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May 12th, 2011, 07:11 GMT| By Ionut Arghire

(Credit:
Pyramid Research)

The recent prediction by Pyramid Research that Windows Phone would become the dominant mobile OS in just four years surprised many industry watchers, several of whom argued with the forecast. In a new analyst note, the research firm explains its prognostication.

Pyramid’s initial report asserted that by “2015, Windows Phone will establish itself as the leader in the smartphone OS space,” thereby beating Android for the top spot. And the firm qualified that statement in its new note to reflect its belief that Microsoft’s mobile OS will become the leader much sooner, as early as 2013.

With Android enjoying a huge lead among smartphone users, how can Pyramid point to Windows Phone as becoming the major player so quickly? As part of the answer, the research firm cites the new deal between Nokia and Microsoft.

Though Pyramid believes Android will continue to grow this year and next, it feels that the combination of Nokia and Microsoft will prove to be a powerful force in the industry within just a couple of years. Nokia will help to reduce the price of Windows Phone handsets, helping them expand in the marketplace, according to Pyramid. Beyond Nokia, other mobile phone makers, including Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson, are still in the Windows Phone camp.

As Windows Phone devices drop in price and spread out across multiple vendors, the multi-vendor approach currently benefiting Android will become less of a competitive advantage, Pyramid said in its note.

Pyramid doesn’t deny that Nokia has lost market share, in part by sticking with Symbian for so long, but it sees the company as strong enough to ride out the current wave and learn from its mistakes.

“They are big enough and strong enough to take on a couple of painful hits and come out of the struggle stronger than ever,” Stela Bokun, Pyramid senior analyst, said in the note. “They are in a good position to learn and adjust because they know what was bad about Symbian, what’s creating gains and what’s causing problems for Android, as well as what the upsides and downsides of a system such as that of Apple, where the OS only runs on hardware manufactured by the vendor.”

Finally, although Android’s growth may slow a bit by 2013 compared with the last couple of years, it will still challenge Windows Phone for dominance, Pyramid said, with the two platforms closely battling for the top spot of the market.

Pyramid isn’t the only research firm anticipating a leading performance for Microsoft’s mobile OS.

IDC released a report in late March projecting that by 2015, Windows Phone will enjoy the second largest market share behind Android, also citing the Nokia/Microsoft partnership as a key reason. IDC is forecasting that Windows Phone’s share will be only 20.9 percent compared with 45.4 percent for Android. But the research firm is estimated a compound annual growth rate for Windows Phone of 67.1 percent over the next four years, by far the highest among all of the top smartphone vendors.

Microsoft and Nokia on Thursday formalized their partnership with a definitive agreement to develop Windows Phone 7-based Nokia devices. The two companies also said they have made “significant progress” in the development of such phones.

“At the highest level, we have entered into a win-win partnership,” Stephen Elop, president and CEO of Nokia, said in a statement. “It is the complementary nature of our assets, and the overall competitiveness of that combined offering, that is the foundation of our relationship.”

Microsoft also confirmed that “Nokia will receive payments measured in the billions of dollars.”

“Our agreement is good for the industry,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “Together, Nokia and Microsoft will innovate with greater speed, and provide enhanced opportunities for consumers and our partners to share in the success of our ecosystem.”

Nokia and Microsoft first announced plans to work together in early February, but after 10 weeks of negotiations, they have now formally laid out the terms of the deal.

Specifically, Nokia will provide mapping, navigation, and other location-based services for Windows Phone, while Microsoft will provide Bing search services across the Nokia platform.

There will be joint outreach to developers, and Microsoft will drop the Windows Phone developer registration fee for Nokia developers. The two companies will also open a new Nokia-branded global app store that leverages the Windows Marketplace infrastructure, they said. Developers can publish and distribute through a single portal, reaching Windows Phone, Symbian, and Series 40 users.

Both companies have mdae “significant progress on the development of the first Nokia products incorporating Windows Phone,” they said in a release. There are “hundreds of personnel already engaged on joint engineering efforts [for] a portfolio of new Nokia devices.” Nokia has started porting key apps and services to the Windows Phone platform, and outreach to third-party app developers has started.

Nokia and Microsoft are still on track to start shipping devices in 2012, they said.

“In the coming years we will aggressively work to take Nokia products using Windows Phone to new geographies, at new price points and sharing new experiences for customers around the world to enjoy,” Nokia’s Kai Oistamo and Microsoft’s Andy Lees wrote in a blog post.

Since the deal was announced earlier this year, the number of Windows Phone apps submitted on a daily basis has almost doubled, Oistamo and Lees said. “Developers like Angry Birds maker, Rovio; deal of the day supersite, Groupon; hot social app, Ditto; and UK mega-retailer, Sainsbury’s, are all committing to the Windows Phone platform,” they wrote.

