iakttakelser (observations)

Microsoft doesn't make tablets because they only see a place for the smartphone and the TV and will interact with Kinect. The prefer the future "Room" instead of the windowless tablet. I'm not sure I've got it though... A post from VentureBeat by Devindra Hardawar has the whole story . Here is a part: Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie isn’t afraid to go against the grain when it comes to tablets. Speaking at a lunch in Sydney, Australia, Mundie said that he was unsure if tablets like the iPad would stick around, the  Sydney Morning Herald reports . He went on to discuss how he viewed the future of computer interfaces, which included entire rooms replacing the traditional desktop. Mundie seems to have more faith in smartphones than tablets. He said that smartphones will eventually “become your most personal computer” (this is already true for me, and most others who are never more than 6 feet from their phones). He also made a dis...

IDC expects Nokia together with Microsoft to be the number two in 2015. Even bigger than Apple. Update: Horace Dediu' comment: @asymco Horace Dediu In 2010 Apple shipped 48m iPhones and 90m since start. IDC forecast: in 2015 192m Windows Phones will ship. Total 479m between now and then 12 hours ago   via  Twitter for Mac   Favorite   Retweet   Reply A post from VentureBeat by Mikko Torikka has the whole story . Here is a part: Thanks to  a partnership with Nokia , Windows Phone 7 will be the number two smartphone operating system worldwide by 2015, predicts market research company IDC. ... The worldwide smartphone market is expected to grow 49.2% in 2011 as more consumers and enterprise users turn in their feature phones for smartphones with more advanced features. Smartphone vendors will ship more than 450 million smartphones in 2011 compared to the 303.4 million units in 2010, IDC predicts. The smartphone market will grow more than four times...

A post from bloomberg.com by has the whole story . Here is a part: Speeding up Nokia’s product development is at the top of Chief Executive Stephen Elop’s agenda as he tries to meld the Finnish company’s handsets with Microsoft Corp. software to narrow the widening gap to Apple and Google Inc. Photographer: Henrik Kettunen/Bloomberg Every summer for the last four years while  Apple Inc. (AAPL) shipped a new iPhone,  Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)  managers vacationed at their lake cottages in Finland. “In mid-July, Nokia House is a ghost town,” said  Adam Greenfield , managing director of Urbanscale, a design consulting firm in  New York , who worked for Nokia from 2008 to 2010. “If you need a decision and the key person’s at the summer cottage? Forget it. You’ll resolve that issue in September. It’s something that hampers their agility.” Speeding up Nokia’s product development is at the top of Chief Executive Stephen Elop’s agenda as he tries to meld the Finnish compan...

A post from ReadWriteWeb by Marshall Kirkpatrick has the whole story . Here is a part: Times are changing: while corporate management all around the world worries about the distractibility and entitlement of the next generation of workers, Microsoft appears set to embrace the future warmly. The next version of Microsoft Word and the rest of the Office 15 suite will include some features very familiar to the kids these days. "For Office 15 we're building new products to deliver integration of instant messaging/presence with social networks such as Facebook," the company wrote in a job posting put online today. Stephen Chapman first reported on the news at  ZDNet  and said he found it bewildering. Not everyone feels that way, though; to some observers it makes perfect sense.

Lance set the context: Cold milk and apple pie Microsoft has successfully delivered its best Internet Explorer ever, IE9, but I have this nagging feeling that it may be too late.  Let me put it another way. Imagine you're having a delicious piece of apple pie and you realize that the only thing that would make it better is an ice-cold glass of milk. Someone goes out for milk, but by the time it arrives, you've already finished your pie, cleaned the plates and left the room. Today, I'm wondering if Internet Explorer 9 is that cold glass of milk. Lance Ulanoff point to iPad 2: Blame the iPad We're entering a "post-PC era," Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a packed auditorium as he unveiled the iPad 2 last month. I was in that audience and thought it a bold statement. Jobs is, however, at least partially correct. Things are changing fast in the PC space. There are still millions of PC users out there, but the activity, excitement, innovation and interest is on ...

What a story Horace is telling. I repeat his summary of the evolution: The evolution of the bases of competition for media distribution between 1997, 2007 and 2011 is striking. In 1997 the struggle was between specific modules (formats, players and technical standards.) In 2007 the basis of competition was devices integrated with music services (which encompassed formats, standards and players). By 2011 the competitive standard that the iOS ecosystem is putting forward is at an even higher level of integration. Not only are the sub-modules integrated into a whole, but now apps bespoke to a platform are attracting a virtuous cycle of third party innovation. A post from asymco.com by Horace Dediu has the original story . Here it is with kind permission: Microsoft just declared the Zune end of life. This makes it a good time to look back to some notable episodes in the evolution of digital media distribution. First, an episode from 1997: During two days on the stand, Tevania...

