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InnerPulse, Inc.- Date Certain M&A of its Assets and Intellectual Property

February 12, 2011 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Sale of InnerPulse, Inc.

Gerbsman Partners (www.gerbsmanpartners.com) has been retained by InnerPulse, Inc. (www.innerpulse.com) to solicit interest for the acquisition of all, or substantially all, the assets of InnerPulse, Inc.

Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, InnerPulse, Inc. is a cardiac rhythm management (CRM) medical device company founded in 2003 with disruptive technology which will likely change the industry by creating unique access to and delivering new growth in the existing $12 billion worldwide CRM market.

InnerPulse has raised three rounds of private financing to date totaling $85 million from both venture capital and strategic partners.  Investors have included Delphi Ventures, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Synergy Life Science Partners, Ascent Biomedical Ventures, as well as strategic investments from Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., and Medtronic.

IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE:

The information in this memorandum does not constitute the whole or any part of an offer or a contract.

The information contained in this memorandum relating to InnerPulse’s Assets has been supplied by InnerPulse.  It has not been independently investigated or verified by Gerbsman Partners or its agents.

Potential purchasers should not rely on any information contained in this memorandum or provided by InnerPulse, or Gerbsman Partners (or their respective staff, agents, and attorneys) in connection herewith, whether transmitted orally or in writing as a statement, opinion, or representation of fact. Interested parties should satisfy themselves through independent investigations as they or their legal and financial advisors see fit.

InnerPulse, Gerbsman Partners, and their respective staff, agents, and attorneys, (i) disclaim any and all implied warranties concerning the truth, accuracy, and completeness of any information provided in connection herewith and (ii) do not accept liability for the information, including that contained in this memorandum, whether that liability arises by reasons of InnerPulse’s or Gerbsman Partners’ negligence or otherwise.

Any sale of the InnerPulse Assets will be made on an “as-is,” “where-is,” and “with all faults” basis, without any warranties, representations, or guarantees, either express or implied, of any kind, nature, or type whatsoever from, or on behalf of InnerPulse or Gerbsman Partners.  Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, InnerPulse and Gerbsman Partners and their respective staff, agents, and attorneys,  hereby expressly disclaim any and all implied warranties concerning the condition of the InnerPulse Assets and any portions thereof, including, but not limited to, environmental conditions, compliance with any government regulations or requirements, the implied warranties of habitability, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose.

This memorandum contains confidential information and is not to be supplied to any person without Gerbsman Partners’ prior consent.  This memorandum and the information contained herein are subject to the non-disclosure agreement attached hereto as Exhibit A.

InnerPulse has developed and patented a novel device platform technology, the fully intravascular implantable device (IID) that is extensible into all of CRM—single and dual chamber pacemakers, single and dual chamber defibrillators, and cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators.  The platform is built upon industry-proven technology, yet innovated to allow physicians to implant devices via a standard percutaneous procedure rather than the traditional surgical technique.  This dramatic change will simplify the implant for the physician and improve therapy access and outcomes for the patient.

InnerPulse believes its assets are attractive for a number of reasons

1.  The InnerPulse fully intravascular, percutaneously implanted IID technology is revolutionary and disruptive, and can provide both market growth and market share in the large, $12 billion worldwide CRM market.

2.  The InnerPulse novel form factor and intravascular implant location provide significant benefits over traditional CRM devices, yet utilize well-established, proven methods and therapy for pacing and defibrillation, with clinical evidence already existent, reimbursement in place, and clinical practice guidelines well-known.

3.  InnerPulse’s Intellectual Property, comprising 7 issued US patents, 22 pending US patent applications, 2 issued international patents and 5 international pending patent applications, is the exclusive portfolio for the practice of fully intravascular implantable electrophysiological devices.

4.  The company has significantly de-risked the technology by completing over 400 animal studies and an acute human study, demonstrating safety and efficacy of the technology to the fullest extent prior to chronic human clinical trials.

