Had enough of seeing grids and folders of static (Calendar app excluded, of course) icons on your iDevice? Well, here’s one option to relieving your tedium: a Windows Phone 7 theme for the iPhone and iPod touch. You’ll naturally need to jailbreak your iOS handheld in order to restyle it quite so dramatically, but once you do, you’ll have all your precious apps sorted in a neat alphabetical pile on one screen, with the other waiting patiently for your customizations and live tile choices. It’s a good looking little mod, we have to say, and it’s currently going through beta testing, so why not grab your iPhone and see if it can survive a lick of Microsoft paint without self-combusting?
Tying into its cloud computing initiatives from the past couple of years, Microsoft has released a preview version of its Cloud Services SDK for Windows Phone 7 with the goal of enabling devs to tap into online computation, storage, notification, and security capabilities exposed by some of the other cloud projects that Redmond’s already working on. The main thrust of this seems to be Project Hawaii, which is being spearheaded by Microsoft Research to build cool and interesting mobile-focused stuff that rests atop the company’s cloud services. The first two of those services are called Relay and Rendezvous; the former enabled phone-to-phone communication to the cloud without the need for static IP addresses, while the latter is some sort of aliasing system for assigning human-readable names to cloud service clients, which really sounds like a generalized form of Relay. Clearly, it’s going to be a while before commercial products are built on this SDK, but it’s an interesting space to keep an eye on in the meantime.
Microsoft is reportedly pestering Intel for a 16-core version of its Atom processor, which would provide a low-power alternative to mainstream chips for use in data servers. Dileep Bhandarkar, an engineer at Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services, suggested that higher-power Intel chips more commonly positioned for servers, such as the Xeon, demand too much power and active cooling in return for their higher clock speeds, PC World reports, and that there is a “huge opportunity” for a different strategy to data center processing.
“When you look at these tiny cores, another way of making them work in a very efficient way is [not to] surround them with a whole bunch of south bridges and network controllers. … Essentially, the tiny cores and systems-on-chip should go together” Dileep Bhandarkar, Microsoft
Global Foundation Services is the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the hosting of Bing, Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger, together with Sharepoint and Exchange installations for businesses. Bhandarkar said that ARM’s work on server processors was interesting but unproven, however it “lights a fire under Intel and AMD to deliver more effective x86 solutions.”
For its part, Intel said it had “no announcements to make” regarding new Atom chips, but did point to the fact that its existing processors are already found in at least one HP Windows Home Server model.
Eric Schmidt has denied that his decision to step down as Google CEO was motivated by internal disagreements over the search giant’s handling of Chinese censorship, also insisting that the management shake-up – which will see co-founder Larry Page take the CEO role – “has nothing to do with competitors.” Instead, the move is intended to clarify Schmidt, Page and Sergey Brin’s roles within Google.
Schmidt will still handle a significant amount of responsibility as Executive Chairman, taking on “all the external stuff: customers, partners, deals, M&A, government, press, publicity and marketing. It was misinterpereted by many people who didn’t understand what I was doing.” Brin will focus on ”the order of three big initiatives”; it’s unclear if these are the same as the three “strategic initiatives – LTE, mobile money and cheap smartphones – that Schmidt previously confirmed.
As for competitors, Schmidt denied that Google sees Facebook as a rival, suggesting that Microsoft was a more likely threat. No word on rumors that he harbors ambitions to be a talk-show host, however.
For years, suit-and-tie circles have bowed to BlackBerry as the king of corporate communication, but iOS has been creeping in on enterprise territory, calling into question RIM’s sovereignty in the boardroom. The folks at Deutsche Bank Equity Research struck the most recent blow to RIM’s enterprise dominance with the announcement that they’ll buck BlackBerry for iPhone, following a trial using Good Technology’s secure email app. The company tested the app in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server, delivering AES 192-encrypted email and calendar data to employees, and, according to the firm’s research analyst, the iPhone proved an easier and faster solution to BlackBerry. Last summer, AT&T announced that 40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, and we just reported on RIM’s possible move to devices beyond the BlackBerry. We’re not saying it’s off to the guillotine with the old standard bearer, but it definitely looks like there are new contenders for the enterprise crown.
Microsoft is saying that over two million Windows Phone 7 devices have been sold to carriers and manufacturers as of this last quarter. No solid numbers were given out on exactly how many have been sold to customers. “We’re still in the early stages,” Microsoft Senior Product Manager Greg Sullivan said to Mobilized magazine,”when people use this phone, they really, really like it.”
He also added that 93% of the early customers said they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the experience of Windows Phone 7. AT&T, who carries a series of the new Windows Phone 7 line has also said that sales are steadily growing and that 90% of customers would recommend a Windows Phone to others.