The duo promise an increased focus on mobile business and productivity scenarios that build on Microsoft’s cloud services, new features for Symbian, and new capabilities for Windows Phone devices.

The Nokia-Microsoft deal was the talk of the Mobile World Congress conference in February, with big names like Intel and Google expressing their disappointment. Just one year before, Intel had teamed up with Nokia to announced the MeeGo platform, while Google’s Eric Schmidt said his company had tried to persuade Nokia to go with Android over Windows Phone, but to no avail.

Last month, IDC said that Android is poised to become the number one mobile operating system in 2011, while the Nokia-Microsoft deal could propel Windows Phone to the number two position by 2015. For now, however, Windows Phone will likely only capture about 5.5 percent of the market this year, according to IDC.

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

May 04, 2011, 6:15 PM — Microsoft engineers working on Windows Phone 7 said they’re too busy right now to fix a problem caused by an unofficial update tool that some people have used, but they’re willing to work with the developer to help him put things right.

Brandon Watson, a senior director in the Windows Phone group, said in a blog post Wednesday that people who used the tool won’t be able to install a security update that Microsoft started pushing out on Tuesday. “The rubber meets the road today,” he wrote.

In early April, developer Chris Walsh released a tool that people could use to force updates to their Windows Phone 7 devices. He built the tool following delays and problems that Microsoft itself encountered in trying to deliver the updates, including an update that added the ability to cut and paste.

At the time, Microsoft warned users that the unauthorized update mechanism might create problems. With Tuesday’s security update, which fixed nine fraudulent third-party digital certificates, some of those users are now indeed facing problems.

Watson explained why the security update won’t work. The update process first checks that the phone has an official software image. Phones updated using Walsh’s tool don’t have an official software image so they won’t be able to download the update, he wrote.

“Due to scheduling of engineering resources, we did not anticipate having to [undo] the changes made to phones by these unsupported methods. While we are not ruling out having a fix in the future, for now there is no fix,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, our engineering priorities are focused on improving the process by which updates get to Windows Phone, issuing the security update you just got and working to getting Mango to market. Undoing this specific problem was not in our schedule.”

Mobile operators won’t be able to help immediately either, he said, because they’re unable to revert phones to their original image. While operators could offer to send phones back to the manufacturer, it’s unclear if they will. “It is up to the mobile operators as to what they want to do with your phone,” he wrote.

However, he noted, Walsh thinks he has created a way to get the phones back on an officially supported path, and Microsoft will work with him to validate the solution, Watson wrote.

While Walsh said he got the security patch just fine on three phones that were updated using his tool, more than 140 comments had appeared on his blog by midday Wednesday from people saying they were unable to get the security update. Most complained of seeing a specific error code when they try to download the update.

Walsh, who lives in Australia, said via Twitter that he would provide a solution tomorrow. “The fix is quite simple really,” he wrote in the blog post.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy’s e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

InfoWorld - Rhomobile will offer on Tuesday an IDE and capabilities for Windows Phone 7 and NFC (near field communications) application development in an upgrade to the company’s multiplatform framework for building smartphone and tablet applications.

Included in Rhodes 3.0 is RhoStudio, an Eclipse-based IDE offering integrated application generation, device emulation, editing, building, and debugging. With the debugger, developers can change code but not have to do a full rebuild of an application. Through version 3.0′s Windows Phone 7 support, Rhomobile claims to offer the first framework to support Microsoft’s new smartphone platform.

[ Smartphones have presented a Tower of Babel of sorts for developers. | Learn how to manage iPhones, Androids, BlackBerrys, and other smartphones in InfoWorld's 20-page Mobile Management Deep Dive PDF special report. | Follow Paul Krill on Twitter. ]

Rhomobile cites the open source Rhodes as an alternative to using Microsoft’s Silverlight and XAML for Windows Phone 7 application development. “People know [Silverlight] is not a long-term technology for Microsoft,” Rhomobile CEO Adam Blum said.

Microsoft, however, continues to upgrade Silverlight and calls it a core building block for Windows Phone. But Microsoft also is backing HTML5, seen as a potential alternative to Silverlight in the Internet Explorer browser and in tools. Windows Phone 7 has trailed Google Android and Apple iOS in terms of targeted mobile application platforms, but Blum insists developers are interested in it. “It’s not necessarily the first OS they want to target, but they want some way of generating Windows Phone 7 apps.”

Rhodes leverages HTML and Model View Controller development to write native applications. Some Ruby coding is involved. “We generate a native project for every single different platform,” Blum said. Other platforms supported include Apple iPhone, Google Android, Windows Mobile, RIM BlackBerry, and Symbian.