5.  This unprecedented set of animal data, including peer-reviewed and published studies, is also augmented by an acute defibrillation threshold (DFT) human trial that demonstrated better defibrillation efficacy than traditional defibrillators and validated the implant procedure.

6.  InnerPulse has developed a comprehensive strategic product plan with enabling technology pathways to enable the platform into all CRM products.

7.  InnerPulse has developed the basic manufacturing processes required for its novel technology and has produced its percutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator (PICD™).

8.  The world’s thought leaders in both electrophysiology and interventional cardiology have actively supported and advised the company since its inception.

9.  The company has developed excellent relationships with several leading European cardiology centers that have participated in the Company’s acute human study and have indicated they will participate in its CE Mark trial.

InnerPulse Company Profile

InnerPulse, Inc. is located in Research Triangle Park, NC, and is a privately held company founded in December 2003.  InnerPulse has raised three rounds of private financing to date totaling $85 million from both venture capital and strategic partners.  Investors have included Delphi Ventures, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Synergy Life Science Partners, Ascent Biomedical Ventures, as well as strategic investments from Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., and Medtronic.

The company has developed and manufactured the revolutionary IID platform technology, as well as developed percutaneous implant and removal procedures using custom catheter-based tools.  The InnerPulse intravascular platform has been developed and evaluated extensively in over 400 animals to date, as well as with thorough bench and laboratory testing.  Chronic safety has been demonstrated in animal studies over 1 year, and the Company has conducted acute human studies on the platform and procedure.

Impact of Technology on the Market

The percutaneously-implanted IID will compete in, and dramatically impact, the existing CRM market.  InnerPulse will market both pacemaker and defibrillator product lines.  With respect to the existing CRM devices on the market today, the InnerPulse devices are superior.  The benefits include a simpler and faster procedure, reduced complications, device reliability advantages, and lower post-procedure discomfort.

Unlike current CRM devices, which are surgically implanted in a procedure that typically takes 35 minutes and requires an operating room, the InnerPulse fully intravascular pacemaker (PPx™) and defibrillator (PICD™) technology are implanted percutaneously utilizing a catheter-based procedure, which takes less than 15 minutes and can be performed in the cardiac catheterization laboratory.  Additionally, the implant procedure is familiar to both electrophysiologists (who currently implant the majority of CRM devices) and other implanting cardiologists, and has significantly lower infection rates than surgical procedures.  The intravascular device is also projected to deliver reliability advantages, including the virtual elimination of performance issues associated with cardiac leads and device headers.  Because the IID does not require a surgical pocket, patients benefit through lower post-procedure discomfort and improved cosmesis.  In the end, the device is imperceptible to the patient and will address known barriers to patient acceptance of an implanted device.  The shortened procedure and improved cost efficiency of the cardiac catheterization lab will increase hospital and physician revenue by facilitating more procedures at higher margin.

Together, the benefits provided by the InnerPulse technology will appeal to all stakeholders—physicians, patients and hospitals, and will drive market acceptance.

InnerPulse’s Assets

InnerPulse has developed a portfolio of assets critical to the development and manufacture of its revolutionary, fully intravascular cardiac rhythm management device technology. These assets fall into a variety of categories, including:

–   Patents, Patent Applications and Trademarks

–   Significant intellectual capital, know-how and expertise in the design and manufacture of fully intravascular systems and the novel percutaneous implant and removal procedure

–   Long-term strategic Product Plan including next generation product designs

–   Design and quality assurance test equipment

–   Fully-outfitted manufacturing equipment for the PICD™, the company’s fully intravascular implantable defibrillator

–   Pre-clinical animal data including the following:
–  Data from over 400 development animal studies
–  Peer-reviewed, published animal data demonstrating superior defibrillation efficacy in porcine and canine
–  Completed GLP studies on anchoring stability and vascular response
–  A cohort of survival animals implanted over 1 year targeted for long-term removals required for regulatory submission

–   Clinical data from the acute DFT human study

The assets of InnerPulse will be sold in whole or in part (collectively, the “InnerPulse Assets”). The sale of these assets is being conducted with the cooperation of InnerPulse.  InnerPulse and its employees will be available to assist purchasers with due diligence and a prompt, efficient transition to new ownership.  Notwithstanding the foregoing, InnerPulse should not be contacted directly without the prior consent of Gerbsman Partners.

