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A new report suggests very strong Windows Phone growth in Europe for 2012

Steven — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:00:55 +0000

Windows Phone 7 handset offering on launch

If there is any validity to a new report from technology research firm Strategy Analytics it would seem that 2012 promises to be a good year for Windows Phone, in Europe at least.

The report suggests that due to its partnership with handset makers Samsung, HTC, and of course Nokia the Windows Phone platform could see 12.3% market share in Western Europe. The reports forecasts some 117 million smartphones will be sold in Europe of which Microsoft could see 14 million of them being Windows Phones.

Strategy Analytics believes the smartphone market will grow roughly 12% from 105 million units to 117 million over the course of the next year, with Windows Phone becoming the fastest growing major smartphone platform next year, doubling its 6% share in 2011 to 12% in 2012.
Whilst confident of an increase in sales for Microsoft’s relatively new mobile platform, Neil Mawston, Director at Strategy Analytics, suggests Microsoft may still have limitations on its growth including limited support for dual-core smartphones, it’s smaller app marketplace and consumer perception of the brand following the negative feedback its previous mobile platforms received.
via The Next Web

A new report suggests very strong Windows Phone growth in Europe for 2012 is a post from: winextra
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Nokia to bring Windows Phone to Europe first

Maria Deutscher — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 23:35:52 +0000

Victor Saeijs, Nokia’s Europe vice president announced that the phonemaker will debut Windows Phone 7-powered handsets in six European markets: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK. The U.S and Finland were not included in the list of initial markets the new devices will hit.

“Knowing Nokia, there’s no doubt that once the WP7 handsets are ready they’ll find themselves swiftly available worldwide, but if you care to be among the very first to own one, you’ll be wanting to visit Europe’s western shores.”

The handsets are the first fruits of Nokia’s $2 billion collaboration agreement with Microsoft, which followed the company’s realization that Symbian is indeed lagging behind the rest of the market, in more ways than one. For starters, it lost a lot of market share in Europe, largely to Android. This resulted in a very sudden 14 percent decline in stock several months ago, and was followed by a smaller 4.7 percent slide.

Nokia hopes that Windows Phone 7 will help it recuperate; so much so, it even has plans toshut down the Ovi Store by late 2012.

Over at Microsoft’s side Windows Phone 7 has been accelerating pretty fast recently, even though it currently accounts for only a small portion of the market compared to iOS and Android. However Microsoft is working hard to keep and continually expand its turf, with one of its main focuses being the WP7 ecosystem.

All the proportioning and development is beginning to show promising results, knowing many major app developers have already created Windows Phone 7 versions of their apps. The latest example is Evernote, the note-taking service that yesterday announced in a blog post the app is now available to WP7 users.

Post originally written by Maria Deutscher for SiliconAngle and reposted here with permission

Nokia to bring Windows Phone to Europe first is a post from: winextra
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The iPad comes to France

peirre2 — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:09:32 +0000

Today, Friday, May 28th, 2010, Apple’s iPad became available in shops all over Europe. Contrasting with the throngs crowding the streets before shop opening time in Italy or Germany, here in France the number of expectant Apple fans numbered only a few hundreds, according to the newsmedia. That’s a few hundreds in front of each Apple shop, so the total number of units sold on the first day is still several thousands, but smaller by an order of magnitude at least than the number of iPhones sold on the first day it was introduced to the French marketplace.

One probable reason for this relative failure is the price tag: the iPad with 16 GB sells for 499 €, the one with 32 GB for 599 €, and the one with 64 GB for 699 €, and you need to add another 100 € for 3G capability. That’s 27% more expensive than the US price, even taking the different tax rates into account. Given the current economy slump, the wonder is that there were that many buyers.

The iPad comes to France is a post from: winextra
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[Updated] Preview of the browser choice screen in Windows 7 for Europe

peirre2 — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:06:15 +0000

Microsoft has published a preview of the browser choice they have included in Windows 7 as a result of the European anti-trust decision. The screen offers 5 browsers in a “random order” (that’s the claim, anyway): Internet Explorer (obviously), Mozilla FireFox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Apple Safari. For the already installed systems, the browser choice will be offered – in Europe only – through Windows Update.

