Samsung's mobile profits slide as Apple catches up ... Amazon has an enterprise mail service up its sleeve ... and more

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Samsung's profit slides as mobile power wanes

Samsung Electronics' smartphone business saw a slide in operating profit of 64 percent in fourth quarter results reported Thursday, as competition from Apple at the high end and Xiaomi and Lenovo at the low end cut into business. But its semiconductor business improved thanks to increased demand for its DRAM. Overall, net profit fell for the third quarter in a row, this time by 27 percent from a year earlier.

Apple ties with Samsung for smartphone market share

The iPhone 6 has sold so well that Apple tied with Samsung for the top position in the smartphone market in the fourth quarter, closing the gap with its South Korean competitor. Both Apple and Samsung shipped 74.5 million smartphones during the period, each claiming close to 20 percent share of the market, research firm Strategy Analytics said.

Qualcomm issues a warning as "major customer" defects

Samsung may be fending off competitors on all sides but it's still a hugely important customer in the mobile space, and its rumored decision not to use Qualcomm's 64-bit Snapdragon 810 in its upcoming Galaxy S6 smartphone may be hitting the chipmaker hard. Qualcomm said revenue from its chip division will be lower than expected in the second half of the year, in part because the 810 "will not be in the upcoming design cycle of a large customer's flagship device."

Amazon takes the email fight to Google and Microsoft

Amazon.com is getting ready to jump into the online hosted apps space, with an email service that will go up against Gmail and Microsoft's cloud-based email. The offering is said to be called WorkMail, and targets the enterprise.

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The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, January 29