Me agrada leer en este post de ReadWriteWeb que Microsoft saldrá con Embedded Compact 7, un sistema operativo para tabletas y para otros dispositivos móviles. Hasta hora el mercado de las tabletas (que no sea iPad) está copado por Android, entre otras cosas, por no haber competencia. Ahora con, Embedded Compact 7, seguro que podremos disfrutar de un entorno más conocido y amigable que está entre el Windows 7 y el Windows Phone 7. Aquí dejo un extracto del post original: Como recoge  ZDnet , Microsoft ha hecho una distinción clara entre las tabletas con Windows 7 y las compatibles con  Compact 7  en torno al usuario final. “Aquellas con Windows Embedded Compact OS están dirigidas a los aparatos de consumo, y no a los aparatos de creación y consumo ”, dice la web. De todos modos, añade que siguen siendo parches hasta la llegada de Windows 8, que está desarrollado originalmente para esta compatibilidad. Sin embargo, que sea un sistema operativo de gama baja no sign...

iFacturas has lots of reasons to be glad these days: the number of users is growing and growing and now we have been selected as Startup of the Day by the Microsoft BizSpark program. Here's just a portion of the original news: BizSpark Startup of the Day - iFacturas The BizSpark startup of the day is iFacturas, based in Norway and Spain. Below you will find an interview with Morten Jacobsen and Antonio Revaliente of iFacturas. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day! Website:  www.ifacturas.com Tell us who you are and your role in the company: I´m a «General Ledger Visionary» happened to be the in right place at the right time. I´m the CEO and founder of «iFacturas AS» in Norway and Spain. What did you do before creating your company? Creating other companies within the IT and accounting market. How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark? I feel excited about promoting our tools to the only comp...

Tras la aparición de nuevas redes sociales puras tipo Facebook y Twitter, son muchos los que daban a Messenger, una red social menos "pura" por muerta. Nada más lejos de la realidad...y para muestra, un botón: Cada vez más usuarios disponen de conexión a internet en sus «smartphones» y las redes sociales son uno de los servicios estrella. De hecho, los usuarios de Facebook son el doble de activos desde un teléfono móvil, tal y como recordó HTC cuando presentó la semana pasada sus «Facebook Phones» ChaCha y Salsa. En este sentido, el 73% de quienes utilizan internet en el móvil acceden a redes sociales desde su terminal. Es una de las principales conclusiones de la  tercera oleada del Observatorio de Redes Sociales realizada por The Cocktail Analysis , agencia de investigación y consultoría estratégica especializada en tendencias de consumo, comunicación y nuevas tecnologías. El estudio analiza la evolución de las comunidades y redes sociales y los hábitos y las actitudes...

I've been reading a lot these days in Social Media about Windows Phone 7 update. Here's a post that talks about some carriers blocking the update. I cite here a part of the orginial post: Wondering where that elusive first Windows Phone 7 update is for your device? Microsoft has confirmed some carriers are blocking it. Microsoft is slowly pushing out its first Windows Phone 7 update designed to improve further updates on the platform. The software giant is pushing the updates out in stages to various devices and carriers around the world. Some users may experience delays seeing the update whilst others may see the update immediately. However, others may never see the update according to Microsoft. An official support person for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 support team  confirmed on Tuesday  that carriers are able to block the first update. “Some Mobile Operators have the right to skip one update if they wish,” said Diego T of Windows Phone support. “However, they can’t...

Como ya publicamos la semana pasada, iFacturas estuvo presente en el 2º Salón Mi Empresa que tuvo lugar en el Palacio de Congresos de Madrid. Fueron dos días muy intensos. iFacturas estuvo presente en el stand de la Federación Nacional de Trabajadores Autónomos-ATA y contamos con la colaboración de Microsoft con un Live Display y una persona mostrando tanto el sistema operativo Windows Phone 7 como iFacturas. Aquí os dejo unas cuantas imágenes del stand!

A post from asymco.com by Horace Dediu  has the original story . Here it is with kind permissions: In the recent series of exposés on Nokia’s new strategy I sought to paint a background for what caused such a dramatic decision: A  history  of previous Microsoft “strategic alliances” in mobile brought Microsoft to a level of desperation The question of  how many horses  are in the race coupled with operator feedback on what matters to them in terms of balance of supplier power The  installed base of Symbian  although great is fragile A confused  tablet strategy  from both partners. The impact of pricing on  addressable market  and share The “ Osborne effect ”  on Symbian  and how the transition could be impossible to navigate This gives a backdrop to the decision, but it does not explain the most crucial part of the decision: why did Stephen Elop decide to maintain an exclusive platform for Nokia rather than a m...

