Google Eyeing Mobile Payment Company, Softcard, Takeover

Several sources have claimed that Google is interested, and is most likely, to buy the mobile payment company, SoftCard. The mobile payment service is currently in collaboration with majority of the top mobile service providers in the United Sates, including AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc.

Softcard has Windows and Android compatibility and also allows its users to make payments via various payment terminals. The company initially entered the market with the name of ISIS but for obvious reasons it had to change its name and went with SoftCard.

Microsoft gives a sneak peak at its next version of Windows Operating system, code-named 'Windows 8’

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Microsoft has released the first sneak peak of its upcoming Windows 8, which will be the next version of the Windows operating system. It has been designed to work on both PC’s and touch screen tablets. The sneak peak was actually shaped into a blog post, which also featured a YouTube video representing the functionality of the operating system.

The President of Microsoft Windows Division, Steven Sinofsky, personally demonstrated few of the features of this new operating system, which is not actually named yet but only coded as "Windows 8," at the D9 conference by All Things Digital. Sinofsky declared that "laptops, slates, desktops -- all can run one operating system." He said that "Things that people see work... on an iPad, I think we can do that and then bring with it all of the benefits that you have with Windows." Finally he also added "We have an approach that is different but builds on the value of an operating system that sells 400 million or so units a year."

Google’s former CEO and Executive Chairman, Schmidt, Reviews Its Rivals Including Microsoft, Apple, Facebook at an Interview

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Eric Schmidt, Google’s co-founder and executive chairman, stated that his company is a member of “gang of four” kings leading the consumer technology. His list of these four kings including, except Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook hence it specifically ruled out Microsoft. He was giving an opening interview at the All Things D conference, held in southern California. Schmidt was very certain to ignore the world’s largest software company in the race of enterprise, he stated that Microsoft was “not driving the consumer revolution in the minds of consumers.” He explained that most of the profits of Microsoft are gained by the corporate sales and not from consumers. Schmidt did not even include the Xbox gaming system in the evaluation as he stated it was “not a platform at the computational level.”

Schmidt made it sound like a threat for Microsoft, that it should be afraid of Google and its enterprise space. Schmidt declared that we are all seeing “the death of IT as we know it,” as innumerable companies are taking the major step of moving their data from local servers to online servers. Microsoft is one of the great rivals of Google, in the race to release better cloud-based services in the market.

Schmidt had ambivalent words for Apple; Google has partnered Apple in some cases like search and maps, but it is also among its chief rivals in cases like mobile operating system. Schmidt admitted that Apple has very “beautiful products” in the market, but also stated that the company is a little too harshly on its iOS developers. He said, on the contrary, that the developers of Android relatively enjoy more freedom in the app development and releasing sector. He stated that “Apple’s model is the reverse of the Google model,” adding that “the Google model is, let the market decide.”

Microsoft Is Apparently Making More Money Out Of HTC Android Phone Sales than Its Own Windows Phone

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There has been a very vivid and unbelievable revelation made by an analyst from Citi, Walter Pritchard, who shared very strange findings today declaring that Microsoft might be making even more money from Android system than it might make from its own Windows Phone.

It was stated in a post published on Friday, which identified that Microsoft gets an almost $5 for each sale made on every HTC phone running Android. The absurd settlement was made due to a case of patent agreement between HTC and Microsoft last year. To protect the Taiwanese company from a proposed patent infringement lawsuit, that could have been filed by Microsoft over the Android operating system. It will be even more beneficial for the C.E.O. of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, and his company if they are able to seek agreements with other Android phone makers, which it is in the midst of suing currently. Pritchard has predicted that these companies might even agree to a settlement from between $7.50 to $12.50 per device sold.

Another analyst, Horace Dediu, from Asymco, also stated in his report on Friday that “a rough estimate of the number of HTC Android devices shipped is 30 million. If HTC paid $5 per unit to Microsoft, that adds up to $150 million Android revenues for Microsoft.” On the other hand, if we compare it to the sales of Microsoft’s own Windows Phone licenses, they are sold almost round about 2 million, hence “estimating that the license fee is $15/WP phone,” says Dediu, “that makes Windows Phone revenues to date $30 million.”

