While the mainstream press is focused on the new Microsoft-Yahoo deal, we'd like to talk about the Microsoft-Nokia deal: in particular, what will it do for smartphones?
For one, it will bring a Microsoft Office enterprise version to Symbian smartphones. Plus new Nokia devices will ship with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile built in. Also, the new team-up plans to use Exchange ActiveSync to optimize corporate customers' data access.
But in the live teleconference call yesterday in which the partnership was announced, a Microsoft exec professed that this was by no means all there was to the arrangement.
In a much larger context, Microsoft hopes to dislodge RIM and its Blackberry from its domination of the mobile enterprise market. Plus, Microsoft is eager to benefit from Nokia's 200 million subscriber base while Nokia is eager to benefit from Microsoft's U.S. presence.
Strange, though, is that Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS and Nokia's Symbian mobile OS will still compete with one another in the platform wars.
Two world giants of technology in two completely different arenas have teamed up to make newer and better smartphones. The companies are Intel and Nokia, and last Tuesday they announced their formation of a long-term partnership to put Intel microprocessors into Nokia smartphones.
Intel is acquiring an HSPA/3G IP license from Nokia and planning on putting a Linux-based OS into the devices, which will include not only smartphones but netbooks and nettops, and in-vehicle information and entertainment systems. This would be the big start in the mobile market that Intel has needed in order to remain relevant.
Though most smartphones these days use ARM microprocessors because Intel's apparently require so much more power, Intel's earlier forays into the mobile market included certain Blackberry and Palm devices. Nokia's real reason for the partnership, no doubt, is because of the bigger presence Intel will give it in the United States.
In contrast to its world-renowned line of smartphones, when Nokia announced the next in its ever-popular N-series of handheld devices would be its first and “the world’s most advanced mobile computer.” For anyone who wishes their smartphone to be a portable PC, Nokia has unveiled the N97.
Nokia has just announced its latest handset in the hotly contested smartphone race, the Nokia N97, and early reports suggest that certain aspects of this new device might make some iPhone users green with envy.
For one, the digital camera in the N97 is one of the sharpest – and smartest! – in the mobile community, at 5 megapixels with Carl Zeiss optics, a dual LED frash and DVD-quality video recording capabilities.
The Nokia N97 also adds a choice of keyboard controls where the iPhone lacks it, with both a 3.5” touch screen but a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
The new Nokia sports a Flash-based GPS which makes mapping features even more user-friendly and followable than ever. It uses a convenient location sensing technology that always knows where you are (or it is, really), and it has been designed to integrate with Nokia’s So-Lo service.
So-Lo stands for “social location” and it’s bringing the appeal of social media to smartphones…sorry, we mean “mobile computers”. With So-Lo, friends and contacts on sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. can enhance the way they network and communicate by sharing real-time location-based information, statuses, and relevant video and pictures.
The N97 also comes with built-in WiFi and HSDPA network support.
And the Nokia N97 doesn’t mess around with meager memory allotments, hoping you’ll just spend the extra money on external microSD cards. It gives you 32 GB on-board to start with. And if you still want even more than that, it’s got a microSD expansion slot too, expandalbe to up to 48 GB.
According to its makers, the Nokia N97 has a battery life capable of up to a day and a half of playing music – 37 hours to be precise. That same battery life, they say, will give you about 4 and a half hours of video playback.
Interestingly, the Nokia N97 will not be available in time for the holidays. In fact, its U.S. release date is still unknown. European customers will be able to buy the new Nokia for about 550 euros (which equals about $693 US) starting sometime in early ’09.
written by SmartPhoneWizard
\\ tags: N97, Nokia N97
While corporate favorite BlackBerry continues to reach out to the general consumer market, with its MySpace app receiving 400,000 downloads since its launch less than two weeks ago, general consumer fave Nokia continues to reach out to the corporate enterprise, with its latest facility: support for IBM Lotus Notes.
First the BlackBerry: The Washington Post was stunned to find that more than 15 million MySpace messages had been sent over the BlackBerry mobile app, and more than 2 million moods and statuses had been updated.
Next Nokia: As of December, most Nokia S60 series handsets, including the S60 3rd Edition and the N96 Bruce Lee Special Edition, will be able to access their corporate email accounts through a new mobile app called Lotus Notes Traveler, catering to a market base IBM reports at 140 million plus licensed users.
Who will have more success cross-marketing their products in "the other guy's court"? Only time will tell.
No doubt in response to Apple’s broad-sweeping (and industry dominating) success with mobile music offered through iTunes Mobile and the iPhones, telephony stalwart Nokia has introduced a new product/service (which is which these days – can anybody tell anymore?) called “Comes With Music”
“Comes With Music” provides compatible Nokia smartphone purchasers (starting with the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic “Comes with Music Phone” a full year of unlimited access to the entire music catalog of Nokia’s Music Store (honestly, I didn’t even know they had one).
In cooperation with Sony BMG, Universal Music Group (UMG), and Warner Music, Nokia is granting its customers access to more than 2 million tracks. And most excitingly, customers will apparently be able to continue to possess and listen to all the music they download using the service even after their one year subscription period expires.
