Category Archives: Microsoft
The future is bright – it’s smartphones
Rating: Research shows smartphones will outstrip featurephones
UK based research firm, Juniper Research, has hit the headlines with a report that predicts that smartphone shipments will reach one billion units a year by 2016. See here. However, Fred Huet, md of Greenwich Consulting, argues that the mobile network operators could well be unready for the kind of implications such huge numbers will have on their (data) networks. He says, “The effect that the number of smartphone users will have on network capacity remains to be seen.” Huet thinks that part of this disconnect could have to do with pricing. Currently smartphones are viewed as the premium price model – and not exactly the kind of phone that everyone can afford. However, GoMo News has run stories about ZTE here and Microsoft here which indicate that smartphone prices could well fall dramatically. Continue reading
Bid site predicts Android app work will catch iOS by 2013
Rating: Demand for RIM app developers has fallen dramatically
A web site that allows self-employed specialists to bid for projects – Freelancer.com – has been mining its data to gauge the health of the mobile app development sector. It claims the big loser is RIM/BlackBerry – despite the release of the PlayBook tablet. Significantly, the company says the growth rate for new iPhone applications is slowing whilst Google’s Android is enjoying a steady increase. The company predicts that Android will take the Number One position from Apple by Q1 2013. This information is taken from The Freelancer Fast 50 charts and key conclusions are drawn from almost 110,000 job postings in Q1 2011. Although Freelancer.com does have a British arm, GoMo News wonders how much of this data is actually slewed towards the US market. Continue reading
Skype puts video calling into Facebook
Rating: Massive manoeuvrings on Facebook vs Google front
The dust hasn’t quite settled yet but it appears that Skype has made it possible to video chat with friends right from Facebook itself. The situation is complicated because of the technicalities surrounding exactly who owns whom, but this move is obviously a major swipe at Google. It’s a showdown between ‘social’ and ‘search’. Google has always enjoyed the prime Net location slot as surfers try to find stuff. But if you already know who you want to talk to and can now even video chat with them, why bother to search? Particularly since you follow other people’s recommendations within your social network (which is where Facebook is obviously winning). Why not just ask for recommendations? Continue reading
Brits can win Windows Phone from Microsoft
Rating: Nice spin on viral marketing, too
What a cunning way to get people to enter a competition to win a Windows Phone (and an Xbox 360 with Kinect). Get them to post a review of a Windows Phone/Xbox game on their own blog or, alternatively, to post a review on the WindowsPhoneUK page http://www.facebook.com/windowsphoneuk. Or Tweet it. It’s a clever form of viral marketing from those that run the Windows Phone UK blog which you can find here. What entrants have to do is review one of the six ‘Must Have Games’ that Microsoft has been promoting to UK owners. You can’t, of course, enter unless you have either a Windows Phone or an Xbox. Otherwise, how could you review one of the games? Clever, eh? Continue reading
Orange UK offers free Windows Phone apps – we think
Rating: You have to be set properly up to see ‘em
What a nice gesture. Orange UK has decided to give away a free app a day to those owning Windows Phone handsets on its network during July [2011]. It claims that customers will able to download a total of 31 individual apps worth more than £70. Great. But what are these apps? Ah, there’s the rub. Only those with Windows Phone handsets connected to the Orange network – and with the Orange App shop app downloaded – are able to see them. So we can’t tell you whether they’re great or naff. Continue reading
Microsoft says Tag is better than QR
Rating: Tags go up in smoke with Stateline Fireworks
It was nice to hear from Nick Martin, Microsoft’s online community manager for its Microsoft Tag offering. He was commenting on our story here about a major brand (Bulmers cider) using QR codes as a marketing tool. Nick wanted to point out that his company has built “an end-to-end solution that focuses on reporting and capabilities to enhance targeting and content refinement.” In other words the Tag is a much better tool than the QR code. “Unfortunately, the fragmented nature of the QR code space makes it difficult for a brand to know exactly what services and what quality they are getting when executing,” Martin reckons. So he usefully points out where to get hold of the necessary tools. GoMo News looked on the Tag blog and found an interesting case study with Stateline Fireworks. Continue reading
Gowalla soft launches its WP7 app
Rating: We’re not sure who uses Gowalla, of course
Hot on the heels of our Windows Phone 7 (WP7) story about the scanner app from PhraseMeme here, an eagle-eyed reader has pointed out that Gowalla for Windows Phone 7 has just launched. It’s such hot news that Gowalla‘s own apps page doesn’t mention it yet. But it does show that the WP7 version follows apps for the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android and Palm. We’re not sure why anybody would use Gowalla in preference to Facebook or Foursquare, for example, but there must be a demand. The company says that the WP7 version allows users to take a look at Panoramic view where uesrs can quickly access their friends’ activity, nearby spots and nearby photos. Apparently that’s a feature only included in Gowalla for WP7. Continue reading