The Sale of the InnerPulse Assets is being conducted pursuant to a Resolution of the Board of Directors of InnerPulse, Inc. for the liquidation and dissolution of the company which was approved by the Board on February 3, 2011, and by the stockholders on February 7, 2011.  InnerPulse expects the sale of the InnerPulse Assets to be completed without any further vote or action by InnerPulse’s stockholders.

InnerPulse, Inc. Key Personnel
·       Stephen C. Masson — General Manager & Chief Technology Officer:  Has led the Company’s product development, product planning, operations, and relationships with key technology and funding partners, and consultants.  Mr. Masson draws from 30 years experience in the design and manufacture of implantable medical devices, including pacemakers and defibrillators.  Formerly Vice President of Product Development at Ventritex. Inc. (now a division of St. Jude Medical), where Mr. Masson was responsible for overseeing the team that created a series of highly advanced implantable cardiac devices, resulting in the company attaining as much as a 35-percent U.S. market share and more than $125 million in annual revenue.  Previously, Mr. Masson was Vice President of Research and Development at HeartWare, Inc., a cardiac-assist device company, and began his career in at pacemaker manufacturer Cordis Corporation (now a division of Johnson & Johnson), where he held both design and management roles.
·       Terry Ransbury — Vice President, Research & Development, Co-founder: The Company’s first employee, Mr. Ransbury has played a critical role in developing the company’s novel technology and intellectual property, including filing the patents for the platform technology and implantation techniques of the intravascular device.  Mr. Ransbury has more than 25 years of management, product development and field experience in the medical device industry to his position.  He was the principal designer of the medical instrumentation device for programming implantable defibrillators at Ventritex, Inc. As Clinical Manager at Biosense, he oversaw the field introduction of the industry-standard CARTO 3D electrophysiological mapping and ablation system.  Each company was acquired for more than $350 million during his tenure.
·       W. Eugene Sanders, MD — Vice President, Medical Affairs & Chief Medical Officer: Dr. Sanders has led the company’s medical affairs including clinical support of product and procedure development and management of the animal and early human clinical studies.  Dr. Sanders joined the company after spending 15 years at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as Director of Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology.  He has extensive experience in surgical implantation of defibrillators and pacemakers, as well as all aspects of arrhythmia management including ablation.  Dr. Sanders has been a major investigator in multiple national clinical trials of implantable medical devices. His publications include articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Lancet in addition to several book chapters.  He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease, and Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology.
·       Julie Ames — Controller:  Ms. Ames has over 25 years experience at the Controller level in corporate accounting and management.  She has a broad background in all aspects of company operations including finance, budgeting and forecasting, cost controls, human resources, insurance, IT, staff management and corporate governance.

InnerPulse, Inc. Board of Directors

·       John F. Maroney: Delphi Ventures – Menlo Park, CA
·       Nathan R. Every, MD: Frazier Healthcare Ventures – Seattle, WA

The Bidding Process for Interested Buyers

Interested and qualified parties will be expected to sign a nondisclosure agreement (attached hereto as Exhibit A) to have access to key members of the management and intellectual capital teams and the due diligence “war room” documentation (the “Due Diligence Access”).  Each interested party, as a consequence of the Due Diligence Access granted to it, shall be deemed to acknowledge and represent (i) that it is bound by the bidding procedures described herein; (ii) that it has an opportunity to inspect and examine the InnerPulse Assets and to review all pertinent documents and information with respect thereto; (iii) that it is not relying upon any written or oral statements, representations, or warranties of InnerPulse, Inc., Gerbsman Partners, or their respective staff, agents, or attorneys; and (iv) all such documents and reports have been provided solely for the convenience of the interested party, and neither InnerPulse nor Gerbsman Partners (or their respective, staff, agents, or attorneys) makes any representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the same.

