Steve Ballmer takes a dig at Google Android

You’ve got to give it to Steve Ballmer. He has the knack to say something which makes the whole world sit up and take notice. Speaking at the Telstra annual investor briefing in Sydney yesterday, Ballmer said that Google is not a major mobile competitor for Microsoft at all.

Ballmer said that Google is not very high on the list of Microsoft’s mobile competitors and it will not pose a threat to Microsoft’s dominance in the mobile market anywhere in the near future. Speaking of Google’s mobile division, he had these exact words to say – “They’ve got some smart guys and hire a lot of people — blah-di-blah-di-blah.”

Ballmer said that since Google has made Android free for everyone, they will not invest a lot to improve the product. He also stated that he couldn’t see how Google plans to make money from Android, since the product has no viable revenue model at all.

While I cannot disagree with most of the things he has said about Google, I have to disagree with one thing – the revenue model. Let me explain why.

Google never planned to make money from Android by charging people to use it. It was, is, and always will remain a free mobile platform. What Google thought of was a stronghold in the mobile OS market through Android, which I don’t think will be unachievable if Google continues to improve its product. Though it will not be possible in the near future thanks to the immense competition from Symbian, Blackberry, and Apple, you cannot rule out that possibility.

Most importantly, Google is not a mobile OS manufacturer. Its strength is advertising and by pushing more and more people around the world to use Android, Google can easily show a lot more ads and generate a lot of revenue – a fact that Ballmer seems to have forgotten.

As someone who has always wanted to ‘bury’ Google, Ballmer has made his intentions clear. Though he clearly said “I’m not giving them a hard time”, it is exactly what he has tried to do. It will be interesting to see Google’s response, if at all Larry and Sergey bother to respond. What do you think?

Categories: Google, Microsoft.

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Microsoft to buy mobile software company MobiComp

The game of mergers and acquisitions is on for sure. After Nokia’s successful acquisition of Symbian, it’s now Microsoft’s turn to get into the act. Microsoft announced a few days back that it will buy MobiComp, a Portugal based mobile software maker.

MobiComp is particularly known for its apps related to data protection and sharing. MobileKeeper Backup & Restore, an app which stores and backs up mobile data, and MobileKeeper Sharing & Communities, an app which connects the mobile phone with social networking communities on the web, are the two most important apps that Microsoft is said to be interested in integrating into its Windows Live Mobile.

Microsoft has not disclosed the cost of this acquisition and the terms of the deal.

I think this acquisition will do loads of good to Microsoft and will serve as a morale booster. Apple made news with 3G iPhone, Google is almost always in the news with Android, Yahoo is going great guns, and now Nokia has made headlines all over the world by buying Symbian. Microsoft needed something to get back into the limelight as far as the mobile market is concerned and it has come in the form of this acquisition. The competition, my friends, is only going to get more intense.

Categories: Microsoft.

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What does Nokia plan to do with Symbian?

Ever since Nokia acquired Symbian and announced that it will be made free of cost, a lot of questions have been raised. The most important question, and the most obvious one too, is the one about the hundreds of millions of dollars that Nokia stands to lose by giving away Symbian free of cost. But then, I’m surprised to notice that a lot of people can’t see the woods for the trees.

Nokia’s plans are very clear. It wants to put Google, Apple, Research In Motion, and Microsoft out of commission by making its open source software the most wanted and the most used mobile software in the world. What this open source software means to developers around the world is that they now have the opportunity to develop as many applications as possible. This will make Symbian handsets more popular than ever.

In my opinion, a lot of developers might prefer Symbian over Apple iPhone or Google Android. The reason is simple. The iPhone, as popular as it may be, is not exactly the market leader. And Google is yet to come up with Android. So, at this situation, developing apps for Symbian, which is the most popular mobile software as of now, sounds really sensible.

If developers around the world started building useful apps for Symbian handsets, it would make Symbian handsets even more popular than what they are right now and the sales will increase exponentially. In other words, Nokia will sell more mobile phones than what it does right now, thanks to this move. And that is exactly what Nokia wants.

Now, it will be interesting to see the reactions of Google, Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. Something’s gotta give. Let’s wait and watch.

Categories: Nokia.

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Nokia buys Symbian and poses serious threat to Android

So, Nokia has finally made the big move. It has taken control of Symbian, which in itself is big news, and on top of it has announced that Symbian software will be available for free. Talk about making news…

The open source software – which will be an integration of Symbian, Nokia Series 60, the MOAP platform of Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, the UIQ standard by Motorola and Sony Ericsson – will be controlled by the Symbian Foundation, which is a non-profit organization.

In more ways than one, it looks like the perfect move. After all, Nokia and Psion created Symbian about a decade back and Symbian is still the number one software on smartphones and advanced multimedia handsets. With around 60% market share and an ability to reach over 200 million mobile users, Symbian is undoubtedly the market leader when it comes to mobile phone software. However, things are about to change.

Apple made a splashing entry into the market with its iPhone last year and Google is getting ready to launch its own mobile software, Android. What this means to Symbian, in layman terms, is there’s going to be competition. A lot of it. Especially, Google is hell bent on making Android successful at any cost and it could most likely rattle the dominance of Symbian. So, Nokia has taken the plunge and has made its intentions clear. To retain the number one spot in the market and to stop the dominance of Apple, Google, and to a lesser extent Microsoft and Research In Motion.

Here’s the most important thing about this move. Nokia stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars by making this open source software free of cost. Nokia earns several hundreds of millions every year through software licensing revenues alone and making it an open-source-free-for-all would mean a huge cut in its revenue stream. Still, Nokia has made the move and this has made everyone take notice.

Experts already predict that this move will rattle Google considerably. Google is planning to take the market by storm by offering free, sophisticated mobile phone software in the form of Android and now it will have serious trouble contending with Symbian, which is not only hugely famous and established, but also free of cost.

Well; how many times do I pat my back? I predicted a Nokia vs. Google scenario quite some time back and you can bet your bottom dollar that it has come true. What do you say?

Categories: Google, Nokia.

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Ready to watch live TV on your Nokia phone?

Monsoon Multimedia, a California based company, has come up with HAVA Mobile Player, digital video service, which has made quite an entry into the market. The video service is interestingly called the ‘sling box killer’, as it is considered a direct competitor to the famous Sling Media.

Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA Mobile Player allows you to watch live TV from your mobile phone. Not just that, you will be able to pause, skip, rewind, and schedule your DVR recordings right from your phone. Monsoon Multimedia is confident that people will find it very easy to use this service on their high-end Nokia phones. They also believe that they can outdo Sling Media with this service. However, this service is meant only for S60 Symbian phones as of now whereas Sling Media’s TV service is available on Symbian, Palm, Windows Live Mobile, and it’s rumored that it will be soon available in Blackberry. With this being the case, I don’t think the HAVA Mobile Player is much of a competition for Sling Media, at least as of now.

This mobile TV service will be made available to the public for free next quarter. However, Monsoon is also planning to run a beta program in between.

The way I see it, mobile TV industry is headed for a unique battle. On one hand, you have devices like HAVA Mobile Player which make live TV available in your mobile phone. On the other hand, you have carriers coming up with separate mobile TV service.

Now, as a mobile user, what would you choose? A mobile TV service from a carrier which lets you choose a certain number of channels for a fixed sum every month, or a device like this one which lets you watch live TV right on your mobile phone without any restrictions?

Categories: All things mobile phones, Mobile TV, Nokia.

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