Vic Gundotra, Google’s engineering VP, says that the future of mobile apps lies in web-based applications. The iPhone is successful because of the Apple App store. There are now over 65,000 applications on the store and counting. Consumers prefer native applications over web applications on a mobile device.

Have you ever tried playing a mobile game online? It’s painful. Native applications can use all the great features of a phone such as GPS, camera, graphics hard ware, etc. Of course web apps can do the same, but never as good.

The mobile application market has exploded because of the iPhone. And companies that are against the model are holding themselves down. There is nothing wrong with focusing on both native mobile apps and web based mobile applications. Hopefully Google has a solid plan for its Android Market.

The insider-trading charges against Mark Cuban have been thrown out by a federal judge. Cuban maintained his innocence throughout the trial. It all started in 2004 when the CEO of Mamma.com told Mark that the company planned to raise money through a PIPE (private investment in public equity) deal. A PIPE deal involves selling public common stock to private investors.

At the time, Mark owned 6% (600,000 shares) of the company. He sold the shares right after finding out about the PIPE deal to avoid a loss of around $750,000. PIPE deals often strongly dilute existing shareholders’ equity in a company. Mark is a smart man and he knew exactly how such a deal would affect the value of his equity in the company.

The SEC alleged that Mark used this insider information to sell his shares before the PIPE deal took place. Mark denied the charges because he was not obligated to hold the shares after he learned about the PIPE deal. Judge Fitzwater, the judge that threw out his case, agreed with Mark.

The ruling will most definitely have implications for similar cases in the future. According to the ruling on this case, a person can only be charged if he or she receives sensitive insider information and agrees not to use it for personal gains.

Verizon has slashed the Storm’s price to $99 with a 2 year contract. The price was probably dropped to make room for the Storm 2. The Storm never caught on as well as the iPhone. Although its initial sales were strong, the figures steadily dropped. The Storm 2 is rumored to be released soon.

CrackBerry posted a picture that confirms the addition of a Storm 2 Dummy unit to Verizon’s inventory system.

Mark Zuckerberg posted on the company blog that Facebook has hit 250 million users. ComScore says that Facebook had 316 million unique visitors worldwide in May. So Mark could be under-counting the users again. The social network added 50 million users in just three months.

MySpace on the other hand says that its users are confused about what the site is. Its growth and popularity is also starting to slow down. It’s much “cooler” to be on Facebook now.

The ASUS eee PC T91 is the first touch enabled netbook to hit the US market. The netbook converts into a tablet-style pc. Unfortunately the netbook does not include support for multi-touch. It comes with a 8.9 inch wide screen. It has 52GB of hybrid storage (16 GB SSD, 16 GB SD, 20 GB online).

Features:

• 8.9″ display in the world today.
• TouchSuite software
• Touchscreen and Convertible Tablet PC Form Factor for Flexibility of Use
• TV tuner
• Global Positioning System
• Extended Battery Life with Super Hybrid Engine
• 3G plus (HSUPA) technology*, enabling high-speed Internet access anywhere.
• 802.11n

The hostility between Microsoft and Apple continues to grow. At Microsoft’s 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference, company COO Kevin Turner mentioned that Apple called MS to complain about their Laptop Hunter ads.

“And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business.

I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, “Is this a joke? Who are you?” Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them.”

Microsoft has been running Laptop Hunter ads to attack Apple’s PC VS Mac ads. The point of the ads is to show that a PC laptop is faster and cheaper than its Macbook counterpart.

Intel reported $8 billion in 2Q revenue. The figure is up 12% from last quarter. Its earnings beat most forecasts. Intel’s CEO described the quarter to quarter earnings growth as the best since 1988. The earnings reflect an improvement in the tech sector.

Intel’s earnings were helped by strong sales of its ATOM netbook processor and its mobile notebook processor line. Intel sees chip demand strengthening in the second half of the year.

The company has $11.3 billion in cash.

Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, announced the company’s plans to open retail stores near existing Apple stores this fall. Microsoft had hinted at opening retail stores last February but nothing more was said. After Kevin Turner’s comment during a web conference yesterday, a Microsoft spokesperson said “There will be scenarios where we have stores in proximity to Apple.” It looks like the PC / Mac wars will get a lot more interesting this fall.

Microsoft had opened a small retail store in San Francisco about 10 years ago but it went out of business. Apple’s retail stores are hugely successful. Microsoft will have a lot of trouble overcoming the “i” factor with its stores. Apple’s advantage is that it makes the hardware that runs its software. Microsoft on the other hand just makes the Windows OS. It does not manufacture PCs. So its retail stores will likely end up selling DELL and HP PCs.

If Microsoft decides to only sell MS software at its stores, the idea is doomed from day one.