Toyota designs its network service for new cars, titled “Toyota Friend”

Image via WikipediaToyota Motor Corp. is joining forces with cloud computing company, Salesforce.com Inc., giving both the companies the opportunity to design a social network service allowing the owners of the cars to become "friends" with their cars. This system will provide friendly tweet-like reminder notices and calls of maintenance checks. This deal is the second in the line of Toyota Motor Corp., as the world's biggest automaker collaborated with the world’s biggest software company, Microsoft Corp., as they got together last month to announce the strategy of bringing more and better Internet-connected services to new car models of Toyota worldwide.

"Social networking services are transforming human interaction and modes of communication," claimed the President of Toyota Corp., Akio Toyoda, while he was in the joint news conference hosted with the C.E.O. of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, in Tokyo on Monday. He added that "The automobile needs to evolve in step with that transformation." Both, intelligence of internet and telematics and the advancements of automobile, are expected to form a key combination in adding value to cars. Both companies join hands to develop an attractive marketing tool as consumers look beyond just their laptops and phones for connectivity. The telemetics service of Toyota is already functional which connecting its vehicle drivers with dealers.

Microsoft Completely Upgrades Its Phone Software, Adding New List of Handset Makers

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This Tuesday Microsoft Corp. released an update of its Windows phone software, this time encompassing numerable new features, aimed to help it catch up with the lead gathered by its rivals like Google Inc. and Apple Inc.  This new software update was code-named Mango before its release and will be debuting in new Windows phones till start of this autumn. The existing Windows phones will also be updated with this software beforehand, though no particular date is provided yet.

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This new updated software was initially announced almost eight months after the launch of first Windows Phone 7, promised to be powered with 500 brand new features. Highlighted by the features like Internet Explorer 9 as the default mobile browser, detailed integration of both Twitter and LinkedIn feeds and programmed Facebook check-ins along with the a great market of more than 17,000 downloadable applications. This new updated software is basically going to increase the level of distinctive "live tiles" of Microsoft; this means that the users will be able to see real-time information on their home screen without having to start any application. Moreover, it is also promised to house better processors allowing multi-tasking where many applications can run together simultaneously.

Microsoft Gets Its Last Shot to Get Rid of EU’s Imposed Fine

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The record breaking fine imposed on Microsoft in 2008 by the European Commission, was a penalty for failing to abide by the orders of the regulatory authority four years back; it was asked to provide relevant information necessary for its rival competitors to work with computers running its software. Once such huge fine was imposed, Microsoft kept an extremely conciliatory approach in its dealings with the Commission; its competitors like Google Inc. have also learned from its example and kept a humble tone while dealing with EU.

"The hearing is a remnant of the old, aggressive Microsoft. The company has changed their strategy in dealing with the Commission dramatically since then," declared a lawyer from Latham & Watkins in Brussels, Susanne Zuehlke. She further explained that "They have become more cooperative in their own matters. In addition, they have become an active complainant. The Commission has picked up several matters against other companies in line with Microsoft's business objectives.”

IBM Surpasses The Market Value Of Microsoft Corp. After Long Fifteen Years

 International Business Machines has just surpassed its very old and traditional rival, Microsoft Corp., in the evaluation of market value of both companies. Microsoft Corp. had kept its considerable dominance over IBM since it first surpassed over the market price of IBM in April 1996. This was a very eye opening unfolding of the time, as this swipe in the market value of the world's two most popular technology companies was not foreseen and happened very abruptly. IBM was ruling the entire computer industry for decades till it hired Microsoft, a very small company than, for providing it with an operating system for its launch of a new line of PC’s in early 1980s.

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Bill Gates was pioneering this revolution as his company undoubtedly dominated whole of the computer industry, exercising his vision which stated; “software is much more valuable and powerful than hardware.” This envisioned Microsoft Corp. as it continued much profitable success leading to a better market value compared to IBM; by the end of 1999, the fortunes had fluctuated to such extend that that Microsoft's market value was three folds more than that of IBM. The rise of Seattle-based Microsoft led many market analysts to believe that IBM is no more than an old-fashioned, immobile giant which failed to keep the pace in the computing revolution.

However, right after such contrast, since 2000, history repeated itself and this time in an up-side down manner, as the stock of Microsoft Corp. halted their steep rise. Many investors doubted its aptitude for moving any further than the already introduced advancements, like Windows operating system and Office suite of software. Whereas, filling in the spaces, other relatively younger rivals, such as Google Inc and Facebook, took over its place and had an almost similar boosting increase in value.

