China Vows Net Phone Crackdown - Radio Free Asia

Beijing may be moving to tighten censorship and protect state-owned companies.

AFP

A Hong Kong man looks at the image of a Mandarin teacher in mainland China speaking to students across the globe via Skype, March 27, 2007.

Chinese officials and media are warning of a crackdown on "illegal" Internet telephony services, like those provided by Skype, that are not licensed or approved by the country's powerful telecoms regulator.

"We are currently working together with relevant departments to launch a crackdown on illegal voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephony," Beijing's ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT) said in a statement carried on its website.

"We are looking to recruit members of the public who have clues in cases of illegal Internet telephony," said the statement, dated Dec. 10 but featured prominently in official media reports on Friday.

The statement provided a hotline number for anyone wanting to report information to the authorities.

Lucrative

The ministry's move is seen by some as a means of protecting the lucrative international call business of China's state-owned telecom operators.

Others have speculated that the government is also concerned that high-level encryption on VoIP services such as Skype make calls too difficult for the authorities to monitor.

Skype has been a popular tool with activists and others who want to share information relatively freely, getting around the complex system of blocks and filters known collectively as the Great Firewall (GFW).

Gong Shujia, an expert in electronic communications at George Mason University, said the fixed-line service providers found it very hard to compete with the Internet-to-phone services.

"If you have a fixed-line telephone in your home, that'll cost you 30-40 yuan per month, whereas if you use Internet phone services you will only spend 2-3 yuan per month," Gong said.

Important factor

But he said profits were not the only concern behind Beijing's planned crackdown on Internet telephony.

"There are two issues here. One is the issue of the profits of the telephone service providers," Gong said.

"The other is that any information sent as speech over these networks...is already encrypted when it leaves your computer."

"Even if someone was listening in, they wouldn't be able to hear the sound, so I think that is also another important factor [behind this decision]," he added.

Officials have so far declined to clarify the implications of the message for specific services.

But the Beijing Morning Post on Thursday quoted MIIT vice-minister Xi Guohua as saying only state-owned major Chinese telecommunications operators were licensed to provide Internet phone services linking telephones and computers.

Discounted rates

Beijing officials have made similar statements in the past, and also declined to clarify their implications for services such as Skype.

However, Xi said communications between computers (PC-to-PC) remained open to China's 450 million Internet users.

Currently, Skype operates both PC-to-PC calling services, which are free, and PC-to-phone services which enable users to dial international phone networks from their PC at discounted rates.

The ministry has previously said unlicensed VoIP services are illegal, but has declined to specify what action would be taken.

The Beijing Morning Post cited the case of UUCall, a homegrown VoIP service which calls itself "the first Chinese Internet phone brand," which was shut down in October 2009.

UUCall resumed business in February after moving its domain name to Hong Kong, the paper added.

"Not banned"

Netizens hit back at the proposed ban, complaining that VoIP was a public good that should not be declared illegal.

"What benefits people is not legal. I really want to curse out loud," one angry user said.

Skype told Bloomberg on Friday that its services in China remained operational.

“Skype is not banned,” Jennifer Caukin, a Palo Alto, California-based
spokeswoman for the service provider, said in an e-mail to the financial news service.

“Our users in China currently can access Skype via Tom Online, our majority joint venture partner.”

Reported by Shi Shan for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

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Google to Release New 'Nexus' Phone - Wall Street Journal

Google Inc. said it is launching a new smartphone, developed with Samsung Electronics Co., along with a new version of the Android software for mobile devices.

The Nexus S phone will be sold in mid-December through retailers such as Best Buy Co. Inc., said Andy Rubin, a Google vice president of engineering who leads the Android team. The Nexus S will be sold for $199 with a two-year T-Mobile USA contract in the U.S. It will also be sold for $529 without a service contract.

Google is shifting strategies it used with the last Google-branded phone, the Nexus One, which launched earlier this year and was sold directly to consumers through a Google Web store. Executives at wireless carriers said the Nexus One didn't sell well, though Mr. Rubin claimed more than 100,000 were sold in three months. Google closed the Web store a few months ago.