PhraseMeme QR scanner app for WP7 discovered
Rating: Nice pointers for WP7 tools revealed, too
If Nokia gets its way then Windows Phone 7 (WP7) will be the next very big thing. It might just happen because Microsoft has a knack of getting there in the end. So it dawned on us that what GoMo News readers might just want is a fully featured QR/barcode reading app for a WP7 smartphone. We’ve found one with the PhraseMeme Scanner. It looks like the developer came across the demand for such an app by accident when it was actually supposed to be creating a game. Reading the company’s Facebook page, this app seems to have proved very popular in the UK. Users from the UK are the second biggest download group for PhraseMeme Scanner as the app has regional support for the United Kingdom (local search for Google/Amazon/eBay). Whilst visiting PhraseMeme’s site we also found loads of pointer for people considering developing for WP7, although it does seem to have a very strong US bias. Continue reading
Nokia’s Elop displays incredible naivety over Windows phone
Rating: That’s going with Microsoft in the 1st place
It’s either an incredible display of naivety or a clever publicity stunt but video footage has leaked onto the Net of Nokia’s current CEO, Stephen Elop, showing off the company’s first ever Windows based handset to a select gathering. In the video, Elop asks everyone to turn their cameraphones off. That’s coming from the CEO of a handset vendor which prides itself in supplying cameraphones with 12 megapixel resolution. Anyway, somebody obviously didn’t and a video has shown up on the Hungarian blog, Technet. naturally the whole thing has gone global and GoMo News has linked to one of the uploads of the video on YouTube. The general consensus (from translating the original Hungarian) is that the Windows phone is codenamed Sea Ray and is almost identical to the Nokia N9 Meego based handset. Continue reading
Mobile advertising and marketing top-news: barcodes, NFC, AdMob and garden gnomes
Welcome to the round-up of the best in mobile advertising and marketing news, here on GoMo News! We’ve got NFC, Microsoft and while I never thought I’d mention AdMob and garden gnomes in the same breath, we’ve got that too! Continue reading
Your mobile device: phone, web browser… secret lover?
After I got my Samsung Galaxy S, I was remorselessly mocked here in the office for several weeks. “How’s the new girlfriend working out?” people would ask “are you two still happy together?” As it turns out, I’m not the only person in the world who feels an intimate connection with their mobile… Microsoft Ads has just release research that claims the mobile phone is the “lover” of the communications world. Continue reading
Microsoft plans to buy Skype, take the hot potato
When eBay sold a 70% share in Skype to a group of private investors in 2009, GoMo News covered the deal, calling it the heist of the century. That heist has now gotten even better for the investors involved, as it appears that Microsoft is close to buying Skype from them.
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Redmond cons WP7 developer into tool withdraw
Rating: No real evidence of any danger, only F.U.D.
The developer who sparked who sparked the ‘homebrew danger’ warning over unauthorised NoDo updates for the Windows Phone 7 (WP7) OS has been intimidated into withdrawing his product. Chris Walsh is the developer of the ChevronWP7 Unlocker tool for WP7. Last week (April 8th 2011), he revealed that under pressure from Redmond-based Microsoft, he had withdrawn this tool from circulation. An estimated 25,000 people had already downloaded it. Writing in his blog here, Walsh spelt out the reasons for his decision. Yet as every singular comment to this particular blog shows, none of his customers have reported any ill effects. GoMo News is warning against obtaining an illicit copy of the ChevronWP7 tool, however. Continue reading
OMG Microsoft Kinect plus Magic
Now, this type of video makes me want to throw away my pen and start developing. Sorry it’s not mobile – but it’s just cool…
Here is a YouTube video of a magician performing a magic trick using the Kinect. It shows how easily the technology can be adapted for a wide variety of uses.
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Redmond warns against ‘rooting / jailbreaking’ WP7
Rating: Workarounds could brick your handset
There’s good news for to customers of O2 and SFR in Europe who own Microsoft Windows Phone 7 [WP7] handsets. The Redmond-based company has started to deliver the March ‘copy and paste’ (NoDo) update to its customers now [April]. And Telstra customers in Australia are currently receiving the February update. Old habits die hard with Microsoft being tardy as usual. Meanwhile, Eric Hautala, general manager of customer experience engineering with Microsoft, has warned frustrated WP7 against ‘tinkering’ with their handsets by installing ‘homebrew’ ‘workarounds’. There’s a chance you could end up ‘bricking’ the handset – ie making it malfunction totally. Continue reading
