Samsung's double whammy day

For the sake of product marketing, Samsung has had a very good Friday.

After months of battling Apple for the right to market its Galaxy Tab 10.1 - a tablet Apple claimed was far too similar to its iPad, from the shape to the packaging - the High Court has decided to allow Samsung to market the Tab.

"We see insufficient prospects of success on the part of Apple to demonstrate on appeal to this court error by the full court," High Court chief justice Robert French said, according to reports in The Australian today.

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The national paper further reported today that the Tab will be available at Harvey Norman and JBHifi in time for Christmas, probably by the end of next week according to several news sources. The 16GB WiFi version would sell for a recommended retail price of $579, while the 16GB 3G version was priced at $729.

In other news, online retailers Kogan and Mobicity are reported to have begun shipping the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus mobile, the highly anticipated smartphone equipped with the Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" operating system that allows the phone to be used as a credit card at point-of-sale retail terminals.

The smartphone will not officially launch in Australia until the 20th, but according to reports in The Australian, the online retailers have been selling an 'internationally sourced' version of the Nexus.

With the Coles announcement earlier this week about its plans to open contactless payment terminals across its 740 stores by mid-2012, Samsung may be on its way to a stellar new year.