Following an initial round of due diligence, interested parties will be invited to participate with a sealed bid, for the acquisition of the InnerPulse Assets.  Sealed bids must be submitted so that the bid is actually received by Gerbsman Partners no later than March 18, 2011 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (the “Bid Deadline”) at InnerPulse’s office, located at 4025 Stirrup Creek Drive, #200, Research Triangle Park, NC 27703.  Please also email steve@gerbsmanpartners.com with any bid.

Bids should identify those assets being tendered for in a specific and identifiable way.  The attached InnerPulse fixed asset list may not be complete and Bidders interested in the InnerPulse Assets must submit a separate bid for such assets.  Be specific as to the assets desired.

Any person or other entity making a bid must be prepared to provide independent confirmation that they possess the financial resources to complete the purchase where applicable.  All bids must be accompanied by a refundable deposit check in the amount of $200,000 (payable to InnerPulse, Inc.).  The winning bidder will be notified within 3 business days after the Bid Deadline.  Non-successful bidders will have their deposit returned to them.

InnerPulse reserves the right to, in its sole discretion, accept or reject any bid, or withdraw any or all assets from sale.  Interested parties should understand that it is expected that the highest bid will be chosen as the winning bidder and bidders may not have the opportunity to improve their bids after submission.

InnerPulse will require the successful bidder to close within 7 business days.  Any or all of the assets of InnerPulse will be sold on an “as is, where is” basis, with no representation or warranties whatsoever.

All sales, transfer, and recording taxes, stamp taxes, or similar taxes, if any, relating to the sale of the InnerPulse Assets shall be the sole responsibility of the successful bidder and shall be paid to InnerPulse at the closing of each transaction.

For additional information, please see below and/or contact:

Steven R. Gerbsman
(415) 456-0628
steve@gerbsmanpartners.com

Kenneth Hardesty
(408) 591-7528
ken@gerbsmanpartners.com

Jim Skelton
(949) 466-7303
jim@gerbsmanpartners.com

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Distressed Intellectual Property, Distressed IP, Gerbsman Partners, Inetellectual Property, Life Science, LinkedIn, Medical Device, National Venture Capital Association, NVCA, Venture Capital | Leave a Comment »

Amazon works on cloud computing

February 10, 2011 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Article from SFGate.

“Amazon.com Vice President James Hamilton’s schooling in computer-data centers started under the hood of a Lamborghini Countach.

Fixing luxury Italian autos in British Columbia while in his 20s taught Hamilton, 51, valuable lessons in problem solving, forcing him to come up with creative ways to repair cars because replacement parts were hard to find.

“It’s amazing how many things you can pick up in one industry and apply to another,” Hamilton, who also has been a distinguished engineer at Amazon since 2009, said.

Hamilton is putting these skills to use at Amazon, where he’s central to an effort by Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos to make Amazon Web Services, which leases server space and computing power to other companies, as big as the core e-commerce business. He’s charged with finding ways to make data centers work faster and more efficiently while fending off competition from Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp., his two prior employers, and AT&T Inc.

$56 billion in 2014

Revenue from the kinds of cloud services offered by Amazon is expected to reach $56 billion in 2014, up from more than $16 billion in 2009, according to research firm IDC.

Amazon’s Web services brought in about $500 million in revenue in the past year, according to estimates from Barclays Capital and Lazard Capital Markets, or about 1.5 percent of Amazon’s $34.2 billion in sales. The company doesn’t disclose revenue from Web services, also called cloud computing.

As they pursue growth, Hamilton and his team will have to ensure that Amazon’s investment in Web services is well spent. Investors pummeled shares of the Seattle e-commerce giant on Jan. 28, the day after the company said it would boost spending on data centers and warehouses, fueling concern that margins will narrow.

