Also: How Samsung took the world by storm; inside HP’s disastrous deal.
Hands-on with Microsoft’s Surface Pro [ANANDTECH]
As I mentioned in the first Surface Pro announcement piece, the tablet uses a 17W Core i5 (Ivy Bridge) SKU. I’m not sure how much we should read into Surface Pro not being a 7W SDP Ivy Bridge launch vehicle. The performance per volume is obviously going to be very good as a result. Microsoft demonstrated content creation and even gaming workloads on the tablet, both of which were very responsive. This is really where I feel Microsoft dropped the ball on not including Thunderbolt, although if all you need is miniDP out then Surface Pro has you covered. If you’re fine with an Ultrabook/MacBook Air-class system as your main machine, Surface Pro could really be everything from your tablet to your desktop.
Samsung’s road to global domination [FORTUNE]
No doubt about it, Samsung is having a moment. In recent years the South Korean company has taken the mobile world — the U.S. included — by storm. Last year it overtook longtime leader Nokia to become the No. 1 player in cellphones, with 29% market share worldwide. In smartphones, those high-end devices with advanced computing power, Samsung is also No. 1 globally and in a dead heat with Apple in the U.S.: Most analysts show Apple with a slight edge in smartphone sales, while one outfit, ABI Research, says Samsung’s share of smartphone shipments topped 33%, compared with Apple’s 30%. (To be sure, Apple sells one device, the iPhone, while Samsung offers 25 unique smartphones in the U.S.) “Samsung is on fire,” says John Legere, CEO of mobile operator T-Mobile USA.
Inside HP’s missed chance to avoid a disastrous deal [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
While weighing the software acquisition, directors also faced a wrenching hardware decision: whether to jettison H-P’s $40 billion-a-year personal-computer manufacturing business. To juggle two transformative initiatives at once, the board divided itself into two separate teams and skirted some standard company procedure. Meanwhile, eight of the board’s 13 members had served for less than a year and had little experience overseeing the huge company and collaborating with one another.
AT&T acquires Alltel’s US retails wireless business for $780 million [THE NEXT WEB]
AT&T has apparently struck the deal to try and boost its own network coverage in these rural areas, given that it has also acquired sections of the spectrum in the 700 MHz, 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands as part of today’s deal with Atlantic Tele-Network. These bands, according to a press release issued today, are also “largely complementary” to AT&T’s existing network, which should make the switchover relatively painless.
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