One of Microsoft's big talking points at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week is that the Windows Phone Marketplace has hit 50,000 apps.
To cite one example of this meme, Microsoft spokesman Frank X. Shaw blogged Monday night, "Windows Phone has more than 50,000 published apps and games in Marketplace -- with an average of 300 more added each day." More
Posted by Scott Bekker on January 10, 20121 comments
AT&T will carry an HTC Titan II with the Windows Phone OS that sports a 16-megapixel camera and LTE support in the next few months.
The device is one of the first announced in what promises to be an action-packed Consumer Electronics Show for Windows Phone. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reportedly has already been on stage during the AT&T keynote today, although his swan song keynote at CES doesn't happen until tonight. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on January 09, 20121 comments
In the run-up to the Consumer Electronics Show, the Gray Lady ran a long piece over the weekend on Windows Phone.
It's relatively light on news, other than not-for-attribution confirmation that Nokia planned to unveil a Windows Phone-based Lumia 900 today at CES.
But The New York Times got good access to Windows Phone principles, including Joe Belfiore and Terry Myerson, about the development process for Microsoft's entry. Juicy details include a "cage match" meeting in Redmond in late 2008 after the iPhone had taken off. It was during that one marathon meeting that a Microsoft team basically decided that there was nothing in Windows Mobile worth saving.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on January 09, 20120 comments
Nokia on Monday unveiled a new Windows Phone that will be coming to AT&T's U.S. network this spring. While it shares the slick industrial design of Nokia's other two Windows Phone entries, it includes one key additional feature: a front-facing camera.
The Nokia Lumia 900, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, will have a 1-megapixel front-facing camera for video chats. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on January 09, 20122 comments
The trend lines look menacing for Internet Explorer's days as the de facto Web browser standard, a role IE held due to its long-standing dominance in market share.
According to figures released by StatCounter for all of 2011, the Google Chrome browser ended the year with 27 percent of global share, while Microsoft's IE closed out with 39 percent. At the beginning of 2011, Chrome claimed 16 percent of global share and IE had 46 percent share. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on January 03, 20121 comments
It may be a few days before Christmas, but it's been a busy week when it comes to enterprise-class vendor support for media tablets and mobility solutions.
VMware Inc. is releasing software to allow Kindle Fire users to view virtualized versions of Windows and other operating systems on Amazon's media tablet. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 21, 20110 comments
Reports are starting to come in about reference designs for "Medfield," Intel's latest effort to be relevant in the smartphone and tablet conversation.
Back at Computex, Intel highlighted the 32nm Medfield processor, which is a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) technology to compete with ARM-based systems. Design goals included tablets that weighed under 1.5 pounds and provided all-day battery life. The chipmaker's roadmap called for the processors to enter production sometime in 2011 and for Intel OEM partners to come out with Medfield-based tablets in the first half of 2012. At the time, Intel was talking about supporting Google Android, Windows and MeeGo. The MeeGo joint project between Intel and Nokia was scrapped when Nokia entered a long-term partnership with Microsoft. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 21, 20110 comments
Memo to Microsoft: The administrator isn't the customer anymore. The end user is.
Even at this late date, with Microsoft playing catch-up on smartphones and tablets and losing overall PC share, there is daily evidence that Microsoft doesn't get it yet. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 20, 20114 comments
Regular readers of my column in Redmond Channel Partner magazine and this blog know that I'm pretty enthusiastic about Microsoft's direction as the company responds to the explosive emergence of smartphones and tablets. Microsoft has chosen to play a long game, and I think it's got a shot.
But don't let it be said that I won't note an opposing perspective. Robert Scoble, the influential blogger and one-time Microsoft evangelist, thinks Redmond is dead, dead, dead. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 19, 20110 comments
The worldwide media tablet market saw huge sequential growth in the third quarter of 2011, although sales of devices like the iPad came in below forecast and didn't quite keep up the jaw-dropping momentum of Q2.
Those are the results of the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker released Thursday. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 15, 20110 comments
Nokia, the Finnish phone company betting its future on Microsoft's Windows Phone platform, will mark the U.S. debut for its devices on Jan. 11, when T-Mobile rolls out the Nokia Lumia 710 running Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango."
The Lumia 710 is the economy-priced version of the two Windows smartphones Nokia unveiled in late October. After a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year service agreement including voice and data, the device cost is expected to be $49.99. (The "expected" phrasing, weirdly, comes from T-Mobile's announcement. You'd "expect" them to know what they'll charge for the phone at this point, but whatever.) More
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 14, 20111 comments
A smartphone app with a lot of business potential just shipped -- Microsoft on Monday formally posted the Lync 2010 for Windows Phone app in the Windows Marketplace, and versions for other smartphone platforms are on the way.
"The Lync 2010 for Windows Phone app is...available today, and Lync 2010 clients for iPhone, iPad, Android and Nokia Symbian have been submitted to their respective mobile app marketplaces and will be available as soon as they have been approved," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement Monday. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 12, 20110 comments