EFF Claims Apple Must Be Supporting iOS Developers in Lodsys Patent Case

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Digital rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, has asked for refuge of Apple Inc. in supporting the iOS developers, from the risk of having a patent lawsuit at their hand from Lodsys. This patent lawsuit accuses the app developers for using the in-app purchasing feature of iOS. In a blog post published on Friday, EFF staff attorney, Julie Samuels, stated that the developers are extremely troubled over "Apple's failure to defend" its third-party iOS developers. She revealed that the official letter from Lodsys was received last week accusing the company to be infringing on a patent which apparently includes in-app purchasing functionality, Lodsys even gave an official warning to the developers to license their said technology within next 21 days or they will have to face legal action.

In the blog post, she wrote that "We've been waiting expectantly for Apple to step up and protect the app developers accused of patent infringement solely for using a technology that Apple required they use in order to sell their apps in Apple's App Store." Defending the accusations which label the company to be a 'patent troll,' Lodsys justified the actions of the company by pointing out that only the licensed technology of Apple does not cover any third-party developers. It was further stated that both Apple rivals, Google and Microsoft, also have similar licensed technology from the company.

Apple fires back at Amazon in continuing 'App Store' name dispute

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Apple has taken official action against Amazon in court, as the company continues its struggle in defending its trademark of the title "App Store." Apple is looking for the court to avert Amazon from using the name "appstore" for its new Android application storefront. Apple filed a legal complaint in the federal Court of Oakland, Calif. Bloomberg reports that Apple has demanded from the court to immediately deny the claims of Amazon that the term "App Store" is generic. This is a trademark infringement suit against Amazon for its newly launched Appstore for Android. According to the writings in Apple’s complaint, it says "Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words 'app store' together denotes a store for apps." Further the statement implies that the term “App Store” is not used very frequently by businesses to refer to any download services, hence it asserts that the term "app store" is not generic.

Initially the lawsuit of Apple Inc. was filed in March, just a day before Amazon released its own Appstore. Amazon gave a legal response in April, keeping the stance that the term "app store" is too generic, so not only Android, but anyone should be able to use it. The very recent response of Apple is an effort to refute this claim of Amazon.

Industry Executives Say Google-Apple Rivals Still Have a Chance in the Smartphone Operating System Market

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Microsoft, along with other small-scale software vendors, still has plenty of chances to make their way into the rapidly-growing smartphone market. According to the result of a research conducted by Canalys, Google's Android platform is the leader of all mobile operating systems in the market, as Google and Apple both have a hold of more than half of the market. Despite being largely dominated by Google and Apple, the smaller companies have the support from many manufacturers, operators and consumers.

Talking about the both leaders of the market, Apple and Google, the co-founder of Index Ventures, Neil Rimer said that "Those are the two horses that are out in front today." He agreed that a considerable amount of Android phones and iPhones are being sold today and due to the well-developed applications available on both platforms, it is a very tough job for the competitors to make a mark in the market. "The barriers for others than Microsoft have increased," told Magnus Jern, C.E.O. of Golden Gekko, a mobile software house. He added that "A lot of people in Germany, Scandinavia see Apple and Android as the only platforms."

However, Jern and plenty other industry executives are of the same opinion that platforms like Windows Phone, webOS, bada and MeeGo; despite having fallen far behind in the race from Android and Apple, shall not be considered out of the game. They pointed out that almost all the owners of these smaller companies have a lot of investment to make.

Intel’s Smartphone “Push” Gets Delayed Once Again, Will Be Released In 2012

It has been announced by the C.E.O. of Intel, Paul Otellini, that the company’s long-awaited chips, which were going to debut the company in mobile world, will be facing another delay. He referred to the company’s efforts and the road of making these new chips for smartphones; a transition like “a marathon, not a sprint.” Otellini declared that the chips will be delayed for the second time.

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Initially in February, Intel made its first announcement about the chips at the Mobile World Congress informing that smartphones powered with Intel processors will be in market in 2011. Today it was declared at the Intel’s annual investor conference, that the predicted time required for the release has been extended and now the processer chips will debuted in 2012. It was published in Wall Street Journal regarding the announcement of Intel, stating that Intel will be renewing their focus on the smartphone marketing: “We decided going forward that our roadmap was inadequate, and we decided we need to change the centerpoint [the average power used by Intel chips]. We will still build products that scale up the range, but the centerpoint increasingly will be around ultramobility.”