Although still relatively small, Amazon Web Services is growing at a faster rate than the company’s core business, and it’s more profitable, said Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Caris & Co. in San Francisco. Web services may generate as much as $900 million in sales this year, and operating margins could be as wide as 23 percent, compared with 5 percent margins in the main business, Aggarwal said.

Hamilton, who has filed almost 50 patents in various technologies, is developing new ideas in cloud computing, which lets companies run their software and infrastructure in remote data centers on an as-needed basis, rather than in a computer room down the hall.

He spends much of his time shuttling between departments, encouraging teams focused on storage, databases, networking and other functions to work together. One aim: devising ways to squeeze costs out of multimillion-dollar data centers and passing those savings on to customers such as Eli Lilly & Co. and Netflix Inc.

Among the challenges Hamilton and his colleagues face is making Amazon flexible enough for customers that want custom services, while overcoming companies’ concerns about storing sensitive information outside their own secure firewalls. They’ve met with early success, with Amazon emerging as the leader in cloud computing among developers, according to consulting and research firm Forrester Research Inc.

Innovation required

Amazon’s Web services unit will have to stay innovative to keep ahead of competition from Rackspace Hosting Inc., which manages applications for businesses. Startups such as Cloud.com also are trying to carve their own niche in cloud computing.

Amazon has been able to stand apart from rivals by introducing unique products, said Jeff Hammond, an analyst at Forrester. For example, the company unveiled a service last month called Elastic Beanstalk, which lets even novices who don’t know how to write computer code plug into Amazon’s computing power.

“These guys continue to innovate in a way that the large traditional companies – the IBMs and the Oracles and the Microsofts of the world – are not doing,” Hammond said.

Last year, Amazon introduced Spot Instances, which took a nontraditional approach to managing underused servers. While many companies pack tasks onto underused servers and unplug the extra ones, Hamilton and his colleagues began auctioning off idle computing capacity. The result: Amazon got revenue rather than an unused server and the customer got a cheaper price than the normal rental rate.

“The trick is to find a steady stream of things like that,” said Hamilton. “We can make such a big difference here on services and server efficiency.”

Read original posting here.

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Meet the New Mobile Network: It’s a Cloud

February 7, 2011 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Article from GigaOm.

“The crush of smartphones, tablets and laptops all vying for ever more bandwidth intense content, has forced mobile operators to beef up their backhaul, rally for more spectrum and implement new network technologies. It’s also reshaping the way they think and build out their networks. Or it will. Last week, I had outlined the the demand for data combined with more people wanting access to the mobile web are forcing operators to add more diverse network technologies, such as Wi-Fi, picocells and femtocells and of course more base stations, which are all of their effort to build more creative pricing plans.

Essentially the current networks and airwaves are unable to meet the demands of millions of consumers trying to download YouTube ( s goog) videos and Posting pictures to their Facebook profiles. Carriers have already embraced Wi-Fi offload but the thought is even that won’t be enough. Plus adding Wi-Fi, and even smaller base stations such as pico cells or even femtocells adds complexity to the network.

As I said in my previous article: “But multiple networks and more base stations, as well as more demand, are forcing operators to undergo a shift similar to what the data center saw as the demand for computing began to overwhelm the profits and abilities of systems administrators to handle it. For example, when it took one person to manage 10 servers, owning 500 was an investment, but now with corporations owning tens of thousands, such a ratio would constrain demand. So places that required a lot of computing adapted and came up with new architectures and software that helped become the redundant, autonomic and cloud-based computing centers familiar today.That same shift will have to happen in the mobile networks, and Intucell is just one company that will help make this shift a reality.”

My previous article focused on Intucell, a startup that’s pushing a technology to help operators reconfigure their networks in real time. There are other startups aiming to address this space, whether it’s with an all-in-one chip design that can work on multiple radio frequencies inside a base station or companies trying to deliver real-time pricing and billing information to operators. But the big gear makers aren’t oblivious to this trend, and today Alcatel-Lucent announced its lightRadio suite of products that answers many of the needs mobile operators have.

