Posts Tagged ‘Office’
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.
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Foursquare looks for full team of West Coast engineers
If you’re an engineer on the West Coast looking to join a hot startups, here’s a good reason to prepare your resume. According to a company , popular mobile check-in application has decided to put together a full team of engineers in its new West Coast office.
Foursquare is going from basically squatting at the office in San Francisco to claiming additional space for a larger team of engineers, who are needed in part to handle the company’s monthly user growth of 30 percent.
Co-founder and chief executive Dennis Crowley told VentureBeat, “We’re looking to fill 10-15 spots, but we’re not racing to fill them. We just want the flexibility to hire great engineers that aren’t ready to move to NYC.”
The announcement comes soon after the launch of a that integrates check ins with loyalty rewards for a pilot program at Vons grocery stores.
The New York City-based company, founded in 2009, has raised more than $21 million in funding and currently has more than 4.5 million users.
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Microsoft launches Windows Phone 7, hitting the US on Nov. 8
Microsoft finally launched its new mobile platform, , at a press conference in New York today. CEO Steve Ballmer hit the stage to give us a glimpse at the OS and the platform’s launch phones.
Windows Phone 7 will launch on October 21 in Europe and Asia, and the first U.S. handset will be on sale November 8. The platform will find itself in 30 countries, and across 60 cellphone carriers, by the end of the year. Launch phone manufacturers include HTC, LG, Dell, and Samsung.
AT&T will lead the way with Windows Phone 7 devices in the U.S. with three phones. The Samsung Focus, which features a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen (also seen on its Galaxy S line of phones), will hit the streets first on November 8. The LG Quantum, which sports a 3.5-inch screen and a slide-out keyboard, and the HTC Surround, which features some bizarre slide-out speakers that support Dolby surround sound, will land later in the month. All of the phones will cost $199.99.
AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega showed off the phones, and he also announced that the company will bring U-verse mobile, which we assume to be streaming portable video, to Windows Phone 7. Current U-verse subscribers will have access to the content automatically, and new users will be able subscribe to U-verse content for a low monthly fee.
In my hands-on time with the phones, it was clear that Samsung’s Focus will be the best Windows Phone 7 device available at launch. The LG Quantum’s keyboard is large and fairly accurate, so it makes a good choice for people who absolutely need physical keyboards. As for the HTC Surround, I’m still not sure who would buy a cellphone because of its “surround sound” speakers. The speakers definitely sounded better than average cellphone speakers, but they also gave the device an unnecessary thickness.
Microsoft vice president Joe Belfiore gave an overview of Windows Phone 7’s final software. He demonstrated how easy it was to take a picture — he simply pulled it out of his pocket, hit the camera button, and instantly got a camera interface ready to take some shots. Users will be able to set up their pictures to — a move that’s reminiscent of Microsoft’s failed Kin phones.
Unsurprisingly, Windows Phone 7 appears to offer the best integration with Microsoft desktop software and services so far. Belfiore showed off the email interface, which looks clean and simple, and then proceeded to launch a PowerPoint presentation that was attached to a message seamlessly. He boasted that not only will you be able to view Office files, including Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, but you’ll also be able to edit them easily as well. Belfiore also demonstrated how well Windows Phone 7 handles typing by making only one mistake in a fast typing attempt.
Belfiore then gave an in-depth look at Windows Phone 7’s six hubs, which group together different tasks such as gaming and media. The People hub, unsurprisingly, is all about your contacts with some nifty social networking integration. He showed off how easy it is to get to somebody’s Facebook wall from their contacts entry, but there wasn’t any other social networking (like Twitter) to show yet. The Pictures hub gathers together all of your photos, and also allows you to quickly post and comment on Facebook photos.
Perhaps the most interesting section is the Office hub, which allows users to access files shared on SharePoint servers. The OneNote integration also looks compelling — your notes , and can also be synchronized with desktop OneNote clients. Belfiore also said that Microsoft will release an update in early 2011 that will bring copy and paste functionality to the platform, thanks to popular demand (why this wasn’t included from the start is still a mystery).
The Music and Videos hub offers what you’d expect — tons of Zune integration (including the Zune Pass subscription service), as well as the ability to download podcasts. Belfiore mentioned that Microsoft will allow third-party companies to integrate into its Music and Video hub, which may mean we’ll see a service like Pandora fully integrated with background streaming.
Belfiore then moved on to a few apps from eBay and IMDB. Both apps adhered to Windows Phone 7’s iconic “Metro” user interface, and IMDB in particular looked gorgeous. The app designs are reminiscent of how much more polished iPhone apps generally look compared to Android apps.
He also showed off the Games hub, which offers quite a bit of Xbox Live integration. You’ll be able to bring down your Xbox 360’s Live avatar, or design a new one on the phone with tons of customization options. Belfiore demonstrated , a cute block-based game, and The Sims 3, which looks basically the same as it does on the iPhone.
Overall, there wasn’t much that surprised us at the launch event, but it’s nice to finally see Microsoft moving forward after first announcing Windows Phone 7 in February. The platform certainly looks polished, but it remains to be seen if consumers will opt for it instead of the more mature iPhone and Android devices.
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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.
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