With NFC chip backing, Rhodes is supporting development of applications that leverage NFC, such as programs for checking prices on objects in a store or purchasing transit tickets. Support for Windows CE is planned for a subsequent release, Rhodes 3.1, due in a month. Rhomobile’s business model involves offering Rhodes for free while charging for integration services via the company’s RhoSync server, to integrate mobile applications with back-end systems.

This article, “Rhomobile fits app dev framework with Eclipse IDE, Windows Phone 7 support,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Read more about mobile technology in InfoWorld’s Mobile Technology Channel.

May 09, 2011, 12:16 PM — Windows Phone 7′s big fall update is getting even bigger with two crucial features: turn-by-turn directions and speech-to-text messages.

The new features were revealed in the latest Windows Phone Dev Podcast. They’ll go a long way toward helping Windows Phone 7 catch up with Android, which has offered extensive voice commands since last August and voice-guided GPS navigation since October 2009.

The podcast also described a Shazam-like song identification service called Bing Audio and another service called Bing Vision, which uses the phone’s camera to identify text, bar codes and products — kind like Google Goggles.

The so-called “Mango” update already has a long list of features that help make Windows Phone 7 whole. The new features includes fast app switching, multitasking for third-party apps, Internet Explorer 9 (with HTML 5 support), SkyDrive access, podcast downloads and Twitter integration. In April, Microsoft also detailed new Windows Phone 7 features for app developers. Search Extras, for instance, brings up app-specific data when the user runs a search on the phone, and live tile shortcuts will let users jump into deeper sections of an app directly from the home screen.

Windows Phone 7 arrived on the smartphone scene last October with a promising interface but too many missing features compared to Android phones and Apple’s iPhone. One of the most glaring omissions, copy-and-paste, rolled out in March, but the software still has a long way to go before it can stand up to the competition.

Beyond the massive Mango update this fall, Windows Phone 7 has lots of issues to address. The platform still doesn’t support in-app purchases, front-facing cameras, tethering or Wi-Fi hotspot functionality. And the largest wireless carrier in the United States, Verizon Wireless, has yet to launch any Windows Phone 7 handsets. Microsoft has a strong hardware commitment from Nokia, but it’s not clear exactly when the first fruits of this partnership will arrive.

Still, you’ve got to start somewhere, and Microsoft will at least fill in some of Windows Phone 7 biggest missing features this fall.

Follow Jared on Facebook and Twitter as well as Today @ PCWorld for even more tech news and commentary.

Redmond-based software giant Microsoft has announced plans to bring the next flavor of Windows Phone into the spotlight on May 24th, 2011.

The unveiling will take place during a press event set to take place on that day in New York City, at least this is what the invitations Microsoft sent out read.

“On May 24th we lift the curtain on the next major release of Windows Phone and we would like you to be the first to see it,” the invitation reads.

No specific info on what the new mobile platform iteration would actually include was made available, but some of the latest rumors on the matter suggest that we’re to see many appealing new features included into the mix.

Last month, during its MIX11 conference, Microsoft announced that the next flavor of Windows Phone is expected to bring new features into the mix, and even detailed some of them.

Some of these would include the new Internet Explorer 9 for mobile, along with Twitter integrated into People’s Hub, multitasking, or a series of new applications, including Angry Birds, Skype, or Spotify.

Some of the latest rumors on the matter suggest that Microsoft might also enhance the Bing experience Windows Phone users would receive, with the addition of features like Bing Audio for music identification, or Bing Vision for bar code scanning.

Some of the other features that might be included into the mix, would be turn-by-turn navigation with Bing Maps, Native Podcast support, and even voice-recognition SMS messaging, Windows Live Messenger integration, and enhanced support for East Asian languages.

For the time being, however, these are only rumored new features for the mobile operating system, as Microsoft has yet to confirm that they would be included in the new Mango update, set to arrive sometime in fall.

Hopefully, May 24th would be the day when more details on this should become available, so stay tuned to learn additional info.

Follow the editor on Twitter @IonutArghire

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May 10th, 2011, 07:54 GMT| By Ionut Arghire

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Microsoft has re-entered the smartphone market in 2010 with the release of Windows Phone 7 devices. Earlier this year Microsoft began pushing the first major Windows Phone 7 update codenamed NoDo in order to add a few features like copy/paste and significant speed improvements among others. In the last “episode” of the Windows Phone Dev Podcast, Microsoft spoke about the features of the next Windows Phone 7 major update codenamed Mango so take a look below to catch the latest WP7 features.

The first thing that is worth nothing is a new app called Bing Audio which is an application inspired by Shazam. Users will start the app, and if Bing Audio recognizes the tune, then it will redirect you to Zune music so that you can buy the song / album.

Up next comes Bing Vision which is a QR barcode reader application. The current Microsoft Tag Reader can only recognize custom made Microsoft tags and users can download the apps / files or whatever the tag contains, but the new app will “work” with real barcodes from products in order to be on par with other platforms like Android and iOS.

