iPad 3 due in 2012, analyst says

The Apple iPad 3 isn’t coming out until next year.

That’s according to J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, who wrote in a research note, “there is no such device slated for production this year.” Some observers and fans had hoped the iPad 3 would be out by this Christmas, but as John Paczkowski points out on AllThingsD, the iPad 2 only came out in March and is still selling very well.

Despite this iPad3 delay (if you even want to call it that), there’s still plenty of Apple news on the way. The iPhone 5 launch is expected in a matter of weeks, and Apple’s stock price hit its all-time high yesterday.

Photo (cc) by inUse Consulting on Flickr and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

RIM profits take a plunge

Research in Motion reported dismal financial results (PDF) yesterday, with profits down 59% and sales down 10% from the same quarter last year.

The company said customer demand for its older-model smartphones was lower than expected, but shipments are expected to increase by 27% to 37% this quarter, thanks to the new BlackBerry 7 line.

Presumably, the reason a lot of customers didn’t buy older-model devices was because they knew the BlackBerry 7 was coming out. This same phenomenon might bite the BlackBerry 7 in the butt, too. RIM is planning a new line of devices with a QNX-based operating system for 2012, and customers might not want to buy the BlackBerry 7 if they think it’ll be obsolete in a year.

Plus, as critics of Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch pointed out this week, by the time these new OSes come out, who knows what kind of improvements Apple, Google and other innovative, agile companies will have made?

“Yeah, well, Apple and Google don’t matter in terms of enterprise adoption,” BlackBerry loyalists say.

That’s a fair point. But Microsoft does matter, and it’s blurring the line between PCs and mobile devices with Windows 8 — to the point that, theoretically, you could manage Windows 8 mobile devices just as you’d manage PCs. That’s a direct threat to RIM, whose major selling point is the BlackBerry’s enterprise support and management.

With the rapid innovations of Apple and Google, and Microsoft’s focus on enterprise integration and management, RIM is at risk of getting crowded out of the market.

Photo (cc) by Digitpedia.com and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

VARs see ‘massive’ BYOD opportunities

In response to the bring-your-own-device phenomenon, more and more IT solutions providers are building device management practices.

These new practices work with businesses to develop user policies, tighten security and deploy desktop virtualization, so users can access corporate apps and documents on their personal devices.

“The opportunity is massive,” Entisys Solutions CEO Michael Strohl tells SearchITChannel.com. And Mauro Lollo, CTO of Unis Lumin, adds, “It is happening to these companies whether they like it or not. The concept of bring-your-own-device is here, and it is not going away.”

Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC specs

The Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC, the first Windows 8 computer, went home with attendees of this week’s Microsoft BUILD conference in Anaheim.

Note that Microsoft calls it a PC, even though it’s really a tablet. That’s an intentional move, because Microsoft’s approach with Windows 8 is that tablets and PCs are one and the same: same interface, same apps, same touch-screen capabilities. With Windows 8, the thinking goes, the only difference between a PC and a tablet is that one’s hooked up to a keyboard and mouse.

If you’re an IT admin who’s weary about having to manage and secure tablets separately from your  Windows desktops, this is the kind of strategy you just might like.

Of course, this is Microsoft we’re talking about, so we’ll have to wait and see if everything is as seamless as they say it is. And we’ll probably have to wait a very long time; the Windows 8 build on the Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC is a pre-beta version, and Microsoft hasn’t even set a timetable for general availability yet.

While you wait, check out the hardware specs for the Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC:

• Second-generation Intel Core i5 processor
• Samsung Super PLS display (1366 by 768 resolution)
• 11.6″ diagonal touch screen
• UEFI BIOS
• Memory: 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Storage: 64 GB SSD
• USB, Micro SD and HDMI ports
• Dock with USB, HDMI and Ethernet ports