Best Buy has greatly expanded the mobile phone side of their business and has opened up new stand alone Best Buy Mobile shops.
This is where the iPad (or Apple) has an advantage when it comes to tablets (even ignoring the fact that there are only 20 measly tablet apps for Honeycomb and almost 70, 000 for the iPad): Android mainly got pushed by Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile shops (because they had no iPhone, and because most Android OEMs give the shops a better cut than Apple does).
Their current stable of sponsors includes such companies as Bass Pro Shops, Mobile, Quicken Loans, and Outback Steakhouse to name just a few.
FORBES: Danica's Historic Daytona 500 Pole is Huge for Fox, Stewart-Haas Racing, and GoDaddy.com
He sees no prospect of the retail sector's equivalent of the seventh cavalry - the tide of coffee shops and mobile phone stores that colonised Britain's high streets after the last recession.
Nearly 40% would like mobile coupons for restaurants and shops on the terminal and concourses, and about 30% would like information on easily accessible food and beverages.
Eventually, the company plans to run the products out of local mom and pop shops or over mobile phones to make the products as accessible as possible.
This fragmented mobile landscape has put IT shops in a bind as they look for the best way to mobilize apps and processes for the widest range of devices without reinventing the wheel every six months.
The busy road is lined with shops selling garish synthetic saris and mobile phone sim cards, and signs advertise instant noodles, cough syrup and skin lightening creams.
Smaller mobile merchants such as food trucks, coffee shops and taxis have all flocked to the small Square reader, which plugs into an iPhone or iPad's headphone port.
Retailers must now offer multi-channel options - shops, a website, purchases via mobile phones - to be successful, he said.
Foreboding council estates and concrete tower blocks overlook rundown high streets full of fried chicken shops and stalls offering knock-off mobile phones.
The plan is to supply scanners to village shops and link them to distant banks via mobile phones.
These devices range from the inventory trackers that drivers use to touch base with logistics centers, or mobile credit card scanners that are increasingly popping up at shops to allow customers to buy on-the-spot rather than lugging shopping carts into check-out lines.
His phone outlets, called Hit Shops, give away satellite receivers, WebTV boxes, and mobile e-mail routing services to get the revenue stream.
T-Mobile, a wireless operator, in over 2, 000 Starbucks coffee shops in America.
At the Samsung Experience Shops, consumers can experience Samsung's full range of mobile products including smartphones, tablets, laptops, connected cameras and accessories, all in one location.
ENGADGET: Samsung partners with Best Buy to bring Experience Shops to 1,400 stores
Dunkin' Donuts plans to test new mobile technologies in select markets in the next two weeks that will allow shops to send customized offers to customers.
Now that we have widespread cellular coverage, with high speed data networks in many homes, offices and "points of congregation" such as coffee shops, we have all we need to signal to the mobile.
The shops enable consumers to interact with and buy Samsung's latest mobile products and experience how the devices connect together to enrich their lives.
ENGADGET: Samsung partners with Best Buy to bring Experience Shops to 1,400 stores
If successful, Finestrella could help make mobile calling and internet as much of a given as it is for those of us sitting in coffee shops, walking through airports, or working at the office.
FORBES: Affordable Communications: Finestrella At The Forefront
应用推荐