Update (February 24): the specific update was offered today for my wife’s Vista computer. I haven’t seen it yet for my Windows 7 one.

[Updated] Preview of the browser choice screen in Windows 7 for Europe is a post from: winextra
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King Canute

Steven — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:26:01 +0000

In spite of all the opposition and through political shenanigans that would do credit to the Iranian President Ahmadinejad, the French government managed to have the “HADOPI” (no, I don’t know what the acronym stands for, and I really don’t care) law passed through both chambers, and it will become effective on January 1st, 2010.

If you didn’t follow the recent French law-making antics, that law is supposed to protect the so-called “mind products” (books, music, movies, pictures) from unlawful downloading. A very laudable purpose, but the worst possible implementation.

Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, Denmark, the countries of the world are meeting for a couple of weeks in order to try and stave off the end of the world – of our world, that is.

What is the relationship between the HADOPI law and the Copenhagen meeting? Both are attempting to prevent an irresistible force from destroying something of value to us. The irresistible force is greed. The “something of value” is artistic creation in one case, and the survival of the Human species in the other.

As actor Jack Palance said, “the only two things we can depend on are gravitation and greed”. Because the motor force behind HADOPI is also greed (the greed of the media majors), it stands a better chance of ultimately succeeding than the environment conference. Unfortunately, the importance of HADOPI to our lives is negligible: if we don’t survive, what will it matter that a few movie makers or painters or writers or singers didn’t earn as much money as they could have? Especially as, in reality, most of the money isn’t going to the creators anyway, but to the producers and agents…

The time to prevent global warming is past. The effects of the warming of the atmosphere are snowballing (pun intended), and as King Canute found out a long time ago, you can’t order the tide back.

Illegal downloading will go on, and so will the accumulation of carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere. We should try and slow down the inevitable, at least where global warming is concerned, but we should also try and prepare for the changed conditions. We have the technology to survive as a species, but only if we apply it to that purpose and don’t waste our resources fighting the chicken thieves with big guns.

King Canute is a post from: winextra
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High-Speed Internet for everyone

Steven — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:07:56 +0000

I just came across an interesting tidbit of information: the Finnish government wishes to make access to the Internet a “basic right”, enforceable by law, just like electricity and land telephone are. This is already true in Estonia, one of the so-called “Baltic countries”.

According to the Finnish radio Yleisradio OY (no, I don’t listen to it, I only read about it ), Finland’s ministry of Transports and Communications has been put in charge of making sure every single inhabitant will have access to high-speed Internet: a minimum of 1 Mbps to start with, but a minimum of 100 Mbps by the end of 2015. Because most of Finland is sparsely populated, some areas will have to be served through wireless (WiMax) access points.

Meanwhile in France, dwellers of the larger cities (large by French standards, that is ) and their suburbs can connect through ADSL 2+ (up to 16 Mbps) or cable (30 Mbps) or fiber (100 Mbps). Most other places can connect through ADSL-RE (from 512 Kbps up to 8 Mbps). Only the most secluded villages still have to put up with dial-up.

Currently there are two competing fiber technologies, FTTB (Fiber To The Building) and FTTH (Fiber To The Home), and because the EU has ruled that FTTH should be the preferred technology, but that is of course more costly to deploy, not to mention the legal problems of running fibers in existing condominium buildings, deployment of optical fiber has all but ground to a halt – a paradoxical development.

There are three companies competing for the fiber market here, and a few days ago one French Representative suggested that every new building be wired for all three from the start.

The sensible solution, of course, would be to do for the Internet what has been done for gas and electricity and land telephone: let all three networks use the same “pipes” and have a separate company do the physical deployment, but I doubt this will happen, simply because our lawmakers just don’t understand what it’s all about, just like everywhere else – except possibly in the Baltic countries and Finland.

And anyway, this wouldn’t change the situation for existing buildings.

So I’m still waiting for fiber, over 4 years after its deployment in Paris started. Oh well, cable isn’t too bad, it certainly beats dial-up .

High-Speed Internet for everyone is a post from: winextra
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