“Microsoft: Windows Mobile taking share from BlackBerry” is the headline that just came in my newsreader. This is often the type of headline that gives technology bloggers, myself included, that sense that Microsoft is about to take someone out, however, when you really think about it, when does Microsoft ever not try to take someone out.
If you read this incredibly short news article, all it really says is that Windows Mobile is gaining marketshare on BlackBerry. It doesn’t give you any specifics though. I would agree that Windows Mobile is probably gaining marketshare, however, I would argue that it is being gained in an area that wasn’t truly dominated by Research in Motion in the first place. The consumer market.
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Lets pretend for a moment that you are not already a BlackBerry fanatic. You walk into a store that carries mobile devices and you start to take a look at the smartphones. Do you think that the BlackBerry would stand out as the sweetest device on the shelf?
Before you say absolutely, we are not talking about the best device for sending secure business communications via some back-end server integrated into your corporate email system. We are talking about the “Hippest” mobile phone in the store.
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Palm announced last week that it will introduce a new UMTS/3G, Windows Mobile powered Treo running on Vodafone’s network to European customers by the end of the year.
The Palm(R) Treo(TM) smartphone that will result from this collaboration will represent an industry first by operating on Vodafone’s 3G/UMTS network and delivering the hallmark Palm experience on top of the Microsoft Windows Mobile(R) operating system. The new Treo smartphone will be available first to Vodafone customers in multiple European countries, including the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and Netherlands, before the end of the calendar year.
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Palm, Treo, Vodafone, Windows Mobile 5.0
In our excitement over the announcement that a BlackBerry with a camera is coming, we completely overlooked what Research in Motion had to say about BlackBerry Connect here in the United States.
In an eWeek.com interview at the C3 Expo in New York, BlackBerry maker co-CEO Jim Balsillie said that RIM will expand it’s BlackBerry Connect service in the United States. “Twenty non-BlackBerry devices can use the BlackBerry service now,” Balsillie said, adding that 20 more would be able to use it this year.
The hold up on BlackBerry Connect enmasse in the US has been that up until now Blackberry Connect only worked on GSM devices. CDMA still dominates the wireless market in the United States and Balsillie said that focus to this point has been on GSM because “providers want to be able to sell their devices to 200 carriers in 100 countries.”
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It looks like Motorola and Telus are going after would-be BlackBerry users right in Research in Motion’s back yard. Telus will be the first carrier to offer the Motorola Q in Canada.
According to Telus’s website, the Motorola Q will be $249.99 with a three year contract with voice, email, and data plans totaling $80 per month or more thru June 30th.
I have never been one to cry “BlackBerry Killer”, however, I have been a fan of the Q going way back to when we were calling it the RazrBerry (incorrectly I might add). I have been tossing around the idea of carrying a BlackBerry and a mobile phone and the Motorola Q along with the Mobile ESPN phone are at the top of my lists right now.
Motorola Q
Motorola Q, Moto Q, SlingBox
After a few delays it looks like Motorola’s Q that kind-of-sort-of competes with the BlackBerry is finally coming out. The Moto Q will be available online May 31st and in Verizon stores by June 5th.
Although you can get email on the Q kind of like on a BlackBerry, I think that the traditional PDA manufacturers like HP and Dell are the ones would should be concerned with loosing even more share. The Q has been dubbed the BlackBerry Killer but I think that it will be more of a Pocket PC killer.
Motorola Q, Moto Q, Q
Gizmodo has posted a rumor that Verizon is asking for changes in the Motorola Q that will add more delay to the already delayed release of the device that has been branded the BlackBerry Killer. According to a noDRM.com source inside of Verizon, the MotoQ will not be launching this month and several of the features that many techies were looking forward to are being cut.
Coming out of friendly-user testing, Verizon is looking for keyboard modifications thought to be along the lines of bigger keys and some changes to the way certain keys interact with the phones OS. When asked about the EVDO capability of the Q, specifically in relation to the use of applications such as Slingboxs Sling Player Mobile, our source tells us that though the capability may be there, users downloading gigabytes of data through Verizons EVDO network will be turned off.
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Motorola Q, MotoQ, Verizon, BlackBerry Killer
According to Bloogberg.com, Microsoft Corp. won a deal with the U.S. Census Bureau for mobile device software on over 500,000 devices.
Lets put this into perspective. There are an estimated 3 to 3.5 million BlackBerry devices total in the United States. Microsoft just won a deal, that they are expected to announce today, for half a million Windows Mobile devices at one customer.
I bet a BlackBerry that runs Windows Mobile doesn’t sound half bad to BlackBerry investors about right now.
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