The Nexus S smartphone will feature front- and rear-facing cameras so users can make video calls, similar to Apple Inc.'s iPhone. It also includes technology that could help people make payments with their devices when they're on the go.

Google, in a blog post, said the new Android software that will power the Nexus S, known as Gingerbread, includes support for so-called near field communications technology. Such technology can enable third-party developers to create mobile payment applications.

The company also said Nexus S is the first smartphone to feature a four-inch contoured display, which is designed to fit comfortably in the palm of the hand and along the side of the user's face.

Google won't make any money from direct sales of the Nexus S, a spokesman said. Google licenses the Android software for free to hardware makers such as Samsung.

But the adoption of Android software helps ensure that Google's Internet search, maps and other services will be a mainstay on mobile devices. Google sells ads alongside its Internet search results and helps place ads within mobile-device applications such as games, and two months ago Google executives said the company was on track to generate $1 billion annually in mobile-related revenue.

Android is making significant gains in the smartphone market, claiming 23.5% of U.S. subscribers aged 13 years old and up in October, up from 17% in July, according to estimates by comScore Inc. Apple had 24.6% of U.S. subscribers in October, up from 23.8% in July, comScore said. Research In Motion Ltd, maker of the BlackBerry, continued to slip, dropping to 35.8% from 39.3% during the same period.

Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com

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Loopt Launches Windows Phone 7 App - PC Magazine

Location-based service Loopt launched its app for Windows Phone 7 on Monday.

"The Windows Phone 7 Loopt app is distinctly different from any version we've ever made," Sam Altman, Loopt co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement. "Microsoft has created a smartphone experience that lets people get out of their phones and back to their lives. Loopt is all about using your phone as a tool to get out, find friends, and socialize, and with this phone, Microsoft has opened up a new window into that valuable, social information."

The app includes Loopt's social map, a tool that lets users see where their friends are in relation to their own current location. Users can share their location and photos and see where their friends have been, with the option to include photos in friend updates.

Similar to a text message, the Loopt app allows users to "Ping" a specific user in order to connect, rather than sending out a message to all their Loopt friends at once. Privacy controls enable location-sharers to determine who gets to see where they are.

The app is available for free in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

Also on Tuesday, Sling Media released its SlingPlayer Mobile for Windows Phone 7 app, which will sell for $2.99. When connected to a Slingbox Solo or Slingbox PRO-HD via the Internet, the SlingPlayer Mobile software lets users watch their home TV on a variety of handsets. Other Windows Phone 7 apps that have been made their debuts recently include Google's search app, an official Twitter app, and one for Amazon's Kindle.

The first three phones on the Windows Phone 7 platform hit U.S. stores on Monday. Two phones, including the Samsung Focus and the HTC Surround, are supported on AT&T, while the HTC HD7 is supported on T-Mobile. Each phone is $199 with a two-year contract.

The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace already has more than 1,000 apps, including games, utilities, and other social-networking applications.

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Dell's Windows Phone 7 Switch: Good for Microsoft's Enterprise Hopes? - eWeek

Is Windows Phone 7 slated to become the next big enterprise device?

That becomes a more pressing question following news that Dell plans on dumping Research In Motion's BlackBerry from its corporate offices, in favor of Windows Phone 7 devices manufactured by the company. Within hours of that news leaking online, RIM responded with some biting commentary:

"We find it highly unlikely that they will actually save any money with this move and far more likely they were looking for a little free publicity," Mark Guibert, RIM's senior vice president of corporate marketing, wrote in an e-mail to Dow Jones Newswires.

In a Nov. 5 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden indicated that the company's switch will save around 25 percent on mobile communication costs, and that negotiations had begun with T-Mobile to carry corporate voice and data.

Dell's Venue Pro includes a 4.1-inch multitouch display and sliding QWERTY keyboard. Fronted with ultra-durable Gorilla Glass, it closely resembles RIM's BlackBerry Torch 9800, which also includes a sliding keyboard. The difference, of course, is the Venue Pro's Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Whether Dell made the switch to promote its own smartphone line or if it decided that ejecting RIM indeed translated into substantial cost savings, other large businesses are likely to debate whether to embrace Windows Phone 7 for their executives and workers.

