Joe Wilcox

Hells, bells, iPad might be Apple's backdoor to the enterprise, after all -- and, whoa, that can't be good for Windows PCs. Gartner projects that global spending on media tablets will be as much $29.4 billion this year, up from $9.6 billion in 2010. Here's the kicker: IT spending on tablets will be a noticeable chunk of that spending, Gartner predicts.

Today, Gartner reiterated what it forecast in January: IT organizations will spend $3.6 trillion this year. However, the analyst firm notched down growth projections to 5.1 percent from 5.6 percent. Spending would have declined, too, had Gartner not added media tablets like iPad to the mix. The addition boosts hardware spending growth to 9.5 percent from 7.5 percent year over year.

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That didn't take long. On March 24th, Google launched in-app billing in test mode so that developers could test their mobile applications at the Android Market. This evening, Google announced that the service is live.

In-app billing is an important catch-up feature for Android Market. Developers can now collect additional revenue by offering customers option to purchase extras after the initial sale. "Several apps launching today are already using the service, including Tap Tap Revenge by Disney Mobile; Comics by ComiXology; Gun Bros, Deer Hunter Challenge HD, and WSOP3 by Glu Mobile; and Dungeon Defenders: FW Deluxe by Trendy Entertainment," Eric Chu writes at the Android Developers blog.

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Now here's something you don't see everyday, an analyst firm predicting that Microsoft's mobile operating system will trump Apple iOS and Research in Motion's BlackBerry. Don't believe it. I surely don't, and with good reasons.

The skinny: Today IDC predicted that by 2015, Windows Phone 7 and Mobile would reach 20.9 percent global market share, as measured by shipments, on smartphones -- up from 5.5 percent this year. By comparison, iOS share is predicted to be nearly flat over four years, with smartphone OS share of 15.3 percent in 2015. IDC predicts Android will grow to 45.4 percent from 39.5 percent.

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Sign me up, baby. Today, Amazon started offering my music (yours, too) from the cloud -- in a web browser or through an Android app. Sorry iPhone users. There is no app for you. The service chokes in Mobile Safari on iPhone, so that's no option.

The concept is simple: Amazon stores your music on its servers -- and you can listen anytime, anywhere and on anything. There are two conjoined services -- Cloud Drive for storage, which also can be used for documents and other files, and Cloud Player for listening to music. Setup is seamless. Amazon customers click links while signed into their accounts, and that's it (Ease of use stops there; see next couple of paragraphs). Amazon offers 5GB storage for free. Additional storage ranges from 20GB to 1TB and from $20 to $1,000 a year, respectively. However, Amazon is running a promotion through the end of the year. Buy one album and get upgraded to 20GB of storage for free.

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Today, the air is flush with rumors -- now from three credible journalists -- that iPhone 5 won't debut during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2011, in June. Rumors like these are great for generating pageviews and for sending some Wall Street analysts or Apple shareholders into cardiac arrest. But other than a few 911 calls for emergency services, does it really matter?

Technically, there is no iPhone 5 delay, contrary to reports about one. Apple hasn't announced a release date, so there can't be a delay. Now there is, based on four previous releases, reasonable expectation iPhone 5 would debut at WWDC and ship in June or July. That has been Apple's pattern for the four previous models, but it's not beholden. The rumors also put iOS 5's delivery later, too. That certainly makes sense. Why not have one but the other?

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This morning, Apple announced that Worldwide Developer Conference 2011 will be June 6-10 in San Francisco. "Join us for a preview of the future of iOS and Mac OS X" Apple's WWDC 2011 info page proclaims. Which has me scratching my head. What about all those rumors that Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" is near golden master. Isn't the future coming sooner?

Apple is known for being indirect -- and, yes, secretive -- where the subtlest information in an announcement can convey other meaning, or rumormongers make subtleties to mean more than they should. So I'll watch with interest to see how the Mac fan club of bloggers and journalists interprets Apple's press release quoting Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, and not CEO Steve Jobs. Remember, Jobs is on medical leave. Surely someone will ask if this means he won't give the keynore. Relax the interpretations. WWDC 2011 is months way, I say.

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In the early battle for users, Firefox 4 handedly beats Internet Explorer 9, according to NetApplications. As of March 26, IE 9 usage share was 1.78 percent (in 12 days), according to NetApplications. By comparison, Firefox 4 had 3.64 percent usage share (in just 5 days) -- or twice as much in less than half the time.

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 at Midnight ET on March 15, but Net Applications is on Pacific Time, so its measurement of usage share is from the 14th. Mozilla released Firefox on March 22nd. Firefox 4 outpaced Microsoft's browser in first-day downloads. IE9: 2.35 million. Firefox 4: 6 million -- 15.7 million in first 48 hours. Last week, Mozilla also issued the Firefox 4 Mobile Release Candidate for Android and Maemo.

