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Nokia Cuts Lumia 900 Price to $50

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The Nokia Lumia 900 was launched by Nokia with a lot of media coverage and buzz. It was touted as one of the new products that will help Nokia regain lost ground in the mobile phone market. But the launch of the product has been mired with various issues, among them problems with accessing the internet or getting a phone signal, which made the phones useless for the most part. Nokia even decided to give $100 credits for Lumia 900 users who were affected by these problems. But even with the relatively affordable price of this Windows 7.5 powered phone, it was still not performing as expected sales wise. [Read more…]

iPhone, Android Biggest Gainers in Smart Phone OS Market

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The latest report on the mobile phone industry released by Gartner clearly shows why iPhone and Android are the new mobile platform to beat as sales of their corresponding mobile handsets great significantly in 2009. Interestingly, both platform gain were at the expense of a decreasing market share of previous smartphone market leader – Symbian OS which is used by Nokia devices.

Actually 2009’s may be one of Nokia’s worst year as both its units sales as well as Symbian’s market share both suffered from significant lost last year. Is Nokia finally losing its clout on the mobile phone market? It may seem so, thanks to the growing market share of smartphones such as the iPhone and Android phones.

In fact, both iPhone and Android platforms market share in 2009 were up by 14.4% and 3.9% respectively. Symbian’s market share went down from 52.9% to 46.9%. RIM is at a steady spot with 19.95 market share while Windows Mobile’s market share also went down from 11.8% to 8.7%.

So what do all these figure mean? Several things actually. First, Apple has overtaken Windows Mobile in the smartphone market share. And this is bad news for Microsoft especially since impressions about the latest version of Windows Mobile was not quite good. Will Microsoft continue on a losing streak when it come sto its mobile product offerings? Second, the Android seems to be the OS to watch out for this year. Surely, Android’s market share will continue to grow this year as more Android devices are coming out.

And of course Nokia and Symbian badly need to rethink their marketing strategy this year. Specifically Nokia need to spark up user interest to its smartphone offering.

Skyfire Mobile Phone Browser Gets Updated to Version 1.5

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I once used Skyfire as my mobile web browser when  I used to have a Nokia phone. It’s my favorite web browser aside from Opera Mini. I just love its sleek UI and how fast it loads mobile websites. Plus, Skyfire handles Flash and Javascript pages as well as streaming videos pretty well. But that was long before the iPhone and Nexus One.

Anyway, if you’re using a supported Nokia phone or a Windows Mobile smartphone and Skyfire is your mobile web browser, you’d be glad to know that Skyfire 1.5 has just been released.

Skyfire 1.5 support non-touch and touch-enabled phones such as those Nokia handsets with S60 OS in both 3rd or 5th version, or non-touch or touch-enabled Nokia handsets running the S60 OS.

Key Features of the Skyfire 1.5 include:

  • more fluid kinetic scrolling on touch-enabled handsets
  • better user interface including full screen mode and finger-friendly buttons for S60 mobile phones
  • more robust and faster browsing
  • auto-rotate for the touch-enabled S60 phones

To download Skyfire 1.5, you have three options – point your phone’s browser to m.skyfire.com, send a download link to your phone by providing your mobile phone number or install the browser on your PC before transferring it your touch or non-touch enabled mobile phones.

 

Microsoft attempting Android/iPhone catchup with dual Windows Mobile development?

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If sources at Taiwanese mobile handset manufacturers can be believed, Microsoft plans to keep both Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Mobile 7 alive well into the next decade, in a bid to compete with Android-based cellphones and the iPhone.

windows-mobile-logoMicrosoft could attack Android phones with the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, expected on October 1 this year with an upgraded touch interface available from February 2010.

A Windows Mobile 7 launch planned for the fourth quarter of 2010 and would potentially compete with the iPhone.

If true, that’s a seriously long lead time and makes me wonder just how serious Microsoft is about keeping and gaining mobile OS market share. [Read more…]