. In January this year, the company announced the plan to build the Mississippi factory, which the company expects to eventually reach 500 MW of production capacity and require 0 million in investment. Stion completed a 10 MW pilot line at its headquarters last year.

The factory represents a nice coup for Mississippi lawmakers, who offered Stion a million loan plus tax and job training incentives to build and run the factory. Legislator and Gov. Haley Barbour recently lured another Silicon Valley startup, Calisolar, by offering the solar silicon producer a .25 million package to build a factory there.

Stion plans to expand its production in Mississippi in phases. The first phase is supposed to reach 100 MW of production capacity. The company held a grand opening ceremony for the factory on Friday, but it won’t start producing solar panels until later this year, Stion said. Manufacturers need time to test-run equipment and train employees before rolling out products.

Stion hopes to mass-produce solar panels at much lower costs than its rivals, a goal that is shared by many startups and is increasingly difficult to accomplish. Wholesale prices of solar panels have plummeted in the past three years as manufacturers in the U.S., Asia and Europe built many factories.

Chinese manufacturers, in particular, have expanded production rapidly thanks in part to the huge loans they received from government-run banks. The stiffened competition already has forced three American companies, including CIGS solar panel maker Solyndra, to file for bankruptcy in the last two months.

Stion raised a Series D round of million as of June 2010, including million from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer. Before that, it had raised .6 million in equity from investors including Khosla Ventures, VentureTech Alliance and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

To expand the Mississippi factory to 500 MW, Stion plans to raise at least another round of funding and will consider an initial public offering, the company’s CEO, Chet Farris, told us earlier this year.

Image courtesy of Stion

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With the explosion of apps, the app discovery game has also turned into a competitive market, with a number of services looking to be the place where users find quality apps. And these start-ups are pulling in big funding to make sure they’re the go-to resource in this expanding market.

Quixey, an app search engine with 0,000 in initial seed funding from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, has just announced .8 million in new funding. The Series A funding comes from US Venture Partners, WI Harper Group, Web Investment Network along with additional funding from Innovation Endeavors.

The money will go toward the expansion of Quixey, which tries to partner with websites, app stores, search engines and carriers to offer its services. Quixey is trying to stand out by offering what it calls a functional search engine, which takes in more than just a title and description of an app but pulls in information from blogs, forums, review sites and social networks to better understand what an app actually does. Then it allows users to enter queries on what they want to do with an app, without having to know the name of a particular app. It pulls up results for apps on various platforms including Android, iPad and iPhone as well as recommendations for Windows, Mac, Explorer, Firefox and the web.

Competitor Appsfire pulled in .6 million in May while Chomp, an app recommendation service also raised million in March. This is just another sign that apps are booming, (mobile apps alone are expected to bring in billion by 2015), and it’s creating a lot of opportunities, not just for developers but for services that play on this explosion of apps.

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You’re certain now that broadband is for you but not on what term or basis you want to have it. Much better understanding with the packages and their norms offered by the providers and by calculating them along with your needs and other aspects, you are able to find out a much better option.

Are you currently flexible with your broadband deal?

In the competitive market, you will be hearing of new services launched each and every month, in which you may find 1 to be a much better deal for yourself. So switching to that provider might sure save your cash and for it, your existing broadband connection should permit it with out charging in volume for disconnecting the service.

Who should not possess a broadband contract?

If you want a broadband for your short-term requirement or if you are preparing to move your house quickly then you are able to just ignore the contract broadband option at the very first.

Furthermore, there’s lot to benefit from a package having no contract because you are able to cancel your broadband connection whenever you would like and most providers charge only up to the final month of utilizing the service.

Suppose you sign for a long-term contract package and in mid of the contract time, you’re forced to leave the service because of any of your reason then you might need to pay the monthly charges for the entire contract time. For example if the service is of 12 months contract then you must pay charges for 12 months even if you do not make use it.

Broadband on monthly contract

In the UK, the majority of the ISPs ask to sign for a 12 months contract and demand to pay extra charges in case of discontinuing in between. So if you truly want ease in getting the service then you must look for other available packages and recognize them before.

Broadband on monthly contract is 1 which you can sign up. This gives you the flexibility of canceling your service any time with prior one-month notice to the provider. Many ISPs within the UK provide this type of broadband.