With this launch, Alcatel-Lucent has fundamentally rethought the way cellular networks are built. Instead of the traditional model of multiple radios and antennas cluttering up a large cellular tower with cabinets of electronics connected back to the web via a fiber or hardwired backhaul pipe, it has built smaller antennas attached to a single radio that can send and receive Wireless signals using multiple radio technologies including 4G 3G and some 2G technologies. These are then connected back to the network via microwave backhaul and the processing required to separate and route signals occurs deeper inside the network rather than at the base station.”

Read the whole article here.

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Apps Alter Reading on the Web

February 3, 2011 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Article from NY Times.

“The DVR rocked the world of television by letting viewers skip commercials and build their own home viewing schedules. Now a handful of Web services and applications are starting to do much the same thing to online publishers.

These tools make it easier for people to read Web articles how, when and where they want, often dispensing with publishers’ carefully arranged layouts and advertisements.

One popular tool, Readability, strips articles to the bare minimum of text and photographs with a single click. But now, Readability wants to give something back to publishers.

On Tuesday, the developers behind the tool will unveil a service that requires a subscription fee of at least $5 a month. The service, also called Readability, plans to distribute 70 percent of that fee to the news outlets and blogs that each subscriber is reading.

For example, if a subscriber is a regular visitor to the gadget blog Gizmodo and the women’s news site The Hairpin over the course of a month, Readability will calculate what percentage of her payment should go to each site and send them checks.

“We were never about stripping ads or being an ad blocker,” said Richard Ziade, who created the original Readability tool as well as the second-generation version. Instead, he said, his team has been wondering: “Can we come up with a mechanism to make the experience of reading on the Web better, but also support content creators and publishers?”

Readability is one of many services experimenting with the future of reading. A wave of applications, including Pulse, Flipboard and My Taptu, are responding to changes in how people prefer to read on the Web, putting articles and blog posts into cleaner or more attractive visual displays.

Nate Weiner, founder of Read It Later, a Web and mobile service that saves articles to be read offline, said there was a larger shift under way, one that mirrors the move to digital from print. Instead of thumbing through the newspaper over breakfast, he said, people like to read articles from many sources on their commutes or in the evening, often using mobile devices.

“People don’t really want to have to be confined to a specific place, time, site or device to read content,” Mr. Weiner said.

Mr. Weiner recently analyzed data from his service, which has three million users, and found that those who owned an iPhone or iPad preferred to save articles for a personalized prime time. IPad reading, in particular, peaks from 8 to 10 p.m.

The glut of updates flowing across the average person’s computer and mobile screens throughout the day, either through social networks or links e-mailed by friends, is also driving the trend.

“If you’re a modern worker, you’re constantly being bombarded with information that you want to read, but that environment is not always the appropriate or best time to read that information,” said Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab, which is affiliated with Harvard.

Mr. Ziade of Readability acknowledged that there were still many things to be ironed out with the new service, including how often to distribute payments and what happens if publishers refuse to accept the collected money.

The company plans to pay them “regardless of their participation,” he said. Should a site refuse the money, the company is considering options like contributing it to a charity or literacy organization.

Mr. Ziade, who is a partner at a consulting company in Manhattan called Arc90, developed Readability as a pet project in March 2009 and released it online for others to use free of charge; the code is available under an open-source license.

Since then Readability has gained traction among users — and among hardware and software makers. Apple now builds it into its Safari browser, Amazon uses it in the Kindle, and it is built into several mobile applications, including Flipboard, Pulse and Reeder. Mr. Ziade said it was difficult to track how many people were using the tool, but thousands of people visit the Readability home page each day.

Though the original Readability tool will remain free, Mr. Ziade hopes to capture a willing audience by simplifying the so-called micropayment model, which has been much discussed but is tricky to execute.

“Asking someone to pay 45 cents to read an article may not be a big deal, but no one wants to deal with that transaction,” he said. Marco Arment, an adviser to Readability and the creator of Instapaper, a service for saving and reading online articles, made a version of his Instapaper app that will essentially be Readability’s mobile component. Mr. Arment said he thought the most likely customers for Readability’s pay service were “online power readers.”

