The holidays weren't so happy for Sears: The retailer says its sales slipped 1.7% in December—including a 6% decline at its domestic flagship stores and a 2.4% gain at its Kmart division. Still, the Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based holding company says it expects quarterly earnings, due out in February, to come in above analysts' estimates, thanks to a better-than-expected tax rate. At Sears—as was true at many retailers—consumer electronics failed to lure customers, and accounted for over half of the declines in its Sears stores. Sales of appliances and tools also fell, while footwear, jewelry, and automotive goods increased in …

General Motors, an advertiser on NBC coverage of the Olympics since the Sydney summer games in 2000 has inked a new deal with NBC Universal. The program puts the brands in the network's U.S. coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games. The deal gives GM exclusive domestic automotive advertising rights. The General will give its Chevrolet and Cadillac divisions the spotlight in the program from July 27 to Aug. 12 next year. The brands will also be central to NBC Olympic-related programming leading up to the Games and online at NBCOlympics.com. "Media partnerships like this provide great …

It's now official. As had long been rumored, Apple is ending its exclusive carrier agreement with AT&T Wireless and will begin offering its iPhone through Verizon Wireless as well. Apple's iPhone 4 will be available to "qualified Verizon Wireless customers on Feb. 3. General availability for the phone will begin on Feb. 10, with pricing at $199 and $299 for 16 GB and 32 GB devices, respectively. "Verizon Wireless customers have told us they can't wait to get their hands on iPhone 4, and we think they are going to love it," said Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating …

As expected, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell MacAdam confirmed at a press event this morning that the carrier will launch the iPhone early next month after testing the Apple device on its CDMA network for more than year. "If the press writes about something long and hard enough, it eventually becomes true," he said. Apple COO Tim Cook added that the company has designed an Phone 4 for the Verizon network with all the features already offered on AT&T's GSM-based network including retina display, FaceTime video chatting and a 5-megapixel camera. (What about multitasking?) Starting Feb. 3, existing customers can …

Yahoo has hired ex-News Corp. and Disney executive Mickie Rosen to lead its Audience unit, according to an All Things Digital report. Rosen, who will oversee Yahoo's media properties, will report to Ross Levinsohn, a former collegue at News Corp. and Fuse Capital, who was brought on in October to replace Hilary Schneider as EVP of the Americas region. The report says Rosen will have the title of SVP of the Yahoo Media Network, a post combining the responsibilities of former Audience head David Ko and former Media VP Jimmy Pitaro. Ko left to head mobile games at …

Target says it chopping the cost of an iPhone to $49—down from $99—in many of its stores, matching the price cut from AT&T earlier this week. Target says the promotion is part of its Electronics Trade-In service: Customers can trade in a used cell phone for credit towards any Target purchase, including the 8GB 3GS iPhone. "This promotion offers Target's guests a tremendous value on one of the most popular electronics products in our store," the Minneapolis-based chain says in its release. The offer is limited to the 846 Target locations that currently have a Target Mobile department.

Best Buy on Monday launched what it called it's "Buy Back Program," intended to ease consumer concerns about electronics obsolescence. In essence, the program gives consumers buying laptops, netbooks, tablets, mobile phones and televisions the ability to purchase Buy Back protection for an extra fee, guaranteeing that Best Buy will purchase the product back (at a reduced rate) within two years for laptops, netbooks, tablets and mobile phones, and four years for televisions.The amount of protection (or buy back rate) goes down over time For instance, a consumer wishing to resell a tablet within six months of purchase will …

General Motors' Buick division is going after Audi and Lexus with the new Verano compact luxury car, which the automaker revealed Monday morning at the North American International Auto Show on Monday morning. John Schwegman, VP of Buick marketing said the new car is evidence of the division's "Moving quickly from niche player to full line premium brand in all core luxury segments. With Verano we are poised to play hard in one of the the largest segments of the luxury markets." He said the compact luxury region of the market comprises sales of 2 million vehicles per year …

Ford has an app ecosystem too, and they're inviting developers to dive in. Again, how many app stores do I want to manage? Apple, Android, Blackberry, etc. And now Ford? I think consumers want to buy the apps once and the content once. Then let's use them across devices.

Let me be clear.  I don’t look forward to CES with much joy.  I’m not particularly fond of Las Vegas, or crowds.  My favorite “tablet” is still yellow, legal sized with lines on it.  But I put all the personal angst aside because what’s going on at CES has a direct and profound effect on the future of communication.  I’m here to learn how my clients are going to connect with people in the coming days and years. With that being said, I am at CES once again with sore feet.   Some of my worst fears were immediately …