PPG Launches iPhone Application

One of  PPG Industries Inc.’s (NYSE:PPG - News) brands, PPG Pittsburg Paints, launched its first mobile application called The Voice of Color for iPhone, iPad and Android users. The application provides homeowners with an intuitive, on-the-go color resource. The free application showcases the company’s Voice of Color collection, while allowing the users to order and ship 8”x12” sample color sheets directly from the application.

The tool also allows users to take/upload inspiring photos for instantly matching with one of the company’s 2,000 color shades. Further, the company stated that the program will also offer suggestions for similar and complementary shades based on the selection.

In addition, the application offers the users the color resource with access to paint colors in The Voice of Color collection everywhere they go. PPG Pittsburgh Paints' The Voice of Color app can be downloaded directly for free from the iPhone or iPad Application Store, or the Android Market.

PPG Pittsburgh Paints falls under the Performance Coatings Business of PPG. PPG Pittsburgh Paints is a nationally recognized brand trusted by painting contractors, building owners, architects, designers and homeowners for over 100 years.

Recently, PPG posted net income of $216 million or $1.39 per share for the fourth quarter of 2011 compared with $205 million or $1.24 per share in the year-ago quarter. The results substantially exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.28 per share.

For the fiscal year 2011, PPG’s net income was $1.1 billion, or $6.87 per share, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $6.78 per share. The company delivered record earnings in the quarter driven by higher revenues and cost-cutting strategies.

Revenues in the quarter went up 4% to $3.52 billion, slightly exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.50 billion. For full-year 2011, revenues increased 11% to $14.89 billion from the year-ago level.

PPG has a strong cash position, and continues to utilize cash on earnings growth initiatives. The company has also returned cash to its shareholders in the form of uninterrupted dividend pay outs. It also expects to deploy its strong cash position for continuous growth and aims to end 2012 with a cash balance of less than $1 billion.

However, raw material costs have been a matter of concern for PPG’s earnings. Though the raw material costs have shown a moderating trend, the price of its primary raw material titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been escalating. PPG faces stiff competition from the DuPont Performance Coatings segment of EI DuPont de Nemours & Co. (NYSE:DD - News) and BASF Coatings AG.

Therefore, the company maintains a Zacks #3 Rank, which translates into short-term (1 to 3 months) Hold rating. Currently, we reiterate our Neutral recommendation on the stock for the long term (more than 6 months).

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SugarSync (for iPhone) version 2.5

product 0.3 Pros Generous storage. Can specify which folders to back up. Loads quickly. Simply sharing features. Ability to view files on screen. Uploads multiple photos or videos at once. Compression controls.

Cons

No search. No in-app editing. Figuring out photo management can be tricky.

Bottom Line SugarSync (for iPhone) delivers on its promise to keep you connected to your most important documents and files no matter where you are.

File synchronization changed my life; if it hasn't changed yours yet, you really ought to give SugarSync (free for 5GB) a try. It works with all major platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian. A Linux client is in beta. The SugarSync iPhone app (free to download), which is the focus of the review here, is relatively similar to SugarSync's Android app, and a necessary piece of the syncing equation. Mobile access is essential.

SugarSync's best known competitor is Dropbox (4 stars, free for 2GB), an excellent tool that I personally still use in tandem with SugarSync. Both Dropbox and SugarSync are PCMag's overall Editors' Choice picks for file-syncing services, and which you choose may largely be a matter of preference.

Features
SugarSync's iPhone app is free to download, but you do need a SugarSync account to use it. The first 5GB of any account are free, but you can upgrade to 30GB for $49.99 per year, 60GB for $99.99 per year, or 100GB for $149.99 per year (monthly payments are also available, see the pricing page).

Download and install the app, then log into your SugarSync account.

The graphical opening page is the first indication that SugarSync's iPhone app is easy to use. All the icons and names you've given to your synced devices appear. See the slideshow for an example. Tap on any of the icons, and SugarSync will pull up a list of the folders and files that devices houses.

Say you're away from the office but need to quickly reference a spreadsheet that you (wisely) set to sync with SugarSync. From your iPhone, you can find that file and view it right on the screen. You can't edit it on the spot, however; you'll need another app for that. I've had no problems opening and zooming in on Excel files, even ones with multiple pages, using the app.

If someone else had needed that file, I could just as easily have selected "Share" in SugarSync and sent it to the appropriate person via email, with the link that let them download it. If you don't want to send the file from the default email address on your iPhone, you can choose instead to copy the link the clipboard, letting you send it however you like.

