Australia

Samsung on Monday promised to challenge Apple’s copyright infringement claims  in Australia. Specifically, news agencies report, the Korean consumer electronics maker said today it “will continue to actively defend its right to launch the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia”. Reuters reports that the company confirmed plans to delay the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch in Australia until after  a court ruling in late September on its ongoing legal spat with Apple. Furthermore, Samsung will file a counterclaim with the Australian court in the coming days, seeking to invalidate Apple’s patents plus another one asserting a patent infringement on Apple’s part:

Today, Samsung informed the Federal Court of Australia it intends to file a cross claim against Apple Australia and Apple Inc regarding the invalidity of the patents previously asserted by Apple and also a cross claim against Apple regarding violation of patents held by Samsung by selling its iPhones and iPads

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, a hearing before the Australian court is due September 26 and 29 and Samsung agreed “not to sell or advertise” the tablet before September 30. The article also mentions the possibility of a high-profile testimony by both parties:

Apple and Samsung returned to court this afternoon, with Samsung agreeing not to sell or advertise the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before September 30. Apple will detail the specific patents involved in the case by this Friday and will provide a more comprehensive statement of facts by September 5. Samsung will provide points in answer by September 16, with the case going to a formal hearing on September 26 and 29. It was indicated today that top executives and inventors from both Apple and Samsung may appear in person or over video link to explain their patents.

It’s an interesting strategy on Samsung’s part…

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Samsung is getting into the proprietary messaging format game with a new product called ChatOn it announced today.  The service will roll out on its Bada, Android and even feature phones and will extend to competing platforms like Blackberry and iOS.  The service will run over IP and allow users to send text, images, and hand-written notes, as well as chat in groups and share video clips.

The new service, called ChatON, will be available from October and preinstalled in Samsung’s feature phones as well as smartphones running on its own bada operating system and Google’s Android software, it said.

Samsung’s partner Google has a similar Talk/Voice feature already installed on Android devices so it isn’t immediately clear which will take precedence.  All of these services are collectively eating at the SMS revenue that carriers have been squeezing out of their customers for a decade.  Apple’s iMessage is set to go live with the general release of iOS 5, also likely in October.

Speaking of the iOS maker, Apple was able to successfully block Samsung from releasing it’s ‘modified’ Australian Galaxy Tab in Australia it was reported this evening…
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In response to media reports that it has halted planned sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia until Apple lawsuit is resolved, Samsung Australia has stepped forward and shed some light on the matter. The company clarified via the official statement published by Ausdroid.net that a court injunction involves a Galaxy Tab 10.1 variant that the company “had no plans of selling” in Australia whatsoever.

They re-iterate plans to launch a version for the Australian market “in the near future”. It is not clear from the statement whether or not said version will hit the market regardless of the outcome of the Apple lawsuit in the country. The company does stress that “this undertaking” will not affect availability of their smartphones and tablets around the world. Here’s Samsung’s statement in its entirety:

Apple Inc. filed a complaint with the Federal Court of Australia involving a Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 variant that Samsung Electronics had no plans of selling in Australia. No injunction was issued by the court and the parties in the case reached a mutual agreement which stipulates that the variant in question will not be sold in Australia. A Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 for the Australian market will be released in the near future. This undertaking does not affect any other Samsung smartphone or tablet available in the Australian market or other countries. Samsung will continue to actively defend and protect our intellectual property to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communication business.

CNN has confirmed authenticity of the statement. 9to5Google has contacted Samsung Mobile seeking clarification and will updated the post accordingly when we hear back from them. We suggested that the very fact Samsung has bowed to Apple in Australia could be viewed either as their concession to Apple ahead of a possible settlement or a major setback in their legal spat with the Cupertino, California gadget maker. FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller concurs and points out that “if Samsung believed that the US version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn’t infringe any of Apple’s rights, it would have defended itself as a matter of principle”.

Cross-posted on 9to5Mac.com

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJBgALfs1hI]

Samsung, Blackboard and the University of Southern Mississippi are teaming up to bring 1,000 students free Galaxy Tab 10.1s…

The University of Southern Mississippi is piloting up to 1,000 Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices to be distributed to selected Honors College, McNair Scholars, Southern Style and Gulf Coast students. The goal of this mobile initiative is to provide students with privately funded tablets focused on enhancing access to education. These tablets, loaded with Blackboard Mobile™ Learn, will fundamentally change the educational experience by giving students and educators mobile access to their courses, syllabi, content, e-textbooks, grades, schedules, emergency notifications and much more.

Press Release follows:
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Update: Samsung issued a statement and a “workaround”

In a surprising turn of events to anyone following the ongoing Apple vs. Samsung spat, Bloomberg reported this morning that Samsung has agreed to temporarily cease sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet until their legal dispute with Apple is settled or they win court approval:

Apple Inc. escalated a patent dispute against Samsung Electronics Co. and won an agreement that the South Korean company won’t sell the newest version of its tablet computer in Australia until a lawsuit is resolved. Samsung, based in Suwon, South Korea, agreed to stop advertising the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia and not to sell the device until it wins court approval or the lawsuit is resolved.

It’s interesting because Samsung was advertising the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch in the country since July 20. Still, carriers Vodafone and Optus both hinted at plans to offer the device to their Australian customers “soon”. Samsung’s decision came as a lawyer for Apple sought an injunction before Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett in Sydney, claiming Samsung’s tablet infringes ten Apple patents. With that in mind, Samsung’s clearly on the defensive here. Apple also wants wants to “stop Samsung from selling the tablet in other countries” and Samsung’s conceding to Apple may have set an important precedence for other countries. Of course…

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Nearly three-quarters of Android sales in Britain during a twelve-week period ended June 12 came from people upgrading from so-called feature phones to their first smartphone. In addition, only 1.8 percent of new Android sales came from iOS users jumping ship, a Kantar Woldpanel ComTech survey reveals. The research didn’t take into account corporate sales or contracts and was based on extensive interviews with up to one million consumers in Europe alone.

Android has grown its share of total US handset market to 9.2 percent in June of this year, up over just one percent a year ago. The platform had a 45.20 percent share of the entire smartphone market in the country, while iOS fell from 30.6 percent share in June 2010 to 18.3 percent share in June 2011. A big part of this was price: Apple’s is among the priciest consumer smartphones and only 45 percent contracts offer the device for free versus 90 percent for Android phones.

The fall of iOS came as a result of the overall UK market growing at a faster pace than iPhone sales, which have been overshadowed for the past two months as Samsung’s Galaxy S II smartphone emerged as the best-selling smartphone. In the US, Android and iOS had 57 percent and 28.7 percent market share last month, respectively. Android is clearly victorious in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and Japan, where the platform enjoys a whopping 64.7 percent share of the smartphone market versus 27.7 percent for iOS.

Kantar analysts predict that by this time next year smartphones would account for nearly 50 percent of the overall handset market, thanks to more and more feature phone owners dumping their devices for smartphones. This is not unexpected because trends hint that eventually all phones will become smartphones. Other phone vendors are experiencing sharp declines around the world, especially Symbian which has been bleeding share as Nokia fights for survival.

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