The acquisition of Skype by Microsoft was a big story. So was Nokia’s tie-up with Microsoft. But now comes the question of how to realize the synergies. Good piece in the NYT. Stephen Elop, the chief executive of Nokia, a maker of Windows Phones, told an audience at a recent conference that “the feedback from operators is they don’t like Skype” because its cheap and free phone calls can steal revenue from traditional phone businesses.
The NYT reports a possible alliance that appears to be a reaction to the rise of Android. Shares of Nokia, the mobile phone market leader, climbed for a fourth day on Thursday amid speculation that the company may be poised to announce a software alliance with Microsoft designed to revive its struggling U.S. smartphone business. Nokia’s shares have risen more than 4 percent since Monday when an analyst, Adnaan Ahmad of Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, urged the Nokia chief executive — and former Microsoft executive — Stephen Elop, to form an alliance that would put Microsoft’s Phone operating system on Nokia’s advanced smartphones.
The colloquium was conducted by Nalaka Gunawardena. The colloquium began by Nalaka explaining the big picture; Climate change and energy use. Global warming is not new but the rate of global warming is. There is a multiplicity of gases causing global warming and their sources. Looking at the Green House Gas (GHG) mix, Carbon Dioxide is dominant.
What I like about the new economy is that no one is king of the hill for too long. IBM, the target of Apple’s famous 1984 ad, almost went under and reinvented itself as an open source champion for the comeback. Microsoft is no longer looking like a big bad bully. And Nokia who seemed to own the mobile space is scrambling. It is getting hammered not only in the network equipment space (where the alliance with Siemens did not do much good) but in the main game which is handsets.
There seems to be something about open operating systems, as shown by this NYT story. The question now is whether Apple will open its operating system too. More cellphone makers are turning to the free Android operating system made by Microsoft’s latest nemesis, Google. Cellphone makers that have used Windows Mobile to run their top-of-the-line smartphones — including Samsung, LG, Kyocera, Sony Ericsson — are now also making Android devices. Twelve Android handsets have been announced this year, with dozens more expected next year.
Handsets using the open platform Android will soon be available from Verizon, according to NYT, leaving AT&T as the only US carrier not offering Android phones. A year after Google introduced its Android operating system on T-Mobile, the smallest of the major wireless carriers in the United States, it announced a deal to offer handsets with Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest carrier. The carrier said Tuesday it expects to introduce two Android phones this year. It didn’t name the manufacturers, but one is expected to be made by Motorola. In addition, Verizon and Google said they would work together along with manufacturers to design handsets specifically for Verizon’s network.
Broadband user testing is nothing new. Tools to measure the speed of a link were available even in pre-net days. Later, they became more user-friendly, more sophisticated and better looking. Today you can pick one from a gamut of tools to instantly find out the speed of your link. Then why AT-Tester?
Motorola recently announced an investment in VirtualLogix, a company that lets multiple operating systems run on the same piece of hardware. This means you could have a single phone in your pocket that runs Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry OS, and Google’s Android OS. VirtualLogix is a provider of real-time virtualization. Its technology enables the mobility of applications from the desktop to devices, improves quality of service and security in an open mobile world, and will enable a new generation of dynamic individual user experiences. Motorola and others believe in the technology and decided it was worth investing in.
A La Mobile, a San Ramon, CA based open source handset software development, has deployed Google’s Android platform into an HTC Qtek 9090 smartphone. The company is touting it as the first functioning Android-based handset. The company included in the suite of applications a Google browser, phone dialer, audio player, maps, camera, games, calendar, contacts manager, calculator, tasks manager and notes. “While mobile Linux has made steady progress in the industry since 2006, Google’s advocacy with the unveiling of the Android framework further substantiates the position of Linux as a major mobile operating system alongside Windows Mobile and Symbian,” a la Mobile’s president and CEO Pauline Lo Alker said in a statement. Read the full story here.
In his first major speech since taking control of Yahoo last June, Mr. Yang announced the launch of a new upgraded mobile home page for cellphones, an updated version of its mobile portal Yahoo Go as well as new software tools to help outside developers design applications and widgets to work in conjunction with Yahoo’s mobile offerings. Yahoo also announced new partnerships with News Corp.’s MySpace, eBay Inc. and Viacom’s MTV network, which will see those companies use Yahoo’s development tools to create mobile applications users can access through Yahoo.
Miguel Helft October 11, 2007, New York Times For more than two years, a large group of engineers at Google have been working in secret on a mobile-phone project. As word of their efforts has trickled out, expectations in the tech world for what has been called the Google phone, or GPhone, have risen, the way they do for Apple loyalists before a speech by Steve Jobs. But the GPhone is not likely to be the second coming of the iPhone and Google’s goals are very different from Apple’s. Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile internet, a small market today but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile-phone makers to offer phones based on its software, according to people briefed on the project.
A version of the increasingly popular Linux operating system Ubuntu will be developed for use on net-enabled phones and devices. The Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded project aims to create the open source platform for initial release in October 2007. The operating system will be developed by members of the Ubuntu community, along with staff from chip giant Intel. Its development was prompted by the growth of power hungry portable devices that place new demands on software. “It is clear that new types of device – small, handheld, graphical tablets which are Internet-enabled – are going to change the way we communicate and collaborate,” said Ubuntu CTO Matt Zimmerman.
In 2004, 4.1 percent of Sri Lankan households had computers. As the data comes in from our six-country study, we will post the numbers for those countries as well. Looks like this will change the nature of the debate. The report states that Intel and Microsoft are not happy with Negoponte’s baby.