Other ways you can interact with a file include renaming it, copying it, and moving it to a different location within SugarSync. Some actions, namely share, sync, copy, move, and delete, can be performed in bulk.

SugarSync provides decent security, encrypting your data while at rest and while in transmission, and the iPhone app gives you the ability to put on one more measure: a four-digit PIN. For anyone using SugarSync on data that could be considered sensitive or personal data, this additional layer of protection definitely helps to make you feel more secure, and keep out malfeasants.

Photo syncing on SugarSync for iPhone is a little less intuitive than the rest of the app, and it can become very complicated quickly, especially if you use other photo-syncing services, such as iCloud . I had a hard time figuring out where photos lived after landing on the Photos area. It's just not clear where or how they're stored.

A section for Recent Documents proves more useful. It shows documents that SugarSync has identified as being recently changed and synced. For day-to-day work files, this area is great for quick access to files you're likely to need the most.

One missing feature is a search tool. The ability to search for files that you've synced—even just by file name or folder name—would quickly mitigate some of the other minor annoyances and shortcomings in the app.

SugarSync Mobile
While I still adore Dropbox and will emphasize that it's still worthy of our Editors' Choice award, SugarSync does a few things just slightly better and deserves more praise. SugarSync also gives you more space with a free account (5GB compared to Dropbox's 2GB) and unlimited bonus space for referrals. The SugarSync iPhone app does a suitable job of keeping you connecting to all your files. It will deserve more use, though, once it restructures its photos area and provides a search bar. The only reason Dropbox might be your preferred app is if you like the Dropbox way of thinking. With Dropbox, you put everything you want synced into a "Dropbox" folder. To sync any other way is considered advanced. In SugarSync, you choose to sync existing or new folders and files. But seeing as you can get both for free, there's no real reason you can't have both and perhaps use them for different kinds of data.

More iPhone App Reviews:
•   Thrillcall (for iPhone)
•   Shazam Encore (for iPhone)
•   WinZip (for iPhone)
•   SugarSync (for iPhone) version 2.5
•   Clear (for iPhone)
•  more

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Thrillcall (for iPhone)

product 0.3 Pros Makes fining shows a breeze. Simple, easy-to-navigate design. Free. Google Maps integration.

Cons

Listings limited to metropolitan areas. Exclusive offers currently limited to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Limited to day-of-show performances.

Bottom Line Live music fans who want a simple way to find last minute show tickets will find much to like in Thrillcall, a free, easy-to-use iPhone app that lets you search for artists and purchase tickets. The one major drawback? Currently, it only serves people living in major metropolitan areas.

Live music fans who want to score last-minute tickets to show should download Thrillcall. The free, live music-discovery app, which specializes in letting users purchase day-of-show tickets, search for artists, and receive exclusive offers from the convenience of their iPhones. The app works well, but the show listings and deals cater toward those who live in large cities.

Sweet Deals in Big Cities
Thrillcall does an excellent job of enticing you to explore its content. The first thing you'll see upon firing up the app is a clock that counts down the hours and minutes to the next big offer, which can come in the form of exclusive access to a sold out show. When I launched Thrillcall, I had to wait an hour until the next big Thrillcall New York City deal. When the time arrived, however, I discovered that there weren't special offers available for Big Apple users. Disappointing. I decided to explore what other exclusive offers were available for music fans in different areas, and that's when I noticed that the deals are only available in Los Angeles and San Francisco at the moment. That limitation should have been stated far more explicitly.

If you live in one of those two cities, you can receive deals faster by tapping the "Learn how to get offers now!" icon which takes you to a screen where you can invite friends via Facebook, Twitter, or email to grab the app. When your friends download ThrillCall and create accounts, it shortens the amount of time on the countdown clock, speeding up the deal-delivery process.

Artists and Venues
Tapping "Tonight's Music," located in the menu bar at the bottom of the interface, takes you to a screen that displays a list of artists in the area. A quick scroll-through revealed that Leo Kottke, Lupe Fiasco, and Michael Feinstein were performing separately at different venues throughout Manhattan. Each artist entry gives you not only the venue and start time, but also an artist photo or venue photo and the venue location on Google Maps. The venue information and map allows you to check out the area before you show up. Tapping "More on Thrillcall.com" launches the Thrillcall ticket purchase page within the iPhone's Safari Web browser where you can buy tickets.

