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Posts tagged microsoft
Why Microsoft will eventually kill Nokia
Feb 10th
This couldn’t have gotten worse – Nokia working with Microsoft? Really? On a mobile platform? REALLY? Let’s go back a few years and look at a déjà vu situation. Remember the famous Microsoft – Palm deal when Palm moved away from its legendary Palm OS in favor of the Windows Mobile platform? What ensued after that, we all know. Palm lost a differentiating factor that was very critical in a world where every other company was manufacturing phones with Windows Mobile OS. By the time Palm realized that they were merely another handset hardware manufacturer it was too late. Palm was then bought out by HP.
Now let’s look at Nokia’s potential OS deal with MS. Say Nokia moves away from its Symbian platform for the high end handset market and lights them up with Windows Phone OS. Nokia would instantly start competing with the likes of HTC, LG and Samsung for market share – just on the handset side of things. Unless Nokia really pumps up its hardware design units to manufacture great looking, great working handsets with touch screens that don’t need styluses, they have already lost the battle. Say they make great looking handsets with awesome processing power. Then what? Then Nokia may stand a chance to make some money selling handsets all the while increasing Windows Phone’s market share. Even if Nokia maintained the Symbian OS for the lower end of the market it will never be able to enter the high end market again with the Symbian OS – in any form.
The next level of degradation will happen when market forces will compel Nokia to adopt Android as well, just to survive in the high end phone market. Let’s not forget that Chinese brands are eroding Nokia’s market share significantly in developing markets like India and Brazil. This situation leaves Nokia with a handset division which makes phones that no one wants. The next 3-4 years will be crucial for Nokia’s turn around, if it can i.e. else see it being bought out by some knight in shining armor – MS maybe for all you know.
Moral of the story? Windows mobile platforms have had the distinction of destroying innovation in Palm and now might do just what is required to destroy Nokia’s internal innovation machine. Don’t be too surprised if you see large scale movement of Nokia execs into Google, Apple and MS in the coming days. Let us just hope that Nokia doesn’t bite the Windows Mobile bullet.
Video: A real human living inside a computer
Aug 21st
Meet Milo, an 11-year-old virtual boy that recognizes and responds to you, that is molded by the things you say and objects you show him. Milo is part of a video game from Microsoft’s Kinect controller that allows people to interact with Milo with voice, body movement, and hand motions. Expected to be released in November, watch a demo of a person talking to Milo, and Milo talking back. Video after the break.
When In A Ford, Listen To Tweets Handsfree
Jul 30th
The system does not allow you to tweet back to make sure you don’t think too hard while driving. This is to make sure you are not distracted from your primary job at the wheel – DRIVE. But experts say that this may only lead to the driver reaching out to the phone to tweet back. Now come on, if the system can take voice commands it can also tweet, right?
“Making SYNC even more intuitive and easier to use will encourage more drivers to take advantage of its hands-free capabilities, helping them keep their focus on driving,” said Mark Fields, the Executive Vice President of Ford Motor Company.
The future’s going to be quite interesting given that there’s going to be some augmented reality, some tweeting and some self controlling cars. But for now let’s stick to what we have.
IBM Expands Collaboration Software Support to Include iPad
Jun 13th
We know that the Office productivity suite from MS is coming to the iPad but IBM’s Lotus Notes sure is. I am not sure how many hi-tech professionals are switching to iPads to check their email but the number must be large enough for IBM to decide on giving the iPad some Lotus love. I don’t personally love the
State of Florida Leverages Microsoft Cloud Solution for Census Count
Jun 12th
Looks like Microsoft’s scoring big in their “all in the cloud” strategy. The State of Florida has decided to use Microsoft’s cloud solution “Azure” to do their census counting work. Remember, Microsoft’s a late entrant into the cloud business so this might be one of the big wins Microsoft is looking for. The competition is
Help Change the World With a Single Vote
Jun 9th
Students from around the world will gather in Warsaw, Poland, next month to showcase innovative ideas that could change the world. They are competing in the eighth annual Imagine Cup, the world’s premier student technology competition sponsored by Microsoft Corp. Starting today and running through July 7, the public is invited to view videos created
Microsoft Announces Availability of Hohm Scores for 60 Million Homes in the United States
Jun 1st
Starting May 26 2010, more than 60 million homeowners will be able to answer one simple question: “Am I an energy hog or an energy miser?” Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the Hohm Score, an estimate of a home’s energy efficiency, offered as part of the company’s free online home energy management tool,
HP Joins New Alliance to Drive Unified Communications Interoperability
May 25th
HP announced it is a founding member of the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF), a collaborative effort among hardware and software vendors, service providers and network operators to eliminate the barriers to unified communications (UC). The UCIF was and co-founded by Polycom and created to address issues around the current inability to connect systems from
Microsoft and eGovernment Partners Take Citizen Services to the Cloud
May 22nd
At the fourth annual Microsoft Worldwide Government Solutions Forum in Bergen, Norway, Joel Cherkis, general manager for Applied Innovation in Public Sector at Microsoft Corp., outlined how the company’s Citizen Services Platform (CSP) and partner ecosystem will take advantage of Microsoft’s cloud-based solutions to give citizens — digital natives and newcomers — broad choices in
Microsoft Investigators Uncover Emerging Form of Click Fraud
May 20th
Microsoft Corp. has filed two lawsuits this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington detailing evidence of an emerging form of click fraud in online advertising the company has dubbed “click laundering.” One lawsuit is a John Doe suit alleging that unidentified defendants engaged in this activity; the other lawsuit