Some analysts believe that, while Windows Phone 7's tight integration with features such as SharePoint offers a lot to the enterprise, the platform does have an Achilles' heel. "It will be hard for apps to be ported unless they are already Silverlight-compatible or built-in standard .Net mobile protocols," Jack Gold, primary analyst for J. Gold Associates, wrote in an Oct. 11 research note. "The majority of enterprise apps are not."

That being said, Gold added, businesses could find a lot of benefit in the Windows Phone 7 platform. "Business users [are] at the core of the previous Windows Mobile constituency, but many have defected over the past year," Gold wrote. "It is unclear whether Microsoft can win them back, or even keep the existing, albeit significantly diminished, base of enterprise users." Despite that, he added, "the business hub on WP7 looks compelling (provided you are an Exchange/Outlook user)."

Microsoft seems aware of the need to push Windows Phone 7 as a business device, having announced at several points its intention to include productivity-centric features such as cut-and-paste into future editions of the software. It has also been encouraging developers to build work-style apps for the platform. 

"Critics have commented on the lack of specific features like copy & paste and lack of 100s of thousands of new applications," Arpan Shah, Microsoft's director for SharePoint, wrote in a Nov. 4 posting on his corporate blog. "And while both are true, copy & paste will be available as an update in a matter of weeks (early 2011) and as for applications, it's just a matter of time."

Shah's blog posting suggests the timetable for the feature's addition is still on track. While early critics focused on that missing cut-and-paste, Windows Phone 7's first iteration will also lack support for tethering, Adobe Flash and full multitasking.  

To be fair, despite its hold on the enterprise market, the BlackBerry also lacks a large number of apps?at least in comparison to the Apple iPhone or the growing Google Android family of devices. Businesspeople have traditionally gravitated toward RIM's offerings because of their messaging abilities and reputation for security. But Microsoft wants Windows Phone 7 to appeal on those fronts as well; a substantial part of the company's marketing push, particularly its television ads, portrays the smartphones as the ultimate timesavers?at least when it comes to using mobile features. And its "Office" and "People" hubs have been designed to feed information to users in a tightly integrated, streamlined way.

But whether Dell represents the first of many companies to jump to Windows Phone 7 remains to be seen. Microsoft doubtlessly hopes that's the case. RIM most likely doesn't.

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Windows Phone 7 Sales Reportedly Strong in International Markets - eWeek

Windows Phone 7 sales seem to be off to a solid start in international markets, according to reports from around the world.

DigiTimes reported in a Nov. 3 article that sales of HTC-built Windows Phone 7 smartphones are ?better than expected? in Europe and Australia. Stocks of the HTC HD7 and HTC 7 Mozart had apparently sold out in both the latter country and Germany.

?Early supporters of the new operating system such as South Korea?s Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are also experiencing rising demand from carriers,? the article suggested, indicating the sales information came from unnamed ?Taiwan-based handset makers.?

Meanwhile, stocks of Windows Phone 7 devices in the U.K. are apparently low, according to several media outlets. ?We will be launching with limited amounts of both our Windows Phone 7 devices, the HTC 7 Mozart and the Samsung Omnia 7,? a representative from U.K. carrier Orange wrote in an e-mail to Mobile Today. ?We are, however, anticipating that our competitors could be in a similar situation.? Orange customers were apparently being offered a cash voucher in exchange for preordering a Windows Phone 7 device.

The Mobile Today article quoted an Orange manager as saying: ?I was shocked when I heard the news. We are the lead partner for Windows Phone 7. But I believe this is a manufacturer issue on a worldwide scale.?

Windows Phone 7 will make its debut in the U.S. market Nov. 8, with two devices?the HTC Surround and Samsung Focus?on AT&T. At the company?s Professional Developers Conference 2010, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggested that the smartphone platform has a chance in what he termed a still-nascent mobile market, despite fierce competition from the likes of Apple iPhone and Google Android.

?We?re early; there?s no question we?re early,? he told the audience during an Oct. 28 speech, according to CNNMoney.com. ?I think we kind of nailed it. When you see it, you just go ?oooh.??