A post from VentureBeat by Dean Takahashi has the whole story . Here is a part: Scoreloop  is announcing today that it will support Windows Phone 7 as part of its cross-platform social gaming ecosystem. That means that developers can create social games that allow Windows Phone 7 users to play against Android or iPhone users. The endorsement from Scoreloop is an important one for Microsoft, since Scoreloop is adding about a million users a week to its platform. With the deal with Nokia last week, Microsoft just might have a viable platform in smartphones. It also means that gamers will be able to play each other on any platform, anywhere, one of these days. Scoreloop creates middleware that developers use to add social features to their games such as leaderboards, challenges, or virtual currency. By using Scoreloop’s software development kit, developers can create games that run on Windows Phone 7 and have access to the same social features that users have on Scoreloop’s othe...

Good news from Redmond via Barcelona! A post from ReadWriteWeb by Audrey Watters has the whole story . Here is a part: Microsoft  announced its plans  today to make several important upgrades to its Windows Phone 7. Some of these features will be out in March - the first major upgrade to Microsoft's new smart-phone - and will include the addition of copy-and-paste. Other upgrades are set to roll out later this year. These will include the phone's availability on CDMA networks, multitasking, offline document storage via Windows Live SkyDrive, and the addition of a "dramatically enhanced" Internet Explorer 9. The latter will feature the same standards support and hardware accelerated graphics as the PC version of the browser.

A post from TechCrunch by MG Siegler has the whole story . Here is a part:   It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t even a year ago when I wrote the following post:  What Happens When Apple Passes Microsoft In Value? Yes, When . It’s even harder to believe just how many people thought I was crazy for saying that — it  happened  just two months later! And while plenty seemed to think that the passing of the torch to Apple as the most valuable tech company would be short-lived, let’s look at where we are today. As of market close this afternoon, Apple is now a full $100 billion past Microsoft. Yes, Apple is the most valuable tech company in the world by $100 billion dollars. To put that in some perspective: the market cap of HP is $105 billion. Apple is now worth an HP more than every other tech company. When I wrote the initial post last March, Apple’s market cap was at $208 billion, while Microsoft stood at $261 billion. By the time Apple passed Microsoft in...

Aldri så galt at det ikke er godt for noe. Det er synd at Qt ryker ut. Men samtidig er vi glade for at iFacturas kommer på Nokias nye telefoner. Vi har satset på WP7 i et år, og meldingen fra Nokia og Microsoft var det beste som kunne hende oss som Hamar-selskap. En post fra .com har hele historien . Her er en del: Credit: Jeff Gilbert Fredag ble det klart – Nokias fremtid legges i Microsofts hender. Hjertet av deres strategi så langt rives ut. Mobilsystemet Symbian skal leve videre bare til Nokias Windows-telefoner kan overta. Og med i dragsuget går Nokias satsing på Qt, utviklerrammeverket de fikk med seg da de kjøpte norske Trolltech i 2008. -Nei, vi satser ikke på Qt for Windows Phone, sier Nokia-toppsjef Stephen Elop fra scenen på den store mobilkongressen i Barcelona. Les også:  Nokia + Microsoft = sant Brenner broene Qt rakk så vidt å bli selve hjertet i Nokias programvareutvikling før den brutale beskjeden kom fredag. Nokia skal legge all sin tyngde bak Microsofts...

Mobile OS and mobile touch UI is hard to build. Just consider how long it has taken Apple, Google, Microsoft, Blackberry, Palm and others. A post from GigaOM by Ryan Kim has the whole story . Here is a part:   A little while back when rumors of a Nokia-Microsoft partnership bubbled up, I  wondered why Nokia wouldn’t wait to see how MeeGo , its high-end platform for smartphones and tablets, performed. Well, after Nokia’s much-publicized decision to embrace Windows Phone 7 over MeeGo last week, early previews of MeeGo on a tablet are underscoring why Nokia was probably right to move on. Today at Mobile World Congress, Intel previewed MeeGo, which it jointly developed with Nokia — MeeGo is a merger of Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo projects  — and the early impressions from several blogs paint the picture of an OS that is still an immature alpha platform: some say that it has barely improved outwardly since last June’s preview at Computex . Now mind you, this ...