In what will most likely amount to very little when competing with the dominance of the iPad and Kindle, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble today announced the formation of a new partnership. Said partnership will combine B&N’s Nook and College business into an as yet unmamed subsidiary with Microsoft investing $300 Million to help get it up and running.

“The formation of [this new subsidiary] and our relationship with Microsoft are important parts of our strategy to capitalize on the rapid growth of the NOOK business, and to solidify our position as a leader in the exploding market for digital content in the consumer and education segments,” said William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble. “Microsoft’s investment in Newco, and our exciting collaboration to bring world-class digital reading technologies and content to the Windows platform and its hundreds of millions of users, will allow us to significantly expand the business.”

That sounds good. Snarky comment at the top of this post aside, as much as we like Apple and its products around here, a little competition is good for everyone — especially consumers. So, we wish Microsoft and B&N luck with their new Nook adventure.

For me details, check out Barnes & Noble’s full press release after the break.

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What do you do if you’ve managed to make your once struggling DVD rental-by-mail company into one of, if not the, biggest rental and content streaming services in the world? Well, if you’re Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, you make some poor decisions regarding pricing, apologize for them and split off your DVD rental biz into a completely different company.

That’s just what Reed has done with Netflix’s DVD rental business. He announced this week via the company’s blog that the Netflix will split its DVD and streaming video businesses and rebrand the DVD division as “Qwikster.”

“In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success,” Hastings said in the blog post. “Now I see that given the huge changes we have been recently making, I should have personally given a full justification to our members of why we are separating DVD and streaming, and charging for both,” Hastings added.

I guess Hastings felt he had to do something what with all the backlash recently over the recently rolled out price hike of 60% which helped drop the company’s stock by almost 50%. Not only that but Starz has also has not renewed its deal with the company which means fewer movies and other content for the service.

Qwikster will be a separate company and will, in addition to movies and TV programs, also offer video game rentals. Expect to see Qwikster.com to go live in the next few weeks.

So, what do we think of this? Is it a good move or the last gasp of a dying company out of touch with customers? Sound off in the comments.

I guess it doesn’t pay to be Jada Pinkett Smith these days. First, rumors surface of your alleged affair with Mark Anthony which made Will Smith cry and now TNT has decided not to renew your TV show.

That’s right, for those of you watching Smith and her co-stars each week on Hawthorne, the show will not be back for a fourth season. This news comes after TNT recently canceled another show that, at least in my opinion, was pretty good and worth watching: Men of a Certain Age.

Apparently also “on the bubble” is the Jason Lee starrer Memphis Beat, which has been on for two seasons already. According to reports, the odds of it returning are pretty much even money.

Here’s the official statement about Hawthorne from TNT:

TNT has decided not to order a fourth season of HawthoRNe. TNT truly appreciates the tremendous dedication of everyone involved in HawthoRNe. The series gave TNT the opportunity to work with many outstanding people, including Jada Pinkett Smith and the rest of the show’s talented cast, crew, producers and writers. We wish everyone involved with HawthoRNe nothing but the best.

Nothing but the best. Isn’t that nice? And they say people in Hollywood don’t care.

Even though most of the country is going through some tough economic times at the moment, the fine folks at Apple (and its shareholders) are literally laughing all the way to the bank. Why? Well, as of market close on Wednesday, Apple’s market capitalization is $337.17 Billion. Yes, you read that right.

That market cap is $6 Billion higher than Exxon Mobile, which ended the day at $330.77 Billion. This development currently makes Apple the most valuable company in the world. Although, with the nature of the market these days, both companies will likely trade the number one spot in the days to come.

This news is pretty impressive considering Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy less than 20 years ago. The company, thanks in large part to the return of Stave Jobs and some truly innovative and amazing products, has surely rebounded and come out on top in spite of the naysayers who predicted its demise back then.

Apple is expected to launch new iPhone and iPad models this fall which will undoubtedly only help the company continue to dominiate. I, for one, can’t to see what happens over the next 20 years.

In a world where branding is extremely important, one company has risen to the top — at least according to a recent study. What is this top company? Why, it’s Apple of course.