With numbers like the ridiculous 16.2 million iPhones sold over the holiday season, the paltry two million Windows Phone 7 numbers are very representative consumer visibility right now. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is slowly building steam but have you actually seen many around? Keep at it Redmond.
Cutting through the back and forth surrounding Windows Phone 7 tethering are two new hacks, with one being markedly easier than the other to implement. After discovering the option in Samsung’s Focus and Omnia 7 late last year, engineering minds over at xda-developers have now uncovered a method to allow USB internet tethering on HTC’s smattering of Windows Phone 7 handsets. Unfortunately, you’ll need to unlock your device before any of this will work, but the case is definitely different for Dell’s Venue Pro. For that one, you’ll simply need to modify the .INF file — no unlock required. Hit the links below for the devilish details, and try not to set up a P2P farm using your phone’s 3G connection. We hear carriers are none too fond of that foolhardiness.
Microsoft just dropped a few tidbits of knowledge on us regarding Windows Phone 7′s performance in the marketplace so far. Here’s what we’ve got:
‘Early research’ says 93 percent of WP7 customers are ‘satisfied’ and 90 percent would recommend the platform to others. We don’t know details about the research, though — number of customers polled, time frame, so on.
Average of 100 new apps in the Marketplace per day, and over 6,500 total are available right now.
Most importantly, “over 2 million” licenses have been sold to OEMs around the world.
What does that tell us? Well, let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: the iPhone 4 sold 3 million units in a little under a month after its launch, so Microsoft clearly has plenty of room to catch up — but that comes as no surprise to us, analysts, or Microsoft itself. Furthermore, selling a license to an OEM isn’t the same as selling a phone to a customer, since many of these manufactured devices are sitting on store shelves; it’s unclear exactly how many WP7 devices are actually in users’ pockets right now, but the number is certainly less than “over 2 million.”
Microsoft’s earnings call is tomorrow where we expect to get more detail on the platform’s performance, but the company is saying today that it sees plenty of reasons to be “bullish about the foundation for long-term success” here — and considering that they simply can’t afford to fail in the mobile game, we hope they’re right.
Microsoft’s plans for IPTV and set-top boxes continue to trickle out, with the latest batch of rumors suggesting it’s Mediaroom which will be at the heart of the system. Mediaroom is Microsoft’s IPTV platform, licensed out to various carriers and TV/video service providers, and part of the company’s Interactive Entertainment Business division; according to ZDNet‘s sources, not only is Microsoft working on a Windows Phone Mediaroom client, the company is also believed to be developing a Silverlight build for Mediaroom (codenamed “Taos”), a tie-in between Mediaroom and Windows Media Center (codenamed “Monaco”) and maybe even a “Santa Fe” Mediaroom/Silverlight STB.
Meanwhile there’s an ongoing project to develop a Silverlight system-on-a-chip (SoC) implementation, which could potentially form the basis of a STB like Santa Fe, or indeed a Blu-ray player or HDTV. Microsoft has confirmed that “the Silverlight team is still actively working with a variety of key partners on SOCs” but will only say that it has “no new information to share at this time.”
Meanwhile, a new job advert for a Software Development Engineer on the Silverlight for Devices team calls for someone interested in taking “the great product that Silverlight has become and take it to a new space of TVs, Autos, Tablets, iPhones, Set Top Boxes, XBOX, and a host of other devices”:
“Internet TV is taking over the traditional TV steadily. One of the Microsoft mission goals is to provide a TV solution. Consumer media device (CMD) is one of the exciting products we are currently working on and we are looking for strong SDET to come in and help us deliver this product. The project vision is ‘Windows Embedded Powers TV worldwide’ and our mission is to provide both broadcast & internet content to meet future demands of consumer media devices.” Microsoft job advert
It’s unclear at this stage whether Microsoft envisages a STB running a Silverlight-powered Mediaroom, a version of the platform which runs on the SoC powering the Xbox 360, or OEM STBs and A/V devices hooked into an overall ecosystem of IPTV that can be accessed on PCs, Windows Phone devices and more.
Microsoft’s predicted play for the tablet market at CES 2011 failed to materialize, but it seems at least someone at the tech giant is thinking about market share. A slide-deck apparently created for resellers to push “Microsoft Commercial Slate PCs” has emerged over at ZDNet, explaining how best to position Windows based tablets to enterprise customers.
Interestingly, there’s only one mention of handwriting recognition, arguably one of Windows’ key remaining skills over rivals like the iPad, and no talk at all of Windows 8 and its rumored tablet-centric tweaks. Meanwhile there’s nothing in the way of tie-in with Windows Phone 7, which considering enterprise kept Windows Mobile buoyant seems an odd omission.