Should You Download Thrillcall?
As a live music fan, I've found Thrillcall an excellent tool for finding artists in my area. That said, it heavily favors metropolitan areas such as Austin, New York, and Seattle—and the much-hyped exclusive deals are limited even further to just Los Angeles and San Francisco. People in less dense areas—unless they're just outside major cities—may not find much use for the app at the moment, but music lovers in geographically advantageous locations should give this tool a try.

More iPhone Apps Reviews:
•   Thrillcall (for iPhone)
•   Shazam Encore (for iPhone)
•   WinZip (for iPhone)
•   SugarSync (for iPhone) version 2.5
•   Clear (for iPhone)
•  more

View the original article here

Apple In Catbird Seat With China Mobile iPhone Deal

Image by Getty Images AsiaPac via @daylife

When Apple added China Telecom as the second wireless carrier to sell the iPhone 4S in China, we wondered when the world’s largest wireless carrier, China Mobile, would get to launch the phone.

Almost as if in reply, Qualcomm announced the launch of its fifth-generation Gobi platform that would “support multiple LTE bands on a single device.” [1]

This means that the iPhone 5, which is very likely to have LTE capabilities, can support both the under-trial 4G network as well as the so far incompatible 3G network that China Mobile runs.

See our complete analysis of China Mobile here

China Mobile will be a big catch

With over 650 million subscribers, China Mobile not only dwarfs its U.S. counterparts, Verizon and AT&T, but also its Chinese rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom, by close to 3 and 6 times, respectively. A wide network coverage has helped it net over 10 million iPhone users, as of October 2011.

This means that despite the availability of a subsidized iPhone on competitor China Unicom’s network, people have chosen to pay for an unsubsidized iPhone just to be able to access China Mobile’s slower but more reliable 2G network. The availability of a subsidized iPhone on China Mobile’s network will be a huge opportunity for Apple to gain a strong foothold in the Chinese market.

However there are two significant bottlenecks. China Mobile doesn’t have a 3G network that the iPhone currently supports, and the LTE network that it is testing is also incompatible with the ones deployed by Verizon and AT&T in the U.S.

iPhone on China Mobile seems plausible now

But now that Qualcomm’s Gobi chipsets can not only support the TD-LTE network that China Mobile is testing but also the TD-SCDMA 3G network that it already has, Apple can finally have a true “world phone”. Qualcomm’s chipsets have already helped Apple launch the iPhone 4S as a single hardware for both the competing GSM and CDMA standards. The stellar performance by the iPhone 4S subsequently helped both the companies post record earnings in the fourth quarter of last year.

During the October-December period of 2011, when Apple had no carrier deals to sell the iPhone 4S in China, its market share dropped to 7.5%, and its market position was overtaken by ZTE. [2] However, after the recent deals with China Unicom and China Telecom and now hopefully with China Mobile, Apple can turn around its market share loss in China.

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Apple iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date: Who Wins the Rumor Roundup?

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China Telecom Looks To iPhone For 3G Leverage

Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife

China Telecom announced last week that it added close to 2.8 million subscribers in January, about 87% of which subscribed to 3G. The company now has close to 130 million subscribers and is a distant third behind China Mobile and China Unicom.

The gap is narrow when it comes to 3G. China Telecom will hope that the iPhone 4S launch on its network next week will close the gap with its nearest 3G rival, China Unicom, which launched the 4S last month.

See our complete analysis of China Telecom here

3G market in China is an equitable mix

At less than 14%, 3G penetration in China is very low. This gives small wireless carriers such as China Unicom and China Telecom more opportunity to compete with China Mobile. With more than 650 million subscribers, China Mobile is the largest wireless carrier in the world and has three times as many overall subscribers as China Telecom. But when it comes to 3G, the advantage is less clear. As of January, China Mobile had around 54 million 3G subscribers compared to China Unicom’s 43 million and China Telecom’s 39 million.

Leading the 3G race currently is China Unicom, which has been adding the most number of 3G subscribers on a monthly basis. Not only is China Unicom the only carrier to sell the iPhone for now, it also started the trend of selling lower-cost 3G smartphones in China.

Increasing 3G adoption to help drive up ARPUs

Adding 3G subscribers will help China Telecom increase its ARPU levels as 3G smartphone users are huge data users as well. But the subsidies associated with selling an expensive smartphone such as the iPhone to drive sales will cause its margins to contract.

