Indonesia can be added to the list of countries who are threatening to ban Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry smart-phone. Instead of routing local data transmissions in non-Indonesian facilities, the country wants RIM to install a server in Indonesia to handle its data traffic.
Indonesia is worried about whether or not BlackBerry data can be intercepted and/or read by third parties. Officials representing other countries have also said that, “for security and culture reasons, they want more latitude to look at emails and data transmissions made over BlackBerry’s encrypted and proprietary communications network”.
BlackBerry service will be cut off on Friday in Saudi Arabia according to the country’s telecommunication regulators. The United Arab Emirates wants the phone’s services shut off on October 11th, according to USA Today. Other countries have expressed their interests in blocking the use of RIM smart-phones.
A senior analyst at Forrester Research explained to USA Today how most mobile providers route their data communications through the commercial Internet, but RIM routes the data to mostly servers in Canada. The analyst said that its arrangement was built before the Internet entered maturity, and that it “has been a strength for RIM but now a disadvantage.”
Nokia Corporation, which has been struggling in the smart-phone business, is reportedly looking for a new CEO to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “sources close to the situation” have said that the move is due to Nokia not being able to keep up in the smart-phone race and hold valid competition against Apple and Android-based phones. Even though the company still sells more mobile phones than any other manufacturer, the Finland-based company’s stock has dropped 42% since April.
The WSJ had trouble reaching Nokia spokespeople in Finland, however, a U.S.-based spokeswoman declined to comment on the speculation. One of the New York City-based newspaper’s sources said that Nokia’s board members are set to make a decision at the end of the month.
According to sources, Nokia has flown in, at least, two U.S.-based CEOs of major technology companies for interviews and neither were interested in moving to Espoo, Finland, the company’s international headquarters.
Nokia acquired Kallasvuo in 2006, one year before Apple launched the iPhone and the company has failed to compete ever since. Due to weak earnings in 2010′s first quarter, Nokia replaced several major executives and top management and also created a special division just for designing and producing smart-phones.
Analysts blame the Finnish company’s operating system and its applications to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system, which has recently taken the world by storm in the Motorola Droid X.
After failing to meet expectations, Google is saying goodbye to its flagship phone, the HTC Nexus One. The phone will no longer be available on the search engine’s website reported ComputerWorld.
Customer support will still be available for the Android device in the United States and developers will still have access to it. Google also noted that the phone will still be sold through European and Asian carriers with the likelihood of being sold in other markets if the conditions are right.
Google only attempted to sell the Android smartphone for six months, which is about half of a smartphone’s lifespan. Usually after a year, smartphones end up being replaced by newer models since the technology is always being revamped and out-done by competitors.