“It’ll be the types who buy print magazines even though the same articles are online for free, just because they want to support the publication,” he said.

“On the Web, it’s not that people aren’t willing to pay small amounts for things; it’s that there is no easy way to pay,” he added. “If a service like Readability comes along and makes it easy, I think people will be willing to pay.”

Services that put Web articles into new contexts for the convenience of readers have ruffled feathers before. Last June, lawyers for The New York Times Company objected to Pulse, an iPad application that collects and presents articles from many Web sites, in part because of the way it displayed Times articles.

A Times Company spokeswoman, Kristin Mason, said Monday that “as the number of apps in the news space continues to grow, we are monitoring and working closely with many of the developers to discuss any concerns we have.”

But Mr. Ziade said he had not heard a single negative reaction during the several dozen meetings he has had with publishers about his new service. He declined to name the publishers.

Mr. Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab said that the interest in these services was driving “an increasing realization among publishers that not all customers are created equal, and some will pay for different experiences without advertisements.”

Jacob Weisberg, the editor in chief of the Slate Group, the online publisher owned by the Washington Post Company, said Slate had not talked to Readability but would “be happy to cash their checks.” Mr. Weisberg added that “if the numbers became meaningful, we’d of course want to negotiate” a deal.

Slate has added an Instapaper save-for-later button to its iPad application. Mr. Weisberg said this required a reader to load the original page before saving it.

“We’re still getting the page views and the ad impressions,” he said. “But certainly over time, as these services develop and start making money, it’s only reasonable they share that money with publishers whose content they’re piggybacking on.”

Read the original post here.

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Android soars to 53% of U.S. smartphone sales in Q4

February 1, 2011 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Article from Fierce Mobile.

“Devices running Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android mobile operating system encompassed more than half of all U.S. smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 according to market research firm NPD Group. Android increased its U.S. market share lead to 53 percent as 2010 closed, up 9 percentage points over Q3–Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS slipped 4 percentage points to account for 19 percent of sales, tied with Research In Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry (down 2 percentage points). NPD notes that Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) legacy Windows Mobile OS dropped 3 points to 4 percent of the U.S. market, while its new Windows Phone 7 debuted at 2 percent, deadlocked with Palm’s webOS. The firm adds that Windows Phone 7 claimed a smaller market share at launch than either Android or webOS during their respective debuts.
Apple’s iPhone 4 was the best-selling mobile phone in the U.S. during the fourth quarter, followed in descending order by Motorola’s Droid X, HTC’s Evo 4G, the iPhone 3GS and Motorola’s Droid 2. For the first time ever, NPD’s quarterly Top Five sales chart did not include a feature phone device.
Android is now the top-selling smartphone OS worldwide as well–Android unit shipments surpassed Symbian device shipments for the first time in the fourth quarter according to data issued technology analysis firm Canalys. Android shipments topped 33.3 million in Q4, translating to a 32.9 percent share of the global smartphone market, Canalys reports; a year earlier, Android shipments represented just 8.7 percent of the worldwide market, a 615.1 percent leap. Symbian shipments grew from 23.9 million in Q4 2009 to 31.0 million in the most recent quarter–however, its worldwide market share plummeted from 44.4 percent to 30.6 percent during that time.
iPhone shipments increased from 8.7 million in Q4 2009 to 16.2 million a year later–its smartphone market share slipped from 16.3 percent to 16.0 percent. BlackBerry fell from 20.0 percent market share to 14.4 percent as device shipments increased from 10.7 million to 14.6 million–Windows Phone also stumbled, with its market share falling from 7.2 percent to 3.1 percent as smartphone shipments decreased from 3.9 million in Q4 2009 to 3.1 million a year later. Total worldwide smartphone shipments surpassed 101.2 million in the fourth quarter, up 89 percent year-over-year.

Read more here.

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