Windows Phone 7 differs from its competitors with a user interface that aggregates Web content and applications into six subject-specific ?Hubs,? such as ?People? and ?Games.? Microsoft hopes that format will attract users away from competing platforms that rely on grid-like screens of individual apps.

During the PDC, Ballmer also reiterated that Microsoft intends to reverse its fortunes in smartphones, where its market-share has fallen steadily over several quarters. The company is reportedly pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into marketing efforts.

?Make no mistake about it, we?re all in,? Ballmer reportedly told the audience. ?I get all kinds of questions about ?What if you don?t do this or that,? or blah, blah, blah. Boom, baby, that?s what we?re going to do.?

 

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Sony exec sees value in a PlayStation phone - CNN

The technology blog Engadget has posted photos of a PlayStation phone -- strong evidence of its existence.A Sony executive declined to address rumors about the PlayStation Phone
He indicated that the PlayStation Portable system could be due for a change
Specifically, only connecting to the internet via Wi-Fi can be limiting, he said

San Francisco, California (CNN) -- Stopping short of directly addressing intensifying speculation about a PlayStation phone, Sony's Peter Dille acknowledged that its portable game system could be due for a change soon.

Dille, the senior vice president of marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment of America, was asked about the so-called PlayStation Phone, which was first reported by Engadget, in a fireside chat Wednesday at a conference in San Francisco.

Refusing to confirm or deny rumors, Dille did say the lack of a cellular data connection could be holding back Sony's PlayStation Portable game system.

"The PSP is a Wi-Fi device," he said. "People are used to having always-connected devices."

Sony's home game consoles have had life spans of 10 years each, and the PlayStation 3 will continue to be supported for at least that long, Dille said.

But "the portable market moves so fast," he said. At six years, the PSP may be looking dry. Indeed, Sony has had to reverse its marketing strategy to target younger gamers for that system, Dille said.

Now, the PSP is having to compete with more fully featured hand-held game systems that can also make calls, send text messages and provide a window to thousands of games and apps.

Apple chief Steve Jobs has boasted in news conferences, saying the iPod Touch and iPhone have become the hand-held gaming leaders. The company recently launched a social networking hub called Game Center.

However, Dille said Sony has competitors, like Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, beat for the attention of serious gamers. PSP's focus is on long, immersive entertainment, not five-minute battles between meetings.

"These are largely time-killers," Dille said of smartphone games. "Gamers aren't satisfied with that."

Whether Sony sees Android's gaming marketplace as a competitor or potential partner, Dille declined to comment. Engadget reported that Android could power the rumored PlayStation Phone.

A spokeswoman present during a CNN interview with Dille after the onstage chat said, "We have relationships with Google."

The PSP can already do more than just gaming, Dille said. It has applications for watching movies, making calls over Skype and limited Web browsing.

But many of those functions are limited by whether you have Wi-Fi access. Plus, it's not a phone, so you need to carry multiple gadgets. But that could be a selling point, said Dille.

"Consumers like different boxes," he said.

Sony's goal for the PlayStation Network -- the online component for gaming and downloading video of which Dille is also the senior vice president -- is to be an entertainment centerpiece and be always accessible. The current PSP doesn't quite fulfill that vision.

"I don't think we fully realize that vision with a Wi-Fi device," Dille told CNN. "If it's not connected [to a cell network] then it does sort of limit people."

View the original article here

Check Out HTC's New Windows Phone 7 in Videos - Tom's Guide

If you've been drooling over HTC's new Windows Phone 7 devices then we've got a little tidbit of a treat for you today: The company has finally released 'first look' videos for the entire line.

We already know a lot about HTC's Windows Phone 7 line-up when it comes to specs. Thanks to Microsoft's minimum specs requirement, they all pack a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 512MB of RAM, 576MB of ROM and a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p video capabilities. Sure, there might be the odd kickstand here, or a slide-out QWERTY there, but these phones are extremely similar when it comes to what's going on under the hood. 

