Also: Samsung unveils new Galaxy S IV; inside Microsoft’s poor Surface tablet sales.
Dropbox buys Mailbox, an app with some buzz [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
“We felt we could help Mailbox reach a much different audience much faster,” said Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, who said both companies shared the goal of making people’s lives easier.
He said Dropbox will keep the Mailbox service running as a stand-alone app, and over time Dropbox will also use Mailbox’s technology to enhance Dropbox features, like email attachments. The deal came together, he said, after the companies started talking about email attachments a few months ago.
Samsung unveils the Galaxy S IV [CNNMONEY]
The Guts: The Galaxy S IV sports a five-inch screen with incredibly high resolution. The 1920×1080 pixel display is as good as you’re going to find on any smartphone right now (HTC, LG, and Sony all have similar displays as well).
But it doesn’t feel overly big. The Galaxy S IV’s bezel occupies so little space, the smartphone isn’t much bigger than its predecessor, the 4.8-inch Galaxy S III.
Q&A with Samsung’s mobile chief [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
WSJ: What about your relationship with Microsoft? Has it changed after Nokia began to work more closely with Microsoft on Windows devices?
Mr. Shin: Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft’s Windows operating system aren’t selling very well. There is a preference in the market for Android. In Europe, we’re also seeing lackluster demand for Windows-based products.
Larry Page shuffles management, product groups at Google [FORTUNE]
On Wednesday, Page announced that Sundar Pichai, the senior vice president in charge of Chrome and apps, was also taking over Android, as the founder and leader of that unit, Andy Rubin, would be stepping aside. On Thursday, Google confirmed a report in the Wall Street Journal that Jeff Huber, who headed maps, commerce, and payments, would be moving to the company’s skunk works unit, Google X. As a result, the mapping efforts are being merged with the search group, under the leadership of Alan Eustace, and the commerce and payments initiatives are folded into the advertising products unit, headed by Susan Wojcicki. (The other two product area leaders of the L-team are Vic Gundotra, who oversees Google+, and Salar Kamangar, who is in charge of YouTube.)
Microsoft’s Surface tablet is said to fall short of predictions [BLOOMBERG]
The poor reception for Surface, unveiled last year, adds to challenges facing Microsoft’s Windows unit, which brings in a quarter of the company’s revenue. The devices are Microsoft’s first direct attempt to grab a slice of the surging market for tablets, seeking to take on Google Inc. and Apple Inc. and prove that Windows has a place in a world of touch screens and smartphone applications. That hasn’t happened so far, said Alex Gauna, an analyst at JMP Securities LLC in San Francisco.
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