Tag Archives: smartphone
Windows Mobile 7 Being Delayed for Competitive Reasons?
Posted on 10. Jan, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
1 Comments
It is being reported that Microsoft will delay the release of Windows Mobile version 7 until some time in 2011. This is a significant amount of time to hold off for a release from Redmond since it was expected that they were going to release a new version sometime in the latter half of 2010.
Microsoft recently released an updated Windows Moblie 6.5 in 2009, but it was not a complete makeover of their previous version and does little to compete with the explosion of new device that are being released sporting other mobile operating systems, including Android.
It’s entirely possible that Microsoft has decided to team up with another tech bellweather to try to come up with a possible competitor to Chrome OS and/or Android. I’m starting to think that perhaps Microsoft will concede the mobile phone market to Google, Apple and Research in Motion. They may decide that it is not a profitable market and perhaps they will only focus on netbooks and smartbooks. It makes sense, as their expertise is in computing – not smartphones. It is not outside of expectations that the new Windows Mobile will actually not be for phones at all.
Windows Mobile 6.5 reviews at its release were not impressive. Perhaps Microsoft should just focus on making their computer operating systems better. Because there are soon going to be free operating systems for mobile computing that may fare better than Windows will.
The Difference Between Netbooks and Smartbooks
Posted on 02. Jan, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
It’s becoming clear that the PC hardware market is about to become full of a lot of different types of small and lightweight machines. With CES coming up we can probably expect to see new and intriguing models that don’t fit into a particular genre. One thing that’s certain is that there are two totally different markets that are being targeted when contrasting netbooks from smartbooks. There is also hardware inside each that differentiates the two.
While netbooks are typically laptops that are smaller and geared mostly towards using the internet, smartbooks are really larger iteration of a smartphone. In fact, most smartbooks are expected to be produced by smartphone manufacturers and backed by wireless carriers. This is because unlike netbooks, which use Intel or AMD architecture, smartbooks utilize ARM processors that are found in just about every cell phone on the market today. Because these units are using the ARM technology, smartbooks are cheaper than netbooks. At the same time, a netbook will have more capabilites than a smartbook.
Smartbooks will be priced aroound the $200 range while netbooks can go from $300-$500 depending on hardware configuration and operating system.
Bottom line?Although netbooks have been a hit for the past two years, the market could change based on new technology that is shown at CES. Google’s going to have a big part of this market as users begin to adopt computing devices that are different from the traditional PC of the past.
I would expect to see Android on smartbooks and Chrome OS on netbooks.
