Latest Mobile Phones & Gadgets

Google’s new presentation application - blogged by Jack earlier - isn’t the only piece of free office software announced today: IBM has also decided to join the fray, with a suite of software it is calling Lotus Symphony.

Symphony (which re-uses the name of an earlier Lotus product) is a desktop product based on the OpenOffice code, and offers free documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Sounds familiar, eh?

IBM blogger Ed Brill says we should be able to predict where we’re headed: “Tie this in with last week’s announcement of IBM joining the OpenOffice.org community, and you can logically see where this is going”.

Dell Inc introduced new notebook computers on Tuesday available in eight different colors with advanced features as it tries to grab a bigger slice of the consumer PC market.

The world’s second-largest personal computer maker also launched its first consumer PC to use flash memory instead of a traditional hard-disk drive to store data. The lightweight laptop comes with a modest 32 gigabytes of data storage space.

Dell’s new notebooks, to be unveiled at an event at Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square in New York, come in colors with names such as flamingo pink, sunshine yellow, alpine white, ruby red, jet black, midnight blue and espresso.

An entry-level version of the notebook PC costs $ 749 and is available from Tuesday.

Dell also said it would phase out its Dimension brand, used for its desktop computers for more than a decade, and switch to the Inspiron name previously used only for its notebooks. The company will continue to sell Inspiron notebooks.

The new products are among steps the Round Rock, Texas-based company is taking to boost sales of notebook computers to consumers, the fastest-growing PC segment, as it tries to catch up with Hewlett Packard Co, which last year displaced Dell as the largest PC maker by unit sales.

Dell this month started selling PCs in Wal-Mart Stores Inc, breaking from a 23-year practice of selling directly via Internet or phone, under a strategy by founder Michael Dell to stoke growth.

The company said that it plans to announce more retail partnerships in the coming months.

Good news for the users of flash memory cards, USB drives and memory sticks since the government has cut the duty on memory cards from 21% to 4%.

And memory card makers like Kingston, Transcend and San disk are set to reduce prices by 15% from next month, thereby eliminating a thriving grey market (which had 95% share) for such products.

These cards are used for an array of applications like storing data, recording videos, music and even capturing pictures on digital cameras or mobile phones. Flash memory cards are used in mobile phones to add memory, which can range from 512 MB to 8 GB. USB drives/memory sticks can be attached in laptops and desktop computers.

The flash memory card market is estimated to be over 25 million units per year. With an average price of Rs 700 per card, the Indian market for such products is estimated to be over Rs 1,750 crore. Currently, about 95% of the memory cards and drives in India are sold through the grey market.

Palika Bazaar and Nehru Place in Delhi and Heera Panna market in Mumbai are the hubs for illegal importers who smuggle the products. Players selling products legally were taking a direct hit of 30% in terms of duties and taxes whereas the grey market players used to evade all levies.

The legal importers used to pay about 16% CVD (with a one per cent higher education cess over it), which has been waived off. With an additional 2% education cess and a 4% special additional duty, legal importers used to pay about 21.1%. Add to it a 4% VAT and a 5.5% Octroi (in some cities like Mumbai), the price of a legal product would go up to 30% higher.

With the mobile phones getting cheaper day by day,now it is the time for the memory card will cut down its rate.