Microsoft's New Mobile Strategy

Just for testing
I always wondered why India is considered an important market when it comes to smartphones, only 1 in 1000 buys a flagship phone and that's where the money is for these Mobile Giants unless they are selling millions of low-end phones.

Some might say Microsoft's plan failed to utilize Nokia's Mobile Division which they bought back in 2013 but I will argue as they never had any desire to make any plans with it. Arguably MS only made only 6 different phones with their purchase and 5 of them were low-end phones, we got only one flagship in form of Lumia 950.

It's a known fact Microsoft didn't market their flagship as their software was lagging in several areas so they have been focused to fix that issue instead but this lead to a huge gap because of which most users just forgot about windows Phone.

Microsoft's new strategy involves focusing on U.S.A and Europe cause they believe that's the only place where they can sell Flagship phones mainly to businesses and entrepreneurs by marketing Security and Continuum.

It's early to say if MS will fail or succeed but certainly they won't be making any low-end phones from now on, which will be quite interesting, They are going the Apple route one flagship a year maybe two.

Nokia Lumia 830 announced

Microsoft unveiled its latest Windows Phone, the Lumia 830, at IFA 2014 in Berlin. Microsoft has confirmed that the Lumia 830 will be shipping globally this month at a price of EUR 330 (roughly Rs. 26,200) before taxes and subsidies. The Lumia 830 runs Windows Phone 8.1 with the new Lumia Denim update, Lumia 830 is the company's "thinnest and lightest Lumia to date." It will be available in Green, Grey, Orange, and White colours. Lumia 830 is dubbed as "the affordable flagship."

The Lumia 830 has a 10-megapixel PureView camera with Carl Zeiss optics, LED flash, and it also packs a 1-megapixel front-facing camera. Running Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim update, the Lumia 830 comes preloaded with features such as Notification Centre, Live Tiles, Microsoft Office, Cortana, OneDrive, Live Folders, Apps Corner, an updated Glance screen and more secure networking, among others.



Microsoft  is also offering a free three-month Skype Unlimited World subscription in select markets with the Lumia 830. It also features a 5-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) ClearBlack IPS LCD display offering a pixel density of 296ppi. It is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2GHz alongside 1GB of RAM. There is 16GB of inbuilt storage which is further expandable up to 128GB (via microSD card). Additionally, it comes with 15GB of free cloud storage available via OneDrive. It is backed by a 2200mAh battery and the device supports wireless charging.

Nokia Lumia 730 announced

Microsoft has announced the Lumia 730(Dual SIM) and Lumia 735 selfie-focused phones at a event in Berlin. It will start shipping in September. It has a primary 6.7-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, and a secondary 5-megapixel front-facing camera. The Lumia 730 Dual SIM and Lumia 735 run Windows Phone 8.1 out-of-the-box. Microsoft will later provide update to Lumia Denim during Q4 2014. The Lumia 735 is a 4G LTE-enabled smartphone with only a single SIM card (Micro-SIM) slot.

It also feature a 4.7-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) display with a pixel density of 316ppi and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Both the devices are powered by 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM.

The newly-launched Lumia 730 Dual SIM and Lumia 735 have 8GB of built-in storage that can be expanded via microSD card (up to 128GB). Microsoft is also offering 15GB of free OneDrive cloud storage for Lumia 730 Dual SIM and Lumia 735 users.

The battery capacity on Lumia 730 Dual SIM and Lumia 735 is 2220mAh, which is rated to deliver up to for 22 hours of 2G talk time and 17 hours of 3G talk time. The company is also offering a free three-month Skype Unlimited World subscription in select markets along with the new Lumia 30 Dual SIM and Lumia 735.

Both the Lumia devices will be available in four colour options - Bright Green, Bright Orange, Dark Grey and White.

BlackBerry Messenger almost available for Windows Phone

BlackBerry released BlackBerry Messenger released on iOS and Android last year but it is no where to be found on Windows Phone but all that has changed today.

Now, BBM can be found in Windows Phone Store although it can't be downloaded yet. BlackBerry is in the process of Beta testing. Most likely it will be available in the next few days.




You can check the app here: BBM for windows

Microsoft bought Nokia's Device Division and Services

Today on 3rd of September, Microsoft bought most of Nokia for 5.44 Billion Euro. 