With such a close race when it comes to specs, there's nothing else to do but call a spade a spade and judge this like the beauty pageant it really is. Which device do you prefer? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: HTC via Engadget

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Microsoft Is Pinning Its Hopes on Windows Phone 7 - BusinessWeek

By Peter Burrows and Dina Bass

In an interview shortly after he unveiled Microsoft's (MSFT) new Windows Phone 7 mobile software on Oct. 11, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer declared a new era for Microsoft. "This is a big launch for us—a big, big launch," he boomed.

Ballmer, never known for understatement, may be lowballing this one. Gartner (IT) expects smartphone sales to surpass PCs in 2012. Microsoft remains immensely profitable thanks to its aging PC monopoly, and it will remain so even if it never figures out the smartphone market. Yet the stakes go beyond numbers—it's about staying at the center of computing while the world's information moves away from PCs and into the cloud.

People get e-mail, music, and Season Two of Mad Men on smartphones and other mobile devices—essentially pocket computers—and that information is warehoused at and delivered from far-off data centers, not PC hard drives. "If Microsoft gets this right, the stock is really, really cheap," says Michael F. Holland, founder of investment firm Holland & Co. "It would be an indication they've been able to evolve into a 21st century company."

By almost any measure, Microsoft is nearly out of the mobile game. Its market share fell to 5 percent from 22 percent in 2004, says Gartner. Customer satisfaction of Windows smartphones is 24 percent, according to ChangeWave Research; it's 74 percent for iPhones and 65 percent for handsets powered by Google's (GOOG) Android. There are a few hundred apps for Windows mobile, vs. 250,000 for Apple (AAPL) and 70,000 for Android. Asked about Windows Phone 7's chances, Google Android chief Andy Rubin has said: "The world doesn't need another platform."

Unless, of course, Windows Phone 7 handsets, on sale Oct. 21 in Europe and Nov. 8 in the U.S., blow away consumers as the iPhone did back in 2007. Today, consumers load their smartphones with apps. Rather than tap between separate programs, Windows Phone 7 users will choose from a few larger icons—Microsoft calls them tiles—that aggregate information from related apps. For example, a "People" tile lets users contact friends via phone, text, or Facebook without having to click on any of those apps. An "Office" tile opens a screen to edit and send a PowerPoint deck or Word file, no attachments necessary. This is the biggest step forward since Android, says Jonathan Sasse, senior marketing vice-president of Internet music company Slacker.

Microsoft mobile chief Andy Lees says Windows Phone 7 reflects his group's new approach to design. In the past, the company wrote the software and left it to licensees to ensure great products. This time, Microsoft set strict rules. All Windows Phone 7 handsets must come with three buttons (home, search, and back) and a camera with at least five megapixels of resolution. "In some cases that meant saying no to some of our largest partners, says Lees. He adds that Microsoft doesn't need to have as many apps as Apple or Android, just the most popular ones. That way Microsoft can assure the quality of Windows handsets. Ours is a structured ecosystem," says Lees.

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How and Why You'd Use Windows Phone 7 With A Mac - Wired News

One of the major advantages of Windows Phone 7 is its tight integration with Microsoft’s other devices and software. In a terse statement, Microsoft let Mac users know they can eventually expect a light version: “Later in 2010 Microsoft will make a public beta available of a tool that allows Windows Phone 7 to sync select content with Mac computers.”

The “tool” will probably be a version of the Zune desktop software, if a Microsoft UK marketing head early tweet is any indication: “ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m glad to confirm that Mac users would be able to use Zune on their Macs to sync with #WP7… More details soon.”

This makes sense for Microsoft: not only have they always made software for Macs (notably Office), you’d never want to put too many limitations on what PCs you can use with a post-PC handheld. Imagine if Apple had kept the iPod and iTunes Mac-only. Or if the Zune had never included support for Macs. (Wait, that second one actually happened.)

But why would a Mac user want to use a WP7 phone — particularly when the iPhone works so well with a Mac? Basically, it’s the same reason a Mac user might pick an Android phone over an iPhone. Either you like the physical phone better, or (more often) you’re more tied into Google’s or Microsoft’s software than you are to Apple’s.

Here are some scenarios where that might be true.

You’re a heavy user of Microsoft Office. Windows Phone 7 has the full Office suite built-in. iPhone’s Office offerings aren’t as strong; it’s a little better for iPad, but not that much.

