Main menu

May

Windows Phone Leapfrogs BlackBerry for Third Place in Mobile Space

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 8:26 am

Trio-Windows-Phone-8X-HTC Windows Phone is now the third-largest mobile platform worldwide, gaining more than triple its market share year-over-year and leapfrogging the recovering BlackBerry in the midst.

According to the latest numbers from IDC, a leading market research firm, 7 million Windows Phone units were shipped in the first quarter for 3.2 percent market share. BlackBerry moved 6.3 million units, but dropped to 2.9 percent market share. (more…)

Mar

Must Watch: Nokia Chief Tosses Interviewer’s iPhone on National TV

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 9:29 am

The last thing that Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop wanted to see during his interview on a Finnish TV show, promoting the new Lumia 620, was an iPhone. But, after Elop refused to comment on speculation surrounding the purported Lumia 928, the interviewer pulled out his Apple smartphone in a rather humorous revelation. “I have an iPhone,” said the presenter. “I don’t want to have an iPhone. I want to have a Nokia phone.”

“Oh, how embarrassing,” quivered Elop, who was clearly caught off guard. “I can take care of that for you, right here.” In a nervous gesture, Elop actually grabbed the iPhone out of the presenter’s hands and tossed it across the floor. “There, it’s gone.” Surprisingly, the interviewer did not seem overwhelmingly shocked at the situation that had just unfolded before his eyes, instead further pressuring Elop to comment on the Lumia 928.

While it might have been a nerve-wracking moment for Elop, this video has certainly helped bring attention — be it positive or negative — to Nokia and its Windows Phone lineup. Plus, the presenter was being overly aggressive about the Lumia 928 anyways, so he practically deserved for this to happen. “Throwing an iPhone like a boss… wait… he’s already a boss,” one top comment on YouTube reads.

[WMPoweruser]

Mar

Microsoft Attacks Galaxy S III in New TV Advertisement

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 8:30 am

In a rather peculiar marketing move, per usual, Microsoft has decided to attack the Galaxy S III in a new TV advertisement. The spot features a Microsoft representative that convinces two customers, who the company ensures are not paid actors, that they’ll like the Nokia Lumia 920 better than the Samsung Galaxy S III.

In fact, he offers the couple $100 if they still like their Galaxy S III better. But after having just one photo taken of them with the Lumia 920, and realizing that the camera is superior, the couple is sold. They make the switch to the Lumia 920. I’d have taken the $100 cash and used it to upgrade to the Galaxy S4. But that’s just me.

[BGR]

Mar

Nokia Thinks Windows Phone Can Be Bigger Than Android, iOS

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 9:41 am

Windows-Phone-8

Android and iOS continue to dominate the mobile space, controlling up to 92 percent of operating system market share, but Nokia CEO Steven Elop believes that Windows Phone could eventually top both platforms. He shared those thoughts with Bloomberg in a recent interview at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona:

“The first thing to recognize is that we selected Windows Phone as our platform so that it would be a key point in differentiation. So while there are many vendors doing many things with Android, and it’s hard to tell a lot of that apart, we stand on our own in terms of what we’re doing with Windows Phone. [...] It can be the biggest operating system in the world. We have a lot of work to do jointly with Microsof to make that happen.”

(more…)

Feb

Week In Microsoft: Office 365, Mending With Google, and WP 7.8

Posted by Thuc Nhan at 4:26 am

Microsoft This Week

The Surface Pro inches closer to its release next weekend on February 7 and enthusiasm is high in cyberspace. Many are waiting for the Surface Pro for its “non-compromising” vapor-mag metalwork, but many will also be in for a memory shock. Surface RT didn’t fare too well during the holiday sales and Microsoft is hoping for a better second round.

As important as the Surface Pro is, it wasn’t the only headline. This week, Microsoft released their brand new Office 2013 suite to the public, worked out some problems with Google, and finally delivered on broken promises to early Windows Phone 7 adopters. Lets go through all the news item for the week of January 28 – February 3.