Microsoft has made it self a key player in the Device manufacturing industry with one brilliant move, with this Microsoft has end to end control. Now they need to improve the software part, they acquired one of the best hardware making company in the world.

Some people might compare it with Google's acquisition of Motorola this is different  but comparable as Nokia and Motorola are a gold mine of Patents. There are many differences between the two, Nokia is not dead yet. In Asia it is still one of the respected Companies and Motorola's days were over when Google bought it, this means Microsoft doesn't have to do much to revive it

Nokia will now focus on technologies which are built around smartphones(its Sad) like Here Maps although they have licensed it to Microsoft for the next 4 years, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is also heading back to Microsoft, not sure what he will do there but there will be a lot of changes as Steve Ballmer also announced his retirement few days ago.

But can Microsoft succeed where Nokia failed? Was Nokia holding Windows Phone back, or was Windows Phone the problem? The big questions aren't going away, but maybe now we'll get answers.

Many people will be upset because of this news but I will say "this is really not the end of Nokia, that happened years ago" today they successfully sold a sinking ship at a good price, there will also be a few people who will say they could have made some android phones and repaired their ship, well to that it was already a little too late... 

This is positive news for Microsoft and Microsoft alone nobody else has anything to gain from it.

Story of the Samsung Galaxy

Samsung released the first galaxy phone back in 2009 but since then its light years ahead already. Galaxy series helped Samsung put itself on the map, the first Galaxy phone was just known as Samsung Galaxy, it was Samsung's first Android phone. It didn't had much horsepower in it which limited it to Android 1.5 due to which it received a lot of criticism from Galaxy users.

In 2010 Samsung announced the Galaxy S, it was received well by its customers. Galaxy S didn't had any shortcomings which made it a true powerful flagship phone for the Korean giant. This phone was not upgraded to Android 4.0 but considering it was released in 2010, it was still  pretty incredible. It was the first time when anyone gave iPhone some sort of competition. Now it was time for Samsung to announce another Galaxy S phone to  rule the market, they Announced Galaxy SII in may of 2011, it had a  creative design, latest Android version all signs of a true Flagship phone. It was a successful phone which gave iPhone a strong competition but Samsung wasn't done yet they announced Galaxy Note, which created a segment of its own. It was the Phablet neither a Phone neither a tablet, its features like S-Pen made it one of the innovative phone of all times. Then Google partnered with Samsung to make their very own Nexus phone known as Galaxy Nexus,  it was the first device to run on the latest Android 4.0, which can even be upgraded to the latest Android O.S, it was successful in generating a high level of expectation and it was received well by all its critics.

Samsung launched the Galaxy SIII at Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012 event in may of 2012. It received well by everyone, about 9 million Galaxy III were pre-ordered in two weeks, making it one of the fastest-selling gadget of all times but the calendar year was not ever for Samsung yet, the released Galaxy Note II in September which was destined to be successful  like its older brother,  the original Galaxy Note. Samsung recently released their latest galaxy S offering  the Galaxy S4, this phone also received a warm welcome by its customers but a lot of criticism from its critics saying it has the same design as the Galaxy SIII. Samsung has been on a roll since last 4 years and they have worked hard for their success, which makes them a true Champion. Samsung has done right everything to be on driver seat of Mobile Phone industry, they give something new and innovative to the industry every year.

Firefox O.S : New kid on the block

Mozilla Corporation's Firefox after being one of the most popular web browser, just entered the race of mobile operating system with their recent announcement of Firefox O.S, they are following google's footsteps by making the O.S open source hence making it more easily accessible to a range of Mobile Phone manufacturing companies in the future, currently Mozilla is only offering two Developer Phones, the Keon and Peak. 

Keon runs on a single core 1Ghz Qualcomm processor packs 512MB  RAM, 4GB internal memory, 3 megapixel camera and 3.5" screen, however Peak runs on 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, offers the same memory as Keon but includes 4" screen, an 8 megapixel back camera and a 2 megapixel front camera. Keon and Peak, both of the phones are available on sale at "geeksphone.com" at $119 and $195 respectively although both of the phones were sold out in a matter of hours but they later reappeared on the website.

Firefox O.S already has several partners including names like, Facebook, Twitter, ebay, Electronic Arts, Disney, LG and Qualcomm also considering the fact the two developers phones were sold out in a few hours, there might be a future for Firefox O.S in the market which is now dominated by Google's Android and Apple's iOS.