A novel concept and a worthy attempt to compete with the near monopolistic iTunes Music Store (and more specifically iTunes Mobile), the new effort debuts in the UK sometime after its official announcement and launching scheduled in London, England on October 2.
The CEO of Symbian, the company, producer of Symbian, the operating system, OS for such popular smartphones as the LG Joy, Motorola MOTORIZR Z8, Samsung SGH series, several Sony Ericsson smartphones, and dozens of Nokia smartphones, has suggested that collaboration with search giant Google, and makers of the long-awaited (by users) and feared (by competitors) Android mobile OS, would be more than welcome by him.
Avoiding specifics as to whether the releationship would remain in the realm of applications or venture into OS territory, chief Symbian-ite Nigel Clifford points out that Google and Symian have already been working closely together for a while now, mainly on search and mapping applications for Nokia smartphones.
It would be quite difficult for the two to merge their operating systems, so the likes of RIM and Apple don’t have too much to be nervous about, but the mutual back-scratching of the two giants in their respective industries leaves a lot for fellow partners Motorola, LG, Samsung, and others a lot to be excited about. Only time will tell however, what such a collaborative venture will produce.
Nokia lovers rejoice! Last week smartphone stalwart Nokia released its newest candy-bar style smartphone, the Nokia 6220 Classic, a quad-band GSM smartphone with 3G, HSDPA, and EDGE data connectivity.
Microsoft Office users will appreciate that the Nokia 6220 lets them view and edit Office documents, but they may find it a bit frustating to perform those tasks without a QWERTY keyboard on the phone.
One of the most striking features of this new, Bluetooth compatible, Symbian powered smartphone is its 5 mega-pixel camera using Carl Zeiss optics and featuring a Xenon flash, auto-focus ability, video recording capabilities as high as 30 frames/second. It even comes with a second camera to be used for video calling.
And that’s just the tip of the multimedia iceberg for the new Nokia, as it also includes an integrated FM radio, a music player compatible with many different codecs, MPEG4 video-playing ability, and even the possibility of watching regular television on the 2.2” screen.
It's called the Nokia E71 and it's just made technology history (or at least the record books) as the thinnest QWERTY-keyboard smartphone in the world. The latest in the Nokia E-Series of handsets for business, the E71 is the replacement for the Nokia E61.
The E71 is HSDPA network capable and features a built-in GPS and both the Nokia email software and Microsoft Exchange. It also offers two home screens you can switch between at will - one for home and one for the office. And the digital camera (with flash) is a whopping 3.2 megapixels.
By designing a casing that's thin and compact, Nokia aims to appeal to those business users who take their handheld with them everywhere and are constantly holding it, using it, and interacting with it. The fact that the E71 boasts a durable hard metal casing is another appeal to businesspeople always on-the-go.
So while the RIM BlackBerry is busy battling the Apple iPhone, the Nokia E71 seems to be sneaking in from behind for some of the BlackBerry's business.
Recently this blog reported on results of a study that showed the RIM Blackberry OS to be the "best" smartphone OS among industry analysts. However, according to an informal survey conducted by internet technology review stalwart CNet, the preferred smartphone operating system among consumers (or at least, CNet readers) is Windows Mobile.
Smartphones running Windows Mobile include the Samsung Blackjack, the Motorola Q (the top two tier-1 smartphones), as well as many manufactured by HTC, including the widely-popular HTC Tilt.
Based on pure market share alone, the study of 130 users showed Windows Mobile at 42.3%, RIM Blackberry at 19.2%, Apple OS X at 17.7%, and Symbian and Palm OS at 10%. Those are the stats for operating systems. As for smartphone manufacturers, RIM and HTC both took the lead, tying with a 19.2% market share each, Apple following close behind with 17.7%, Motorola at third with 11.5%, Palm at 10%, and all the rest (Nokia, Samsung, etc.) taking the remaining 22.3%.
Interestingly enough, the praise for Windows Mobile was balanced out (read: marred or tainted), however, by half of the respondents reporting complaints of the very same OS. Finally, a whopping 66% of CNet readers responding the survey said they would be likely to consider purchasing an Apple iPhone as their next smartphone, three times more than those who said they'd opt for the second place contender, the Blackberry.
For sheer quality and durability it may be argued that Nokia makes the best smartphones around. And for software functionality and versatility none is more revered than Microsoft. So it's no wonder that the two industry leaders would eventually bring together their winning expertise into a single offering. In fact, one only wonders what took them so long.
HTC and Motorola customers already enjoy the PC performance that the Windows Mobile OS gives their smartphones, not least of which is access to mobile versions of the Microsoft Office suite of applications. Now Microsoft is aiming to put their coveted OS into a Nokia N-Series smartphone. About time!
Following on the heels of the most recent convert to the WinMo family, Samsung, with its T-Mobile Shadow. And if Samsung can diverge from its Symbian loyalty, so can fellow Symbianite Nokia, right?
It likely won't happen until after Windows Mobile 7 or Windows Mobile 8 hits the market, but one thing seems certain - it will happen.