Windows Office 2011 for Mac is coming at the end of the month, and it’s the best, most-interoperable Office suite available for the Mac. It’s also finally bringing a real Outlook application, not the baby Outlook they called Entourage. (Entourage the application provided the exact opposite experience of the TV show Entourage.) By default, iPhone on the Mac syncs with iCal, Address Book, and Mail; a phone that synced with Outlook could be a huge upgrade.

This is where the lack of OneNote on Office 2011 for Mac really bothers me; it’s WP7’s Office showpiece, very smartly implemented on the handset and nearly completely useless to Office users on Macs.

You’re also a heavy user of Windows Live. Android users love their experience with Gmail, Google Docs, etc. Some of my friends who don’t love Windows love Windows Live, preferring it over Google’s cloud apps and Apple’s MobileMe. Office 2011 and WP7 are both extremely well-integrated with Windows Live. iPhone and Android aren’t. You’re a gamer who loves Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. Apple may have a set-top box, but it doesn’t play games. The iPhone offers a lot of good casual games for handheld, but WP7 will too. If you have a Google TV, it’ll be better with your Android phone; if you have an Xbox 360, it’ll be better with a WP7 phone.

The whole industry is moving towards greater interoperability between computers, handhelds and set-top boxes. The Xbox – WP7 combo will be one of the most versatile handheld-to-boxtop media combinations available. Add a Mac to the mix, rig it to stream content to your Xbox and that’s a pretty powerful power trio. Particularly if you don’t care about buying movies and renting TV shows through iTunes, which is the only advantage an Apple TV would offer.

In the tech world, Mac users are stereotyped as Apple evangelists and/or fanboys, people who’ve bought into the ecosystem from top to bottom. But think about your average student with a MacBook, or your parents you convinced to buy an iMac. They are usually agnostic about this stuff.

Most Mac users probably don’t think long and hard about Apple’s long-term peripheral strategy, or whether Android’s lack of hardware standards will cause them problems down the line. They use Office on their Macs, use PCs at work, play Xbox in their living room and want to buy the phone they like on the carrier they use for a price they can afford. They bought their Macs for the same reason.

The last piece of this puzzle is really how well Windows Phone 7 and the Mac will be able to talk to each other. History bears this out: for a long time, Blackberry desktop software on PC was fantastic, but the version for the Mac wasn’t anywhere close. In my case, it eventually drove me away from the Blackberry and towards the iPhone.

If Microsoft decides that it doesn’t really need to give Mac users anything more than the bare minimum, or that they can capture more value by trying to pull WP7 buyers to the PC platform, then it won’t work. They’ll keep their current customers and add value within their existing ecosystem.

But if Microsoft begins to see their world as one that doesn’t have to be centered around the PC, where they can make great software and compelling experiences for all platforms, and shift more of their institutional weight towards the cloud and the living room, then even Mac users might have to take a long hard look at those new phones.

See Also:

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How new Windows Phone 7 ads might work (really) - CNET

When bootleg versions of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 ads emerged a couple of weeks ago, there was, at the very least, a raising of the eyebrows and a twitch of a toenail.

Here was Microsoft apparently daring to launch an anti-phone, one that somehow returns you to a more human, self-aware, pre-cell-phone state.

This seemed pleasantly ambitious, like a beach vacation on which there will be only 10 other people on the beach and they will all be beautiful, interesting, and love baseball.

Now that two officially sanctioned ads have emerged, different in content from the leaked affairs, but humming the same theme, they do nothing to lessen a sense of, at the very least, hope.

Some might wonder why Microsoft would be telling people to quit obsessing over their cell phones while trying to sell them a cell phone.

But at least the company is offering an emotional truth. It's also offering a look to the OS which, on the face of the phone, is distinctive and seems simpler than a first glance at an Android phone or even the iPhone.

While words such as "always delightful and wonderfully mine" aren't words that have always emerged from Microsoft executive lips, hearing them at yesterday's launch suggested the company knows it must attempt to regain a hold on people's touchy-feely parts. And to do that, ads and product have to hold hands and skip along together like little girls through a cornfield.

