Apple recently confirmed rumors that it has bought Anobit, an Israel based flash storage developer. The confirmation was made by Steve Downling, Apple’s official spokesperson, to Bloomberg. But Dowling did not elaborate further on the details of the acquisition, including how much the company paid for Anobit.

Apple’s acquisition of Anobit plays into the Cupertino, Ca. company’s hardware goals. Flash storage is an integral part of Apple’s many consumer products – the iPhone, iPad and different iPod models. It is also starting to play a big part in its Macintosh line as it begins migrating from platter-based hard drives to solid state hard drives. For example, the Macbook Air has been employing solid state hard drives for years now. Apple has also started offering SSDs as an optional configuration for many Macintosh laptops.

Anobit is not a very well known flash storage manufacturer, in fact, it doesn’t even have its own manufacturing facilities. But these are not important to Apple. What the company is after is Anobit’s technology, which are flash memory controllers that use a proprietary signal processing that gives a more beneficial effect on the performance, power consumption and longevity of flash memory. Apple has used Anobit in its devices for a number of product generations and acquiring it means getting a lock on the further development of Anobit’s technology. This could mean Apple will now have a hold on the further evolution of flash technology and allow it to further develop flash storage that will meet the specific requirements that Apple needs for the new generation of iOS devices it will produce.

This could be proof that the global Blackberry service outage that happened a few weeks back has had a very negative effect on RIM.

In a recent survey conducted by iPass, it was discovered that the iPhone has now overtaken RIM’s Blackberry as the preferred smartphone of businessmen and people involved in business. About 2,300 mobile workers involved in almost 1,100 different enterprises all over the world participated in the survey and 45 percent of the respondents said that they use an Apple iPhone, compared to the 32.2 percent who said they use a Blackberry. Just a year ago, the Blackberry was ahead (though just by a little margin) of the iPhone, 34.5 percent to 31.1 percent.

Another surprising result of the survey is the doubling of Android phone users. Among those surveyed, 21.3 percent said they own an Android powered smartphone.

Equally interesting is the answer to the respondents’ buying intentions for the next year. About 18 percent of the respondents said they will buy an Apple device. The next popular choice was Anrdoid, with 11.2 percent wanting to get an Android smartphone. Only 2.3 percent said they intend to get a Blackberry next year. The service outage may have been a significant factor for this very low intention to get a Blackberry device. The service outage affected a lot of Blackberry users, preventing them from getting their emails, which is the main come-on for buying a Blackberry device in the first place.

It remains to be seen if the new Blackberry operating system, BBX, will offer enough cool features to attract attention again.

Today however, Microsoft is singing a different tune. As Google got bigger, so did Apple and it seems today that Microsoft is going back to its roots as an innovator and underdog while Apple remains steadfast against its battle with Google. The latest seems to be talks to replace Apple’s default iPhone and Safari search with Bing, in the stead of Google Search.

Ten years sure does a lot to people. It does more to companies. I think Microsoft is slowly recovering and going back to their “A Game” and part of the reason is because its competitor has seen that my enemy’s enemy could be my friend.

Turning Bing into the iPhone’s default search will reap a ton for Microsoft, not only by brand equity but for entire industries to be built around Bing’s interface (i.e. mobile advertising).

With an iPhone, “The New York Times” application is available for free. The app is a near full version of the newspaper’s web site and it allows you to view up to the minute news flawlessly. The articles are easy to read as you merely touch the headline and then zoom in on whatever size is needed by pinching, or reverse pinching the item.

Whether one likes to see the newest stories, or the most viewed, the “NYTimes” app has it all! There is a “Latest” news category, a “Popular,” and a “Saved” section wherein one can save articles that are of interest.

Almost everything else that could be found in the physical Sunday Times paper is here too. There is a “World” section, a “U.S.” news section, and a “Politics” section if one is in need of some sleep. There is the infamous “Business” section, “N.Y./Region” spot for local news, one for “Technology,” “Sports,” and much more!

Grade: A

The New York Times

Many of you may remember Mozy’s Home remote back up client for Mac. We’ve talked about it before. Yesterday Mozy launched a Beta version of their Mozy Pro back up solutions for Mac as well.

The service allows back ups of all your business computers while managing both backup and restore processes from a web-based admin console. The service looks nice and full featured, and is priced at $3.95 per desktop, or $6.95 per server, and $0.50 per GB.

I needed an online back-up service like this, and signed up for Mozy today. I’ll let you know over the next few weeks how well it works, but so far – I have no complaints.

You can find out more about Mozy Pro for Mac right here.

We’re going to start off 2007 with a look at some of the best hardware and software for small business on the Mac platform.  We already have several products we’re going to be looking at, but we want to get your input as well…

What products do you use in your small business?  What software helps you get your work done faster and better?

Contact Us and let us know some of your suggestions for hardware, software, or other devices that work with Macs that can help small business/home office readers maximize their time and money…We’ll gladly provide return links to your site, blog or business in return for the tip!

With an attractive new interface designed to simplify access to its many telephony features, PhoneValet 5.0 includes Parliant’s new patent pending Call Completion Technology (CCT). CCT directs an incoming caller to a person or department, plays music or audio information as the caller is being transferred, then directs the caller to voice mail or other audio information options if the call can’t be answered in person.

In a small business setting for example, a prospect that selects “Sales” will hear music or an audio track announcing a new product as the call transfer is taking place. As the caller is listening to music or audio information PhoneValet alerts people inside or outside the office (outside via PhoneValet Anywhere) that a “Sales” call is going unanswered, giving them the option of answering the prospect’s call before it goes to voice mail.

If the call isn’t answered within a specified time the prospect can be given a choice of 1) try another menu option, 2) record a message in the “Sales” voice mail box, 3) return to previous menu, or 4) hang up.

“Big phone services vendors have convinced people that only expensive phone switches can connect callers to the right person or department,” said Parliant President Kevin Ford. “Our new Call Completion Technology is a smart new solution that saves time and
money. For the price of an answering machine, PhoneValet offers a comprehensive call management platform.”

PhoneValet 5.0 also adds unlimited call trees, giving callers a logical path to access dynamic announcements. Callers can transfer to voice mail boxes or outside phone numbers as necessary while hearing music or other audio information while the transfer is taking place.
Depending on how the call tree is set up, callers can be directed to specific voice mailboxes or information on weekends, at night or during lunch hours. Different lines on a call tree can also present different choices.

PhoneValet 5.0 also offers new functionality for home users who simply want to manage calls more effectively. The new release expands Apple Address Book integration for dialing and looking up incoming callers, and many other ingenious call management features. One of these features is browser-based remote control that shows status of all lines and allows stop and start recording from remote Macs or PCs connected via PhoneValet Anywhere – a $59.95 option.

PhoneValet 5.0 retails at $169.95 per line for new users (including software and Parliant’s USB telephone adapter) and is available from Parliant’s Web site at www.parliant.com. PhoneValet 5.0 is a Universal Binary, requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 later, QuickTime 6.5 or
later and an available USB port.

PhoneValet Anywhere retails for $59.95 and the PhoneValet Podcast Bundle retails for $74.95. Users of previous releases of PhoneValet can upgrade for $39.95 per line. Parliant’s popular 30/30 program provides a $30 rebate to new PhoneValet users switching from competing systems (full details available online at www.parliant.com). As with all products purchased from Parliant’s Web store, PhoneValet 5.0 comes with a 30-day money-back customer satisfaction guarantee.

Check back soon for a full review of PhoneValet