(more…)

Jan

Week in Microsoft: Q2 Earnings, Surface Pro Incoming, and Sweet Rumors

Posted by Thuc Nhan at 11:00 am

After a quiet week, probably due to the CES hangover, Microsoft is back in full force. Top stories for this week includes a Microsoft bailout for Dell, record $21.5 billion Q2 revenue, and an official date for the imminent launch of the Surface Pro. Here are the summaries for the week of January 21^st-27^th: (more…)

Jan

Samsung Loves Windows Phone, But Carriers Want Leverage

Posted by Thuc Nhan at 8:32 am

samsung balance

There has been a growing concern in the Windows Phone camp as to why Samsung hasn’t released any Windows Phone 8 devices in the United States. After all, Samsung was the first OEM to announce a Windows Phone 8 flagship device, the ATIV S, way back in late August last year at IFA 2012 in Berlin.

The ATIV S was missing-in-action at the launch of Windows Phone 8 last November. Since then, there has been no words from any U.S carriers about availability of the ATIV S flagship. When there are announcements from other international carriers, the ATIV S ran into multiple setbacks and delays. (more…)

Dec

2012

Microsoft Fires Back at Google With Its Own ‘Winter Cleaning’

Posted by Thuc Nhan at 5:00 am

Last week, Google announced that it will stop Exchange Active Sync (EAS) support for non-business users in a suggestive post titled “Winter cleaning.” It’s a direct attack on Microsoft if nothing else, as EAS is the only method to have a relatively good Gmail experience on Windows Phone 8 devices. iOS, too, for that matter.

EAS is a communication protocol designed by Microsoft to sync not only emails but also contacts and calendars. Since its introduction way back in 2002, EAS has synchronously become the industry standard that can be found on virtually all devices that can connect to the internet.

Earlier today, Microsoft responded to Google’s decision in a post on its Outlook blog, claiming that they “were very surprised” by Google’s decision to remove Exchange Active Sync support in Gmail. Microsoft calls Google’s decision a “degrade” for users and suggest them to switch from Gmail to its newborn Outlook.com email service to get those features back.

Outlook.com was announced by Microsoft last summer to replace its decade old Hotmail service. Currently, Outlook.com already gained 25 millions users according to latest statistics. That number could balloon relative quickly as Microsoft’s 200+ millions Hotmail users had already begun to receive emails about upgrading services.

Microsoft’s new Outlook.com email service.

However the stumbling block for Microsoft is Windows Phone 8′s lack of proper Gmail support once Google finally shuts down its EAS support for regular Gmail users at the end of January next year. Other than EAS, Windows Phone 8 devices currently only support POP, which is an ancient communication technology and not preferable in this day and age of instant push communications.

iOS users will also be affected if they rely on EAS for all their emails, calendars, and contacts synching with Google’s services. Fortunately for iOS users, they can reconfigure their Gmail account to use alternative methods such as IMAPS, CardDAV, and CalDAV to sync emails, calendars, and contacts. More on this in a later post.

The big picture here is that there is a war going on right now between Microsoft and Google, and the users are the casualties.

Dec

2012

Google Won’t Make Apps For Windows 8 or Windows Phone Because Nobody is Using Those Platforms

Posted by Joe Rossignol at 11:20 am

Ouch, this one has to hurt for Microsoft. Google Apps product manager director Clay Bavor, speaking with British tech blog V3, claims that Google has no interest in developing native Gmail or Google Drive apps for Windows Phone or Windows 8 due to a lack of interest in those platforms from users.

“We have no plans to build out Windows apps. We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8,” he said.

As the tech landscape continues to shift to the mobile space, Bavor adds that Google will continue to work on improving its mobile experience, particularly on the Android and iOS platforms. Google is off to a great start in that respect, with its beautiful Google Maps app for iPhone on the App Store.

“In 2012 we’ve laid some of the ground work and really improved the experience of our core apps on mobile devices, such as adding native editing of spreadsheets for both iOS and Android apps,” Bavor said.

“We really see these as the first versions of our mobile experience, though, so we will continue to make big investments in mobile in 2013 with the goal of having beautiful mobile apps.”

As echoed by BGR, this situation means that perhaps the Windows platform is not a priority in terms of development anymore. Microsoft was several years late in offering a true smartphone experience with Windows Phone, while it again entered the game late with its Surface tablet. (more…)