China Telecom announced that it’s planning to offer the iPhone 4S for free with a two- or three-year contract. That, along with increased marketing spend on promoting the phone, will have a near-term pressure on the margins. [1]

We have seen China Unicom’s EBITDA margin for its mobile division decline sharply since the end of 2009, when it first started selling the iPhone. But its ARPU levels have also increased sharply since then, pointing at the long-term benefits of subsidizing 3G smartphones. Moreover, the strategy of selling low-cost smartphones alongside the iPhone will provide some relief to the margin pressures. (see Chinese Telcos Get Fat Margins Selling Cheaper Smartphones)

Understand How a Company’s Products Impact its Stock Price at Trefis

Notes:

China Telecom Will Formally Launch iPhone 4S Next Week, ChinaTechNews, February 27th, 2012 [?]

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Qatar News Agency Releases Advanced iPhone news Application, QNA News

LONDON, March 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

- Developed using Publish live Mobile technology from KnowledgeView Ltd

The new iPhone App from QNA is designed to provide Qatar, Gulf and Arab news coverage globally. It uniquely provides real time multi-media news to the public as well as additional news reports to registered users who include media subscribers, enterprise and government. QNA News App is the fruit of technical cooperation with KnowledgeView Ltd of the UK who provided the Publish live mobile technology. The App can be downloaded from the Apple App Store as 'QNA News'.

Qatar News Agency (QNA) was established in 1975 to be the first news agency providing comprehensive Gulf news coverage. Since then QNA has invested in advanced technology for digital editorial as well as for news delivery, including video streaming, online publishing, social networks tools and media monitoring.

The iPhone App is powered by advanced Publish live mobile server technology from KnowledgeView, integrated with QNA's editorial system, thus enabling QNA to have effortless delivery of news on the Apple iPhone. Apart from serving different groups of users, QNA uses the App to send editorial advisory on planned coverage to subscribers.

"Qatar News Agency is striving to give value to the society through its state-of-the-art digital services. The iPhone app will help QNA broaden its clients base and outreach to Qatari people in the country and abroad. 5 million visitors are flocking every year to the QNA digital platforms and we found it crucial to enhance their experience and offer them seamlessly news, photos and videos on their iPhones.

Qatar News Agency believes in furthering the partnership with KnowledgeView that offers solid pioneering technologies to empower news providers, editorial practices and content exchange in the Arab world and beyond. There is a mutual trust and a line up of promising projects with KnowledgeView to give ourcommunity value linked to social media.", Eng. Khalid Mohammed Al-Motawa, Director of Technical Affairs, QNA, said.

"It is a great pleasure for KnowledgeView to work with QNA on this iPhone App and other technologies. The development of this App was done in record time thanks to the great spirit of technical cooperation between KnowledgeView's and QNA's technical teams, we look forward for working together on future advanced mobile and tablet delivery technologies." Ali Al-Assam, Managing Director, KnowledgeView.

About KnowledgeView

KnowledgeView Ltd is a UK-based company with headquarters in London and offices in the Middle East. The company was founded in 1995 to develop cross-media publishing, news management and editorial sharing systems. Users of KnowledgeView's Publish live solutions included the Independent News and Media, Guardian Media Group, News Corporation and the Washington Post. In the Middle East, KnowledgeView is a leading newspaper integrator, with over 40 media companies, providing consultancy as well as technology, acting as a marketing and technology bridge between Europe and the Arab World.

KnowledgeView's Publish live suite of products and services enables publishers to extend their reach and increase revenues, through easy multi-publishing to paper, Web, mobile iPhone and iPad as well as the Android platform.

KnowledgeView's RAPID Browser is a powerful news management and editorial sharing system for automating acquisition, classification and enhancement of news and media content and creating packages for cross-media publishing, designed to streamline production and create additional revenues.

RAPID Browser has set the standard for the next generation of news management systems, with its ability to gather content from a wide variety of sources such as news agencies, correspondents' reports, RSS and Web harvested feeds, and the power it puts in the hands of users to define their own ways of filtering and acting on items that match their interests. By integrating RAPID Browser with Adobe publishing software and with third-party publishing systems.

RAPID Archive, integrated with RAPID Browser, provides strategic rich-media archiving for publishers who want to syndicate or share editorial content.