According to a study conducted by advertising firm WPP and published in their “BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands,” Apple’s brand value has increased 859% since 2006, and jumped 84% to $153.3 billion this year. Yes, that’s a lot.

Apple isn’t alone, however, as tech companies are predominate on the list with AT&T, China Mobile, IBM, and Microsoft all having spots in the top-10 most valuable brands list. McDonald’s is the only non-tech brand in the top-5. Google had reigned supreme for the past four years before being displaced by Apple, and Amazon surpassed Walmart to become the No. 1 retailer.

Not bad for a company that was thought to be dead not that long ago. Click through to read the full press release from WPP.

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In what may not be completely surprising news but, at least to some, may be disappointing, your choices of wireless carrier in the U.S. look to be dropping by one. Why? AT&T, the nation’s second largest wireless provider, announced late yesterday that they will acquire T-Mobile USA from parent company Deutsche Telekom in a cash and stock deal worth approximately $39 Billion.

What does that mean for you and me? Well, for me at least, it means nothing. I’m a Verizon Wireless customer. For those of you who are not or who enjoy having as many wireless choices as possible, it means you will now have to pick between AT&T, Verizon or Sprint if you want to go with a national wireless company.

Choice and, more to the point, competition, is one of the best things about pretty much any kind of business. Competition forces companies to constantly innovate and hopefully strive to be better and treat customers well so they will stay. Having fewer choices and thus less competition can allow companies to become complacent and not try their best.

With the lackluster reputation AT&T already has with many customers, I can’t see that the company having fewer competitors is a good thing. What’s their motivation to change and be better if the customer has nowhere else to go? The answer is they won’t have any. And that, friends, is not good.

Click through to check out the full press release from AT&T about this announcement.

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Given that many people are unhappy with AT&T, but love the iPhone, it’s not surprising that once the iPhone came to Verizon Wireless, it would be a success. With pre-orders for existing Verizon customers taking place yesterday and stopping after only about 24 hours due to being sold out, it’s not surprise that Verizon today has announced record sales figures for the device.

According to the company, sales of the iPhone were bigger than any first-day phone launch for them ever. In addition, the company announced these unprecedented sales happened during the first two hours the iPhone was available, which was between the hours of 3 and 5 AM.

Impressive but also pretty understandable. There’s been pent up demand for the iPhone with millions of customers already on Verizon looking to have the device. We can probably expect those numbers to climb even higher once the iPhone is available to all (including AT&T switchers) on February 10th.

Check out the full press release from Verizon after the jump. Did you get your iPhone yesterday?

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If you were one of the many Wonder Woman fans eagerly awaiting the debut of the new show featuring your favorite female Amazon, sad to say but you’re going to have to wait a bit longer. The TV reboot of Wonder Woman that we told you about previously is being postponed.

Set to be written and produced by big time TV guy David E. Kelley, the show had gone out to various networks after Kelly’s script was finished but as if often the case with high-profile and expensive projects like this (superheroes in WWII), the major networks decided to pass or couldn’t reach a consensus decision. According to reports, this is not a reflection on Kelly’s take on the material (which is said to be good) but more on the current state of network TV and the timing of the project.

Supposedly, here’s how things went. This will give you a bit of insight into how Hollywood works. The project was supposedly taken to the networks on Wednesday night. Fox and ABC passed and the CW couldn’t afford it. This left CBS and NBC. The execs at CBS could not make a decision and with no real person in charge at NBC yet (new chief of programming Bob Geeenblat has yet to start) it was a no go there as well.

So, for those keeping score, that was a pass (because we don’t like anything good), a pass (because we’re owned by Disney who owns Marvel), a too expensive, a we can’t make up our minds and a we can’t make a decision because we’re afraid to do so before a new boss starts. Yes, I added those little items in parenthesis but after being around Hollywood for many years I have learned to read between the lines.

Besides, between the lines is where all the interesting stuff happens anyway. And no, that pic of Lynda Carter has nothing to do with David E. Kelly’s Wonder Woman TV show. I just like it, so there.