Will Google Chromebook Be Able To Compete With Microsoft Windows

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The monopoly of Microsoft in single handedly leading the vast market of computing platforms is not forsaken by its rivals. The still has enough to offer as long as the rivals have the audacity to compete and replace the monopoly of replacing Windows. In a similar such attempt Google has announced its new Chromebooks in its I/O conferences this week. Chromebooks will be made available for online orders from 15^th of June, 2011 in all major countries including U.S., U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

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Chromebooks are told to be new kinds of laptops, which will now be powered by Google's Chromium, rather than Microsoft Windows, which rather an open-source browser-based operating system. The manufacturing of these laptops is trusted in the hands of Samsung and Acer, pricing these laptops at a retail amount of $499 with the 3G capability, and $429 with Wi-Fi-only products. These will be made be available to buy from both Best Buy and Amazon.com. Moreover, users will also be allowed to "rent" these Chromebooks from mentioned retailers. Businesses renting the Chromebooks will be bound to pay $28 per month, as the schools have concession down to the price of $20 per month. The up gradation of the software in the device will be constant and automatic, while the hardware will be warranted to be replacement automatically with any failures or newer versions coming in the future.

Analysts Claim That Skype Acquisition Puts Pressure on Videoconferencing Firms

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The huge acquisition deal Microsoft buying Skype for $8.5 billion, is being seen as to a major step towards the development of videoconferencing market, though this however narrows the market of video technology providers, like Polycom and Logitech. The videoconferencing equipment market was already having a bumpy ride since the expansion of Skype and other video applications, which do not require referring the device making market anymore. Now the pressure on the videoconferencing devices makers has even double, portrays Jeffrey Mann, an analyst from Gartner.

Many other analysts have also shown the same concern, as Mann explained that "Some of the more narrowly focused companies will likely struggle." It is being said that comapnie like Polycom and Logitech will be the very first culprits after the acquisition of Skype, consequently taking the company toward being an enterprise. On the other hand, it will make space for larger companies of the market, like Cisco and Hewlett-Packard to benefit from it, having a larger range of services to offer. The C.E.O. of Cisco Systems said that "I think we're well positioned here, but if you haven't got good, big competitors and good start-ups, you're in the wrong market."

Microsoft Makes the Official Announcement of Acquiring Skype, Closing the Deal at $8.5 Billion

Despite the strong rumors demonstrating the competition between Facebook and Microsoft to have been in negations regarding the acquisition of Skype, it has just been announced by Microsoft, it has acquired one of the largest VoIP giant in exchange for the amount in cash of $8.5 billion. Microsoft declared its future prospective for Skype, as it intends to embed this newly acquired service into maximum of Microsoft devices and platforms, including the famous Xbox and Kinect, Xbox Live, the Windows Phone, Lync, Outlook, and all the possible rest. Microsoft has further also stated, that it does not intends to remain exclusive in this regard, and will definitely not discontinue the support and development of Skype on its own non-Microsoft platforms too.

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The deal was lead by the C.E.O. of Microsoft Corp., Steve Ballmer himself along with the aid of the company’s head of corporate strategy, Charles Songhur, which completed the deal on Monday evening as repored by AllThingsD. This acquisition is definitely one of the most costly one, which Microsoft has made so far, as the statistics also indicate that it is the largest price Microsoft has paid for any acquisition since decades. Moreover considering that, at the moment, Skype is not at all profitable, the deal becomes even more questionable. Even though Skype developed the revenues summing up to $860 million last year along with the operating profits of $264 million, on the whole company lost $6.9 million, as expressed in the documents filed with the SEC. On top of that, company also hase a large amount of unpaid debts, which also add up to a total sum of $686 million.

Novell Inc. Wins the Appeal to Sue Microsoft for Their Old Antitrust Lawsuit

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The Software Company, Novell Inc., has just recently regained the authority to pursue with its former long-running antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. The appeals court has reversed the previous decision of the lower court which had awarded the judgment in respect to Microsoft.

