In each issue of Distro, Executive Editor Marc Perton publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/09/edletterheadshotmarc.jpgIn the US, Labor Day traditionally marks the end of the lazy days of summer, and the beginning of the busy fall season. While this summer was hardly quiet – it included, you might recall, major product launches from the likes of Motorola, Google, LG, HTC and others – the fall started with a bang, with Microsoft’s surprise announcement on Labor Day that it was buying Nokia’s devices and services division for $7 billion. The deal gets Microsoft a guaranteed hardware partner for Windows Phone, and quite possibly a new CEO, as the company has all but admitted that Nokia’s Stephen Elop is first in line to replace outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer. It might also be considered a bargain. Just two years ago, Google paid over $12 billion for Motorola; that same year, Microsoft made another expensive telecom acquisition: it bought Skype for $8.5 billion.
Before we even had time to digest Microsoft’s news, Apple announced – somewhat anticlimactically – that it would indeed have a major event next week, where the company is expected to launch an upgraded iPhone 5, as well as a lower-end model, along with lots of new colors. Meanwhile, Amazon announced an upgraded version of the Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader, and Google’s Android KitKat became the first operating system with a name licensed from a candy company. And this was all before the week’s real news started rolling in from IFA.
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