As if breaking a couple records wasn’t enough, Activision announced Tuesday a third record-breaking milestone achieved by its hit, Call of Duty: Black Ops. The latest addition to Activision’s Call of Duty franchise first set a new launch-day sales record when it racked up $360 million in first-day sales.

Then, the game beat previous five-day sales records when it did $650 Million in sales during its first five days of availability. Now, Activision has announced that its extremely popular first-person shooter has pulled in over $1 Billion in less than a month. Yes, that’s quite a lot.

“In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and “Avatar” have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly,” said Activision CEO Bobby Kotick in a statement. “This is a tribute to the global appeal of the Call of Duty franchise, the exceptional talent at Treyarch and the hundreds of extraordinary people across our many Call of Duty studios including Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer that work tirelessly on the franchise.”

As fans of the game, we can understand why it’s so popular. Let’s hope this means we can look forward to more games like this for years to come. Click through for the full press release from Activision.

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Unless you’re pretty knowledgeable, when you think of powerful server hardware for your business or other enterprise level needs the first manufacturer that pops into your mind probably isn’t Apple. It’s more likely Dell, HP or even IBM that comes to mind.

To most consumers, Apple is the company that makes the iPhone, iPad and the Mac and not a line of server hardware designed for businesses. It seems Apple sees themselves that way too as the company has announced it will discontinue sales of their Xserver server hardware as of January 31, 2011.

The company made the announcement via a post on its Xserve splash page. Apple does indicate it will continue to support the Xserve but you just won’t be able to buy a new one after that date. Apple has also made a PDF “transition guide” for Xserve users (Or potential users) which explains the alternatives to Xserve for users wishing to deploy Apple hardware and OSX Server software.

With this announcement it begs the question what Apple has planned for its server software. For the moment, the Mac Pro and Mac Mini server support OSX Server and based on the “transition guide” it sems they will continue to do so, at least for now. Perhaps this means Apple is going to license its server software for use on other Intel based platforms?

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With Instant Netflix making itself readily available on both the Playstation 3 and Wii without the use of a disc this week, there have already been some major leaps made in the world of streaming. Netflix has already projected that the last quarter of their yer will see more streaming customers than disc users.

With projections like that, action is required.

Until now, Netflix users who want to stream have been tethered to a disc-subscription plan, which means that the only way to get Instant Netflix is by subscribing to at least their lowest disc-subscription plan of one disc at a time, for a limited time. The company plans to change that by the end of the year. From the LA Times.

The company last month started offering a streaming-only service in Canada for $7.99 per month. Hastings said success there has led Netflix to test an identical offering in the U.S. If the test fares well, all consumers will be able to sign up for streaming-only service. Chief Executive Reed Hastings did not identify a price, but it is likely to be the same as it is in Canada.

It’s also noted that this won’t effect their current subscription plans, only annex a new plan at the bottom of the scale to accommodate those users who only plan to watch movies and TV shows via their computer or streaming device.

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During Apple’s recent iPhone 4 press conference, they made some pretty hefty claims about other smartphones having similar problems as the iPhone 4, including devices manufactured by HTC, Blackberry, and Nokia. Devices that they singled out, such as the HTC Droid Eris and HTC Nexus One, supposedly have their own history of reception problems.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who heard this and went “Huh?”, as I have had no reception issues with my recently purchased HTC Droid Incredible, because HTC has started fighting back with numbers of their own.

While only 0.55 percent of calls received by Applecare are about the iPhone 4′s reception issues, HTC’s numbers were at a measily 0.016 percent of calls about the HTC Droid Eris. Though the phone was recently discontinued, it has been out far longer with fewer complaints than Apple claims to have received.

Regardless, any issues that the iPhone 4 has cannot be compared to phones like the HTC Eris, as its antenna is located on the top of the phone while most new smartphones have them on the bottom.

Nokia and RIM have both commented on the situation on their own, but Nokia stressed that reception interference due to human hands was a problem across the smartphone market and wasn’t limited to just Apple and the iPhone 4. Regardless of what phones have this problem, it’s unfair for Apple to just say “It’s ok that our phone has a reception problem, because these phones do too”, without first looking at the numbers.