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Novell Inc. was actually acquired by Attachmate Corp back in the start of this year, and since then it has been laying stress that its operating system products along with few other software applications were wrongly constricted out of the market by Microsoft back in the 1990s. Novell Inc. has had an agreement signed which gave it the complete rights for suing Microsoft, through a separate company named, Caldera, back in 1996. Hence the company went on to sue Microsoft for their incorrect practices of competition in the OS market, this consequently went in the favor of the company and it received a total sum of $280 million to settle the case. Four years have passed now since the settlement.

Microsoft’s Bing and Map Service agreed to be the default services on BlackBerry by RIM

It was announced today, on Tuesday, by the C.E.O. of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer himself that its much alive search engine, Bing along with its maps services has been agreed to be made the default services for all BlackBerry devices. This announcement was preceded by a sudden surprise visit of the Microsoft C.E.O during the three day long BlackBerry World developer’s conference. This conference is held every year, by the manufacturers of famous business smartphone makers, Research In Motion (RIM) in Orlando, Florida.

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It was also again published officially in the blog of the director of Bing; Matt Dahlin who said that the service will be set as the preferred search provider in the internet browser of all BlackBerry’s by default. It was also stated that the similar treatment will be given to the map service of Microsoft on the map application of Blackberry devices. Additionally it was also mentioned that agreement also extends to the RIM's new BlackBerry Playbook, as Bing will decidedly be the default search engine and along with the map application. Playbook is a very steep product of RIM, which will be a touchscreen tablet computer, competing in the market with products like Apple’s iPad. Dahln also said that "We are excited to be working with RIM, an early leader in Internet-connected mobile devices, to help people make better decisions with Bing.”

Nokia Looks Forward To Retrieve Its Market Share by Launching an NFC-Enabled Game in Collaboration with Angry Birds

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Nokia is making desperate attempts as it collaborates with Angry Birds for lifting its own brand name. Nokia posted it on their official blog on Tuesday, that they are creating a new game titled, ‘Angry Birds Free With Magic.’ This game is supposed to have twenty different levels, but the trick will be unlocking fifteen of which, only by moving the mobile, a NFC (Nokia field communications-enabled) mobile phone, near a another NFC phone. And if let’s say, the player fails to find any other NFC enabled phone nearby, than the next choice is to at least be able to find NFC tags embedded in any object, and shake the mobile in front of that object. However, it has not be specified by Nokia that what kind of objects are likely to have this NFC embedded tags.

This specific game was actually released by Rovio previously, along with the new Nokia C7, as a collective offer for promotions. Now it has been chosen to be added up into almost all kinds of Nokia NFC-enabled devices coming this year. According to the official statement at the blog, it says that "Meanwhile, the Rovio programmers are hard at work creating a full version of Magic, to be made available through Ovi Store that will have more levels and more ways to harness the power of NFC."

The New Feature of Kinect Allows the Netflix Movies to Be Maneuvered Using Hand Gestures or Even Voice Detection

The experience of watching movies over your Xbox 360 with Netflix has now become easier than ever before as Kinect now offers controlling your movie with gesture and voice control. These new features are recently released by Kinect, in the form of free software update which is downloadable from the Xbox 360 Video Marketplace. Kinect will respond to your gestures or voice both while you watch a movie using Netflix.

The functions which will be controllable unavoidably include the play, fast-forward, rewind and pausing feature for any kind of movie, TV shows or any kind of video. Either you can use the hand gestures, which will be best detected on the bottom left of the users screen and responded accordingly, or else the user might just want to speak commands like saying "Xbox, Play," would simply play the movie.

Microsoft Pushes Exclusive Bing iPad Search App

A software giant like Microsoft has now also launched its own app’s for Apple’s new tablet, which is catching on like fire. The search app titled as ‘Bing for iPad,’ is also expecting that Apple users may perhaps get over the addiction of market-dominating Google for mobile searches and take over the iPad users before Google.

Bing for iPad is downloadable app, which is totally free and promises optimized searching, enhancement for the touch screen experience of the iPad. According to Mr. Greengart, whose a reputed analyst, he says "You'd have to deny reality if you didn't consider (Apple's)iOS an addressable platform. Microsoft clearly doesn't want Google to get all the search revenues off of Apple's tablet success. Microsoft would like earn some of that revenue through Bing."