For more information please contact:
Hoda Kara
Mobile: +961-71-49-88-99
Email: hoda@knowledgeview.co.uk

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China Telecom Looks for iPhone Leverage in 3G Race

The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (Trefis) -- China Telecom(CHA) announced last week that it added close to 2.8 million subscribers in January, about 87% of which subscribed to 3G. The company now has close to 130 million subscribers and is a distant third behind China Mobile(CHL) and China Unicom(CHU).

But the gap is narrow when it comes to 3G. China Telecom will hope that the iPhone 4S launch on its network next week will close the gap with its nearest 3G rival, China Unicom, which launched the 4S last month.

See our complete analysis of China Telecom here.

At less than 14%, 3G penetration in China is very low. This gives small wireless carriers such as China Unicom and China Telecom more opportunity to compete with China Mobile. With more than 650 million subscribers, China Mobile is the largest wireless carrier in the world and has three times as many overall subscribers as China Telecom. But when it comes to 3G, the advantage is less clear. As of January, China Mobile had around 54 million 3G subscribers compared to China Unicom's 43 million and China Telecom's 39 million.

Leading the 3G race currently is China Unicom, which has been adding the most number of 3G subscribers on a monthly basis. Not only is China Unicom the only carrier to sell the iPhone for now, it also started the trend of selling lower-cost 3G smartphones in China.

Adding 3G subscribers will help China Telecom increase its ARPU levels as 3G smartphone users are huge data users as well. But the subsidies associated with selling an expensive smartphone such as the iPhone to drive sales will cause its margins to contract.

China Telecom announced that it is planning to offer the iPhone 4S for free with a two- or three-year contract. This, along with increased marketing spend on promoting the phone, will have a near-term pressure on the margins.

We have seen China Unicom's EBITDA margin for its mobile division decline sharply since the end of 2009, when it first started selling the iPhone. But its ARPU levels have also increased sharply since then, pointing at the long-term benefits of subsidizing 3G smartphones. Moreover, the strategy of selling low-cost smartphones alongside the iPhone will provide some relief to the margin pressures.

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Is the iPhone too expensive?

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz

Ask anyone in this country what an iPhone costs, and most will say that Apple's (AAPL) iconic smartphone starts at $199. Models with more storage capacity will set stateside buyers back an additional $100 or $200.

However, this isn't what Apple is making. The world's most valuable tech company rang up an average of $659 per iPhone (including attached services and accessories) during the holiday quarter.

Who pays the lion's share of the difference? Wireless carriers are willing to subsidize more than $300 per phone, knowing that they will more than make that back by locking owners into two-year contracts. It's not pretty. Sprint (S), which was the last of the three leading carriers to begin offering the iPhone, isn't expected to turn a profit until 2015.

And it's not just carriers. Retailers are also hurting when consumers choose an iPhone over a higher-margin Android device. RadioShack's (RSH) gross margins took a beating during the holiday quarter, and the iPhone's availability through all three major carriers at its stores was one of the culprits.

Now let's go overseas. You've seen the long lines and even riots at Apple Store locations in China. However, it's a different story in parts of southern Europe, where carriers can't subsidize smartphones.

The Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday about the iPhone's weak market penetration in certain countries. According to market tracker IDC, just 9% of the smartphones sold in Portugal are iPhones. In Greece the market share drops to a mere 5%.

In the U.S., Android phones don't sell for a lot less than iPhones. If you're willing to rock a 2009 handset, carriers will even give you the iPhone 3GS for free with a two-year wireless contract. However, in countries where handsets aren't subsidized, it's hard to justify a $680 iPhone 4S when a perfectly capable Android phone costs less than $200.

Apple's challenges in Europe aren't new. A study by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech two months ago showed that the iPhone's market share was slipping in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

The obvious rebuttal here is Apple's blowout fiscal first quarter. With or without continental Europe, Apple sold a whopping 37 million iPhones this past quarter. However, it does lead one to wonder if Apple's premium pricing is opening too wide a door for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG ) and its army of Android developers to exploit the smartphone market as it penetrates the balance of the market.

Apple's stateside response has to keep older models around at lower price points, but given the rapidly evolving marketplace for both iOS and Android, that 2009 gadgetry has never felt so stale.

It's hard to knock Apple and its ability to carve itself the thickest slice of the industry's profits, but Android's European invasion is really just the beginning.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz calls them as he sees them. He does not own shares in any of the stocks in this story. The Motley Fool owns shares of Google, RadioShack, and Apple. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Apple and Google. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended creating a bull call spread position in Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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