Still you should be well clear with the charges like monthly subscription charges in which providers charge more when you have not signed it for long term. This really is mainly done to cover their overall expenses. A low priced 12 months contract and ten months contract under monthly contract basis may cost exact same. So if you are in need to have a broadband connection for 11 months only, you can sign up for a year time contract instead.

Pay as you go broadband

For home users, pay-as-you-go broadband option should be the preferable choice. As home users does not use a lot for downloads and uploads, the option serves their exact needs because the users pay only for the actual usage that is computed in terms of uploads and downloads.

Therefore, users who are extremely a lot cautious about their investing can have the pay-as-you-go broadband. Some providers even make available the cost capping facility towards the users that the users can possess a control on their monthly charges.

How well you require being clear with yourself, to possess a broadband or not, to that extend you should be well clear on what fee basis your broadband should be. For the most part, it depends upon the circumstance you’re going to be with and preparing accordingly will help you in choosing the broadband package for you.

If you want more information on ADSL, don’t read just rehashed articles online to avoid getting ripped off. 

Go here: Internet Services Provider

With hundreds of different bingo sites out there competing for business, there are lots of options available to players. Some operators offer bonuses in order to compete for business. It’s fairly standard in the industry to get a sign up bonus but if you shop around you can get much more than that.

I am going to be speaking about two of the bonus offers that are the most interesting that I have recently come across. The first one is an offer what was in February 2011, a holiday giveaway from Foxy Bingo.

Every day for a total of two weeks, they offered a game with free entry, and whoever won got a holiday. The holidays that you got were not to Blackpool for the weekend either, they were to glamorous destinations like Florida and Monte Carlo. Entering in to these games obviously made sense because they were free.

Also an interesting promotion is one from Jackpot Joy, this is going to run throughout all of 2011. It is called Ad Break Bingo, this forms part of the Channel 4 sponsorship deal that they have for deal or no deal, a popular daytime program. You simply need to have a Jackpot Joy account for this promotion, and each day you have to log in to see what your Ad Break numbers are.

Next, you simply need to watch the program Deal or No Deal, and pay attention to the ad breaks to see if your numbers come up, if not you can always log back in to Jackpot Joy later to check. You will get a huge prize of £250k if your numbers do come up, and to enter it is completely free of charge.

For an online bingo site to have promotions like this, it is really good for them, as the attention will be drawn to them and they will get lots of custom. Sure they’re basically giving prizes away, but when you look at the bigger picture, they’re acquiring more players due to these incentives. An edge like this is just what operators need in this competitive market that has a lot of companies wanting to be the best.

Blackberry’s innovative smartphones have long been the preserve of the power dressing professional types, who saw them as the ultimate corporate fashion accessory as much as an essential business tool. The Curve is one of a new breed of phones from Blackberry that is designed to take advantage of the everyday consumer’s demand for smartphone functionality and interesting looks. But can the Blackberry Curve make the jump from business to pleasure, in an already crowded and competitive market?

The Curve looks unmistakably Blackberry, with its wide body and the trademark full QWERTY keyboard laid out over dozens of keys. While this may be an acquired taste, it does mean that the Curve has a decent sized screen, and unusually for the majority of phones on the market, it’s landscape layout gives it quite a nice widescreen appearance. To help convince consumers that the Curve doesn’t take itself too seriously, it comes in a variety of different colors, although most will probably want to stick to the basic black.

The Curve has had a few cost-saving changes made to it, which also help to make it more appealing to the everyday user. Gone is the chrome trim in favor of a rubber one, and a trackpad has replaced the trackball seen on the business versions, but these changes don’t do anything to reduce the appeal of the look and feel of the Curve.

What the Curve lacks in connectivity features, it makes up for in usability. It has WiFi but no 3G or GPS, however this is Blackberry’s entry level smartphone, so it would almost be unfair to expect everything you’d find in the top mobiles. What the Curve does do well, is provide features that make the most of that QWERTY keyboard. Setting up one or more email accounts is simple, and using the Curve’s applications to keep in touch with your social networks couldn’t be easier.

Navigating around the Curve is nice and simple, thanks to Blackberry’s operating system and the user-friendly interface. You can add to the pre-installed apps thanks to the App World, and the music player is better than many would expect – the Curve even includes dedicated music control keys, to make it more appealing to consumers.

With the smartphone market dominated by the three or four big names, it looks like Blackberry is going to make the most of its business experience and provide a cheaper alternative that gives users what they want, in a way that lets them be a little different to the rest of the Apple, Google and HTC crowd.

Next : Blackberry Curve Deals