These new ads tease the promise of a simpler, more enjoyable, dare one say it, less techie world by offering a phone that is designed to look, feel, and behave in a simpler, more enjoyable, less techie way.

Yes, the iPhone's been doing this brilliantly for a long time now. But the acknowledgment that the human side is vital is, from Microsoft, like a smile emerging from the lips of a Swiss Guard.

The truly difficult part is that this OS is called Windows something.

The Windows name is redolent of function not fun, entrapment not enjoyment. If the intention is to suggest a simple revolution, why use a name that suggests a simple continuation? To truly deliver what the company needs, I wish they had created a new brand to express this new attitude. A brand that could be as strong and independent as its Xbox.

However, if real people see these ads, then pick up the phones and discover that the feeling-- as opposed to the mere functionality-- is delivered, then Microsoft has a chance to make an impact. Really. No, really.

View the original article here

Windows Phone 7: Backwards Incompatibility Could Limit Appeal - InformationWeek

With the introduction of Windows Phone 7 next week, Microsoft is looking to break from past efforts in the mobile space that have sputtered in the face of renewed competition from Apple and Google. So much so that Microsoft deliberately chose not to make its new phone OS backwards compatible with the older Windows Mobile operating system.
(click image for larger view)
Microsoft's Windows 7 Phone Revealed

The decision allows Microsoft to make a fresh start in the mobile arena, but it also could limit Windows Phone 7's appeal to enterprises, many of whom may be unwilling to scrap existing investments in Windows Mobile to move to the new platform.

And while the enterprise mobile market is largely dominated anyway by RIM, with its corporate-friendly Blackberry devices, Microsoft's move to a brand new mobile environment could lessen its traction with the corporate customers it does have.

Such concerns came to light recently at a roundtable of U.S. Army software developers who, through an internal competition, had been tasked with building mobile apps for use on the battlefield and in other aspects of army life.

One participant, Major Gregory Motes, who is chief of the Army's Information Dissemination Management Division, specifically opted not to have his team develop their apps for the Windows environment because of the backwards compatibility issue.

"The problem we have with Windows Mobile is, right around the time we were starting on this, [Microsoft] announced Windows Phone 7 that would be coming out the holidays of this year," Motes said at the roundtable, according to a transcript of the August event.

"And so as we are going through the process of what we wanted to choose to learn on, you know, choosing to learn on Windows Mobile 6.1 or Windows Mobile 6.5 didn't make much sense to us because 7 was coming out and because it was announced that 7 would not be backwards compatible," said Motes.

Motes, whose team won the competition with a physical fitness app for Army personnel, ultimately decided to develop the app for Apple's iPhone.

While admittedly anecdotal, it's not unlikely that decisions like that taken by Motes and his team are currently playing out in IT shops across corporate America. In Microsoft's favor is the fact that Windows Phone 7 leverages many existing Windows development tools with which developers are already familiar.

But the fact the platform is not backwards compatible with Windows Mobile means Windows Phone 7 will not enjoy the upgrade path advantage that helps Microsoft maintain traction with its Windows PC customers whenever it comes out with a new version of its desktop and server OS.

It may be for the latter reason that Gartner expects Windows Phone 7 to have only minimal impact on the mobile market. Gartner predicts the release of Windows Phone 7 will help bump Microsoft's share of the worldwide market from 4.7% in 2010 to 5.2% in 2011, but says the company's share will ultimately decline to just 3.9% by 2014.

Developers won't have to wait too much longer to decide whether to support Windows Phone 7. Microsoft will formally introduce the platform Monday at a launch event in New York City.

The server market is changing rapidly. In this report, we look into the technological advances driving the server market forward, as well as the server strategies of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle-Sun, Cisco, and other vendors. Download it here (registration required).

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Microsoft: Open To Collaboration With Motorola On Windows Phone 7 - Wall Street Journal

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See a sample reprint in PDF format.Order a reprint of this article nowOCTOBER 6, 2010, 6:12 A.M. ETMicrosoft: Open To Collaboration With Motorola On Windows Phone 7 ArticleCommentsmore in Business »

COLOGNE (Dow Jones)--Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is open to collaborating with Motorola Inc. (MOT) on Windows Phone 7, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Wednesday at a ...

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