An interesting feature on the Seattle Times' web site, entitled Clash of the Cellphone Contenders looks at Microsoft's attempt to make inroads to the smartphone market, and is really quite interesting (if you don't mind the bits where the same old rhetoric is gushed from a Microsoft face as he attempts lame excuse after lame excuse for Microsoft Mediocrity)....
Stacker for Nokia Series 60 is recognized as the best software application in its category and is officially announced as a winner of international Series 60 application contest arranged by Nokia. And this is celebrated with all of us by offering 20% of on Stacker for Nokia 9210 and for Nokia 7650/3650!
In an annoucnement which clearly shows Motorola's conintuing interest and support for Symbian OS, Symbian and Motorola Semiconductor have announced 2.5G and 3G reference diseigns based on Motorola's i.250 and i.300 Innovative Convergence wireless platforms. The reference designs, presumably available to other manufactuers, cut development time by 50%. Read full story for comment.
Digia have announced the forthcoming availability of a new tools for developers. Their Entertainment Engine is a 'comprehensive middleware technology platform focused on enabling device manufacturers and mobile game developers to effectively roll out new products'. Another sign of the importance of mobile gaming, and sure to have implications for N-Gage development.
Nokia and Sony Ericsson have agreed to align their development platforms. The press relase states 'From Q2 2003, developers will benefit from being able to use a single tool set to target both Series 60 and UIQ devices'. Mind you they don't specify how they are going to do this as Series 60 currently uses C++ and UIQ, Metroworks.I think this shows great collaboration between two rival hardware makers and should make life a lot easier for software developers. It also raises the question could Nokia produce UIQ devices and Sony Ericsson Series 60? Full details can be read here.
Beanik announced last week that its Audio Engine's API's are available to developers via an add in SDK (and will later be integrated into the Metrowerks SDK). This allows developers to integrate high fidelity sound into applications requiring real-time audio for thing like multimedia messaging, user alerts, game soundtracks and special effects.
Samsung Electronics and Infineon Technologies today announced a co-operation to provide a comprehensive smartphone system solution, based on Symbian OS, that will significantly reduce development time. This comes hot on the heals of Samsung's confirmation as a Symbian shareholder.
According to this Financial Times article. Samsung have brought a 5% stake in Symbian. This means that all the major player now own a piece of the operating System. Perhaps Microsoft have lost the Smartphone battle (see earlier news).
An article on The Register looks at another article from The Economist which concludes that fear of Microsoft has given Symbian victory in the Smartphone market. Despite its obvious superiority, many (including me) are still of the opinion that it's too early to call the shots, but some very interesting points are made;
Motorola have announced that they will be using Linux in most of its mid to high range phones. You can read more on this ZDNet article. Does this mean they have finally given up on Symbian, will the Paragon II never be released? UPDATE Perhaps it will (see comments).
SwitchBlade is unimpressed. America is declaring war on half of the world, with few people standing in the way. Yet they seem keen to start a world war at the same time....
In this Electronic News article about Sendo's Microsoft court case they say that Sendo has traded through it financial difficulties. They are currently redeveloping their Z100 smartphone using the Symbian Operating system and hope to release it in the second half of this year.
The BBC is asking anybody who is going to the march against military action in Iraq*, who also happens to have a camera enabled phone, to snap some shots and send them in over MMS......
Nokia have issued the following press release which may, or may not (dpending on how conspiratorial you feel about big companies) be trying to get people to buy their own products as opposed to other people's; "Over the past months, cases have been reported of non-original mobile phone batteries overheating in the European, African and Asian regions, causing damage to both batteries and phones. As these reported cases understandably raise public concern, Nokia wants to raise consumer awareness about non-original batteries and the possible consequences of using non-original batteries". Click the above link for the full press release.
Microsoft has finally decided on how to do away with Sendo's unreasonable assumption that doing business in a fair and professional manner would benefit everybody by throwing back the accusation that Sendo deliberately tried to produce a crap phone, or to put it another way; that "management determined to release an unstable and unreliable product". The only evidence that Sendo wanted to produce a dodgy product (which is what any company breaking new technology into a young market would want to do :roll: ) is that they originally chose Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 platform, but surely, Sendo can argue that any flaws found in the phone were 'features' or 'design decisions'? Anway, for more information view this article on The Register and see for yourself....