Windows Phone 7 Mango will also come packed with a new version of Bing Maps with turn-by-turn directions so now you’ll finally be able to put your GPS to use in a proper way.

Another important feature will be the addition of voice recognition support for the messaging app which will give users the possibility to send SMSs using their voice like they already can on other and more popular mobile platforms.

The Windows Phone 7 devices are advertised as good multimedia devices, but for the moment it’s kind of a lie because WP7 phones are not as good on this area as Microsoft wants them to be. Things will change with the Mango update which will bring support for podcasts. Users will be able to search, listen, subscribe, and download their favorite podcasts.

Everything sounds really good, but there is only a problem. Huge problem I must say… Microsoft didn’t specify whether the features will be available for all users including non-US Windows Phone 7 owners. This would be a real bummer from Microsoft’s side and hopefully all users will be treated the same.

As a Windows Phone 7 users, I would be really disappointed if Microsoft would “do” this to me and I won’t be a good marketing strategy either. In order to bounce back on the smartphone market, Microsoft must make put in an extra effort and limiting the new features to only a category of users would be really bad.

That being said, let’s stop making weird assumptions and wait for Microsoft to release Windows Phone 7 Mango update for download later in the year.

Windows 7 itself is pretty good with touch; swipe up on taskbar icons for jump lists, turn on flicks in all eight directions for shortcuts like copy and paste as well as navigation, use handwriting to write short sentences and URLs – and remember that Media Center’s big buttons work very well with touch.

As Windows tablets reach the market we’re expecting to see more apps that really make the most of touch, but there are some apps you’ll want to put on your tablet as soon as you get it, because they make good use of touch or because they make touch easier to use.

Here’s our pick of the best Windows 7 tablet apps.

1. OneNote

OneNote lets you handwrite your notes and draw diagrams (it works best with an active pen but you get good results on a capacitive screen with good touch resolution like the Iconia Tab), record audio that’s time-synced to your notes, clip info from web pages and sync to other PCs seamlessly.

If you actually need to get some work done on your tablet, OneNote is the best tool.

2. Flickr

There’s a lot of amazing pictures on Flickr and the new touch-friendly Flickr app for Windows 7 is a fun way to explore them – and it’s nice for showing people your own photos too.

Swipe through recent activity like photos you’ve commented on, photos from your friends, your photostream and what Flickr thinks is interesting, including photos near where you are if you’re looking for inspiration. Everything is designed for swiping and tapping (like the matching Windows Phone 7 app).

3. ArtRage

ArtRage is the original tablet PC natural painting application; everything from accurate oils and watercolours to stickers and glitter. Use a stylus for fine detail or paint with your fingers using a photo to trace from.

4. Kindle

Kindle for PC works best on smaller tablets where what you see on screen looks more like a book (or an ebook reader); books download quickly, open where you were last reading – and you can just flick across the screen to turn the page.

5. IE9

The minimal interface on IE9 isn’t just an attempt to look as unobtrusive as Chrome; it also makes IE9 more finger friendly – dialog box settings are awkward but you can do most of what you need from the single Settings menu or the address bar icons and pinch-zoom and finger panning work very well on the vast majority of Web sites.

6. WCS Touch Browser

Opera Mobile 11 for Windows is basic but has smooth pinch-zoom. For far more comprehensive touch controls, check out WCS Touch Browser, which uses the IE browsing engine with simple menus that are just the right size for fingersand handy options like side-by-side browsing.

7. SlideToUnlock

If you want a screensaver that you can’t accidentally unlock by brushing the screen as you carry your tablet, use SlideToUnlock. Not only can you only unlock it by deliberately swiping across the screen but it also showcases your own photos or images from your favourite Flickr user.

8. Pen Commander

Pen Commander lets you finger-write words and shortcuts into a panel to launch applications, open documents, copy and paste, insert text you use a lot or that’s hard to write (like URLs) – and write your own scripts to run Ctrl-key combinations using gestures.

9. StNotepad Touch

WordPad’s ribbon interface is OK for touch but if you want to get as fast at editing as you would be using commands like Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-V, check out the floating transparent text editor StNotepad Touch.

Press and hold and the context menu appears in a floating circle with round icons for key commands. Alternatively, learn the gestures – swivelling two fingers on screen clockwise to redo and anticlockwise to undo for example.

10. DialKeys Gen2

Remember the curved corner keyboard on ‘Origami’ UMPCs? It’s still a great way of typing on a tablet you can hold in both hands. With DialKeys you can reach the keys with both thumbs, including function keys, so you can type as fast as on a smartphone and it’s really well thought out when you need to type more than basic letters – tap one key for symbols and punctuation, slide either thumb along the edge of the curve for numbers. You can even use it as an app launcher.

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Liked this? Then check out Windows 8 tablets rumours: what you need to know

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