The unlikely winner of CES 2012 – Windows Phone

 

It’s clear from market statistics that Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android are the predominant smartphone platforms currently. But if the buzz at CES is anything to go by, Windows Phone will soon emerge as a strong contender to sit alongside these brands and associated ecosystems.

So how with its small market share how did Windows Phone come out as the winner at CES? It would have seemed unlikely heading into CES – particularly as there were dozens of other products vying for attention - from new cars (Ford launched the 2013 Fusion/Mondeo at CES), to dozens of Android tablets and handsets, OLED TVs, Ultrabooks amongst others.

Summing up why Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform got so much attention at CES is actually simple: Windows Phone is ready in just about every way. To break that down a little more there are five areas where it stands out:

1. Ecosystem – In the US at least, Microsoft have built a broad ecosystem around Windows Phone (and their other platforms). Music, Video, Xbox Live Gaming, Bing Search, Maps and more. Microsoft assures me this ecosystem will continue to expand globally in 2012.
2. Native compatibility - Windows Phone naturally ties closely with Xbox and Windows. These are the world’s top gaming, entertainment and computing platforms. And built in compatibility with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft Office, Exchange Server and Microsoft’s cloud offerings are second to none.
3. Wow factor – the newest Windows Phones have it, particularly the Nokia Lumia 900, it’s sibling the Lumia 800 and some handsets from HTC and Samsung.
4. Ease of Use – this is probably the easiest mobile platform to use right now. Most people would expect Apple to get that crown, but Microsoft are in the process of reinventing the touch user interface with Metro – a ‘design language’ that will soon span Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Windows 8. If you’re using another platform and don’t believe me I suggest you try out a Windows Phone handset loaded with your email, contacts and social networks.
5. Nokia – Microsoft’s partnership with Nokia is invaluable. Though Nokia lost market share in recent years their brand still carries a lot of weight and they still sell more mobile phones than anyone else. When Nokia came to CES with the Lumia 900, pro journalists, bloggers and podcasters alike took notice. It’s a gorgeous Windows Phone 4G handset featuring a beautiful large screen, Carl Zeiss cameras and bundled apps that are actually useful.

To be fair, Windows Phone isn’t perfect yet, though neither are the other mobile platforms. It’s main shortcoming is missing apps. The current pool of 50,000+ apps meets most needs – but if you’ve been using another platform there is a chance one or more of your favourite apps isn’t launched on Windows Phone just yet.

Longer term missing apps should be less of a problem as analysts predict that Windows Phone will be more popular than the iPhone by sometime in 2015. And when popularity arrives, so do apps.

Despite a few shortcoming I see Windows Phone as the winner of CES 2012. Now when will Vodafone, Telecom and 2degrees launch some new Windows Phones into the NZ market? (Apparently very soon in the case of Vodafone and Telecom)

You can catch more coverage of CES 2012 by listening to recent episodes of the NZ Tech Podcast. For more on Windows Phone visit Windows Phone NZ.

Silverlight 5 announced

Microsoft have today announced Silverlight 5. Scott Guthrie made the announcement at Silverlight Firestarter keynote. You can stream the event here. The video is well worth viewing and includes some incredible demos of data visualisation and 3D animation. With the Silverlight 5 release Microsoft have brought across more functionality from WPF.

Beta release of Silverlight is coming in first half of 2011, with final release in the second half of the year.

Highlights include:

• Data Binding improvements
• 100% Hardware Acceleration for video
• Trickplay enabling users to speed up or slow down video
• New low latency networking benefits
• Improved Windows Azure support
• Custom mark-up extensions
• WS-Trust support
• Text and Printing improvements
• Data visualisation improvements
• Out of Browser
  • Multiple Windows
  • P/Invoke support
  • Enterprise Group Policy support
• Support for 64-bit operating systems.

Windows Phone 7 based Sony Ericsson Xperia X7 and X7 mini coming in Q1 2011?

News has been floating around various gadget blogs today regarding new Windows Phone 7 devices from Sony Ericsson. While it’s been confirmed by Sony Ericsson that their focus for 2011 will be on Windows Phone 7 and Android, there have been no official announcements regarding WP7 handsets.

The images are fairly self explanatory since they include apparent device specs. What is unusual and makes the specs more likely to be bogus are certain specs such dual-core 1.2ghz CPU in the Sony Ericsson Xperia X7, and the higher spec camera in the likely lower cost x7 mini handset (10.1 megapixel).

Interesting facts about the Qualcomm MSM8260 chipset supposedly included in the X7 would suggest this handset might be destined for US carriers Verizon and Sprint due it’s support of CDMA support. More here about the chipset from a mid-year press release from Qualcomm: “The MSM8260 for HSPA+ and MSM8660 for multi-mode HSPA+/CDMA2000® 1xEV-DO Rev. B feature two enhanced CPU cores running at up to 1.2GHz for high levels of Web application and multimedia performance, including a powerful GPU with 3D/2D acceleration engines for Open GLES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1 acceleration, 1080p video encode/decode, dedicated low power audio engine, integrated low power GPS, and support for 24-bit WXGA 1280 x 800 resolution displays.”