Posts Tagged ‘BlackBerry OS’
Report: Windows Mobile was for work, Windows Phone 7 is for fun
Microsoft seems to have a new mantra: When all else fails, shoot for a bigger audience.
All of Microsoft’s top-downloaded paid applications for its newest Windows Phone 7 mobile devices are games — much like other mobile operating systems — compared to just one for its older Windows Mobile operating system, .
Microsoft is running a pretty well-known and reliable play to reclaim its share in the mobile operating system space. More than half of Microsoft’s applications on its Windows Phone 7 operating system are now less than $2, compared to less than 40 percent of apps on its old Windows Mobile operating system. That’s in line with other app stores. Its app store has grown to around 3,000 applications in just over a month. That’s compared to only 1,350 applications available for Windows Mobile after the operating system has been out for a year.
It’s a marked shift in Microsoft’s strategy, since its presence in the enterprise mobile operating system space has diminished. Windows Phone 7 finally brought Microsoft’s mobile operating systems into an age that is dominated by apps. The phone is geared much more toward typical consumers, like the iPhone and many phones running on Google’s Android operating system.
A lot of Microsoft’s refocus may have to do with Research in Motion (RIM)’s presence as a smartphone maker of choice for the enterprise. RIM currently dominates the enterprise mobile phone market with around 46 million customers. Apple is also . Both of these operating systems are, in their own ways, superior to the classic Windows Mobile operating system.
That leaves little room for operating systems that are late to the party. and has since scrambled to catch up with the rest of the smartphone market. The mobile operating system has already and is growing quickly. But Apple and RIM already have the jump on Windows Phone 7. They’ve been playing in a market dominated by apps for a few years now.
That isn’t to say Microsoft can’t reclaim its presence in the enterprise space. Microsoft is able to integrate its Office applications into its mobile interface. The closest thing to that on other mobile operating systems is Documents to Go by DataViz. But that company was acquired by Research in Motion, which quickly — so the future of that application on competing platforms is unclear.
Companies: , , , ,
Why Foursquare doesn’t owe its success to the iPhone
Location-based check-in service saw a massive amount of success, both globally and in the United States, because it focused on multiple mobile platforms rather than a single one like Apple’s iPhone operating system or Google’s Android, according to Foursquare executive Holger Luedorf.
Foursquare went against the grain in embracing the fragmentation of the smartphone marketplace, said said (pictured left), vice president of mobile partnerships with Foursquare, in an interview with VentureBeat editor-in-chief Matt Marshall at the DiscoveryBeat 2010 conference in San Francisco today.
Since the start, Foursquare’s team has been focused on location-based check-in technology — a service which allows an online user to announce his location to his friends — on multiple platforms like the BlackBerry operating system and now Nokia’s Symbian operating system, making it possible for the company to expand into places like southeast Asia and Europe, Luedorf said.
“Being pragmatic about it, we see where we find users and we go there,” he said. “If you see users in southeast Asia and Europe, you better think outside Android and iPhone, and you want to work with international carriers.”
That work isn’t a big investment for Foursquare right now. Luedorf, who , manages these relationships with international partners and carriers himself. Likewise, he said Foursquare doesn’t spend significant amounts on marketing or public relations. But because of that, Foursquare is able to push practically all of its funding into developing the application in the face of potential competitors like Facebook’s check-in service.
Foursquare still doesn’t see those applications as competitors, though, because Foursquare is focused solely on being a check-in application and making that process fun. Facebook, in comparison, slapped the service on top of the rest of its offerings, Luedorf said.
“I think Facebook Places fits really well into the overarching Facebook product, certainly,” said Luedorf. “So far we’re doing our own thing. I’m not sure we actually ever single out a single platform we are tremendously worried about. Everybody is kind of always watching each other.”
Companies: , , , , ,
People:
Research in Motion is alive and kicking, but still needs a boost
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion continued to grow in the second quarter of 2010 with an additional 12.1 million BlackBerry devices shipped, but wasn’t able to meet its expectations for 4.9 – 5.2 million new subscribers by the Wall Street Journal.
The BlackBerry maker added 4.5 million new subscribers in its second quarter of 2010, down from the 4.9 million it added a quarter earlier.
BlackBerry most recently its proposed iPhone killer, the BlackBerry Torch, toward the end of its second quarter on August 12. Just a few days later, after what Goldman Sachs called an “” launch, the price of that iPhone killer was cut in half to $99.
Google’s Android also Research in Motion as the second most-used mobile phone operating system in August, according to a report by Gartner. While RIM still holds about an 18 percent share of the smartphone market, Gartner estimates have it losing ground and controlling around 12 percent of the market by 2014.
And in the midst of launch issues with the Torch that might get in RIM’s way, several countries threatened to shut down the company’s BlackBerry Messenger service if it did not provide a way for governments to tap private e-mail accounts.