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Ed Bott's March 22nd ZDNET post "Why Internet Explorer will survive and Firefox won't" answers the question yes. "So long, Firefox. It was nice to know you," he writes about the browser's future. Well, I don't agree with that. But Bott makes another prediction that rings right. If so, the new browser wars will make the 1990s skirmish between Microsoft and Netscape look like kids fighting with sticks.

Bott puts Firefox's future in context of a new platform war, as the computing market transitions from the PC era to the cloud connected device era. I riled some Betanews readers regading this transition with February 9th post: "The PC era is over."

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The second really big wireless tradeshow of the year concluded yesterday. Although, for all practical matters it was over a day earlier. My colleague Tim Conneally told me about Day 3: "You should see it down here, it's a ghost town compared to Day 1." Like I said yesterday, there was something missing from this years CTIA Wireless. That's not to say there was no news or no worthy gadgets coming out of the show. I've collected our coverage here into a single post for quick reference.

1. AT&T and T-Mobile USA merger. On March 20, a Sunday and two days before CTIA Wireless, Deutsche Telekom agreed to sell T-Mobile USA to AT&T for a whopping $39 -- $25 million in cash. In an analysis, we looked at how the merger will affect you. In a follow-up post, you expressed your reaction to the proposed merger. Today, we returned back to topic. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission may resist the major merger.

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In case you missed the announcement yesterday, Google has started testing in-app billing, which goes live next week. It's not exactly loads of notice for developers but still opportunity to test apps before Google turns on the feature.

"In preparation for the launch, we are opening up Android Market for upload and end-to-end testing of your apps that use in-app billing," Eric Chu writes at the Android Developers blog. "You can now upload your apps to the Developer Console, create a catalog of in-app products, and set prices for them. You can then set up accounts to test in-app purchases. During these test transactions, the in-app billing service interacts with your app exactly as it will for actual users and live transactions."

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Google's decision to withhold Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" from the open-source community is nothing but shocking. From a business perspective, the company's reasons make sense. But Google has put principles before business before, like its stance with China or H.264 support. There is also the broader question of leadership and what the move means, if anything, about Eric Schmidt soon stepping down as CEO and Google cofounder Larry Page replacing him. There's a new sheriff in town. Will he enforce the law differently?

Google dropped the Honeycomb bomb late yesterday. In a statement the company said that Honeycomb "was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites such as widgets, multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization. While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones."

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A decade ago today, Apple released Mac OS X 10.0. But the real celebration should be for v10.1, which released in September 2001. Apple gave birth to a new operating system that spent six months in an incubator, having been born prematurely. How strange that yesterday, a day before Mac OS X's tenth anniversary, Apple announced the departure of Bertrand Serlet, who is regarded as the father of Mac OS X.

Into the Incubator

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Today, one of the largest wireless tradeshows anywhere comes to a close. Perhaps Consumer Electronics Show in January or Mobile World Congress in February stole some thunder, because CTIA Wireless 2011 doesn't feel as exciting as it should during a year when smartphones and tablets are such hot commodities. Too much of the show is about the future, and that's a problem shared by the other events.

Gartner essentially has declared 2011 the year of the smartphone, while IDC forecasts 50 million tablet shipments, with at least 35 million of them going to Apple. With competition so fierce and demand so hot, shouldn't there be more coming out of CTIA Wireless, particularly as the show takes place when nearly one-quarter of the year is over? Here's some of what I see missing:

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I know this is a frivolous post, but I'm a sucker for good marketing -- and Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play promo videos are among the best seen for a long time. If you haven't tasted the fun, fury and frenzy, now is the time. If these videos can't help sell Xperia Play, Sony Ericsson should pack it up and go away.

Surely the handset manufacturer needs something to liven sales. During 2010, Sony Ericsson fell out of the top-5 cell phone manufacturers, as measured by end-user sales, according to Gartner. Market share fell from 4.5 percent in 2009 to a puny 2.6 percent in 2010. Unit shipments also declined from about 52 million units to nearly 42 million. How the mighty has fallen.

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Suddenly Internet Explorer 9's 2.35 million downloads in 24 hours doesn't look so impressive. Yesterday, Mozilla officially released Firefox 4, which more than doubled IE9's impressive first-day downloads. That's not as many as Firefox 3's debut, but still damn good. Mozilla has long used slogan "Take back the web!" to promote Firefox. FF4 shows that despite Apple Safari and Google Chrome making usage share gains or Microsoft launching IE9, Mozilla's browser has staying power. As I post, Firefox 4 downloads exceed 7.1 million.

"I think Firefox 4 proves once again its popularity," Betanews reader Comet writes in comments about three hours ago. "In less than 24 hours it has already surpassed the 4 million download mark. What surprises me the most is that Firefox doesn't have the support of big companies like Microsoft or Google that literally waste millions of dollars trying to get you to download their browser. As long as a non-profit organization can keep its popularity high perhaps there is still hope for a non-corporate controlled web. Big thumbs up for the browser wars yet again. Overall all browsers are moving forward quite well."

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