Despite those distractions and woes, RIM’s second-quarter revenue was up 31 percent from a year earlier, while net income was up by around 68 percent as the number of BlackBerry subscribers passed the 50 million mark. Investors were pleased enough with the news, as shares were up 4.5 percent to 48.60 in after-hours trading.
Companies: , , , , , ,
DEMO: Fox-backed Bitbop brings mobile TV streaming to Android
Bitbop is one of 70 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2010 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After our selection, the companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.
Streaming mobile video startup was dubbed when it launched back in March. Bitbop offers access to a hefty selection of popular TV shows for $9.99 a month. It’s adding movies to its library soon, but those will only be available on a pay-per-view basis. Thus far, the company has only supported certain BlackBerrys, but today at DEMO, Bitbop is officially launching its app on a slew of Android devices.
The services works over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi, so you don’t have to be worried about being tied down to a wireless network. It comes from Fox Mobile Group, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
The service competes with Hulu’s own mobile offering, which also requires a $9.99-a-month Hulu Plus membership but so far is only available on the iPhone. BitBop offers a handful of shows, like the überpopular “Jersey Shore”, that Hulu doesn’t have access to on its site — so it may be able to attract hardcore fans on that fact alone. (The conflict is curious, though, since News Corp. is an investor in Hulu and provides it with online versions of its TV shows and movies.)
Bitbop also allows users to download episodes, instead of just streaming — an advantage that may put it ahead of Hulu and Netflix for many.
Like any mobile video offering worth its salt, BitBop’s platform uses variable bitrate streaming to automatically adjust video quality depending on available bandwidth. The platform also offers social media integration (Facebook and Twitter), and carrier billing, among other features.
Bitbop has its roots in Jamba, a company founded in 2000. VeriSign and Fox turned that company into a joint venture in 2006, and Fox , turning the unit into Fox Mobile.
Companies: , , ,
Google’s Android beats RIM BlackBerry in mobile-OS race
Google’s Android has surpassed Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS and others to become the second most-used mobile operating system behind Nokia’s ubiquitous Symbian, according to a by Gartner. Android and Symbian will together account for about 60 percent of all mobile operating systems sold with phones by 2014, when Android will likely take on Symbian for the top-seller title.
Symbian, the software that helped push Nokia to the top of the heap in the previous generation of mobile phones, has been on a sharp slide down since the smartphone exploded in both popularity and affordability — led largely by the efforts of Apple’s iPhone operating system, iOS, and Google’s Android mobile operating system.
Nokia still maintains a commanding lead in terms of market share from the sheer volume of phones they produce, but Gartner predicts its market share will fall to 30.2 percent by 2014. The company recently rolled out a few changes to challenge the upstart Android, including its new and a new CEO, Microsoft’s .
Meanwhile, adoption of the Android device exploded between 2009 and 2010, with Android’s market share growing by a whopping 13.8 percentage points to capture 17.7 percent of users based on current sales and projected sales for the remainder of the year.
Research in Motion continued to slip after an launch of its iPhone-killing BlackBerry Torch last month. Sales of phones equipped with the BlackBerry operating system still accounted for 17.5 percent of all sales, though down 2.4 percentage points from last year.
Adoption of Apple’s iOS also continued to grow, with Apple acquiring 15.4 percent of the market share in 2010, up a percentage point from a year earlier. Predictions from Gartner, however, show Apple’s market share dipping to 14.9 percent by 2014 as Android continues to gain momentum.
Companies: , , ,
BlackBerry maker RIM acquires Office document platform developer DataViz
BlackBerry creator Research in Motion has acquired the developer of the Documents To Go app, DataViz, according to a by AllThingsD, a technology blog published by the Wall Street Journal.
By picking up DataViz, the BlackBerry manufacturer may be making a move to provide a free version of Documents To Go for BlackBerry users and maintain a hold on its big-business clients. Research In Motion also made another recent — Cellmania — in a move to expand its app-delivery platform.
DataViz’s Documents to Go is a popular programming for opening and editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files for BlackBerry users. The exact details haven’t been released yet, but the number flying around the Internet is about . The CrackBerry blog first reported the rumor, stating that several members of DataViz had adjusted their LinkedIn profiles to show new positions at Research in Motion.
DataViz already canceled development of its Documents To Go for Palm’s WebOS. Whether the document-reading platform will become exclusive to the BlackBerry OS is still unclear.
Research in Motion has been under scrutiny after the lukewarm launch of its BlackBerry Torch, which was billed as an iPhone competitor but had its price about a week after release. On top of that, Android handset sales BlackBerry sales in August — another possible signal of the shift away from RIM.
We’ll update the story as the details come in.
Companies: , , , ,