Smartphone Market Share : Windows Phone Vs. iOS Vs. Android

Microsoft may have been a late entrant to the Smartphone segment (not considering the popular but old fashioned Windows Mobile here) but it does look like Redmond is doing a lot of things right so far. The Windows Phone UI and functionalities are extremely slick and despite the relatively few apps available on the Windows Phone marketplace compared to the iOS AppStore or Android Market, a lot of people have started to check out their smartphones. Today, Windows Phone enjoys an encouraging, but not so great 1.9% market share. But that could apparently change in the next few years thanks to the Lumia series of phones from Nokia that run on the Windows Phone platform.

According to the latest report from IHS iSuppli, Microsoft Windows Phone could beat Apple’s iOS in market share as early as 2015. In their report, IHS claim that 2012 could be the watershed year for Microsoft as their Windows Phone grows in popularity from a market share of sub 2% levels to as much as 9%. This is good not just for Microsoft but also Nokia that has seen its popularity fizzle in recent times to the iPhone and Android handsets.

Read : Number of Windows Phones Sold To Be Higher Than iOS by 2015?

Here is how the market share of the three big Smartphone players expected to move over the next three years.

iOS
2011 : 18.0%
2012 : 18.0%
2013 : 17.3%
2014 : 16.8%
2015 : 16.6%

Android
2011 : 47.4%
2012 : 53.9%
2013 : 55.9%
2014 : 57.8%
2015 : 58.1%

Windows Phone
2011 : 1.9%
2012 : 9.0%
2013 : 15.3%
2014 : 16.1%
2015 : 16.7%

The share of the rest of the Smartphone OSes is expected to fall from 32.7% in 2011 to just 8.6% in 2015. Is RIM going to be dead by then?

Most Popular Windows Phone 7 Apps List

The Windows Phone marketplace is still a small ecosystem with just around 40,000 apps available for download. Around 3000 new apps are being added on a daily basis with more than 1650 of them being free. While this may sound like a small number, the fact that rivals like Apple and Google have had close to 3  years of headstart over Microsoft is an indication that Microsoft may be catching up faster than one may have thought. In the United States, Windows Phone 7 devices already make up close to 5% of all smartphones. Do remember that this does not include the older Windows Mobile 6.5 version devices.

So, what are the most popular apps among this fledgling population of users. First up, the top 10 free apps on the Windows Phone marketplace

1. YouTube
2. Adobe Reader
3. Facebook
4. Free Music Downloader (by Fast Code)
5. Bubble Shoot (by Words Mobile)
6. Penguin (by Mike Newman)
7. Xbox LIVE Extras
8. Minesweeper
9. Physi Bricks (by Stiq Joy LLC)
10. Funny Jump (by AE Mobile)

So what are the apps that are being purchased the most? Here are the top 10

1. $2.99 Angry Birds
2. $2.99 Burn the Rope
3. $2.99 Gravity Guy
4. $2.99 Implode!
5. $2.99 COLLAPSE
6. $2.99 Fruit Ninja
7. $4.99 Need for Speed Undercover
8. $4.99 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 Episode 1
9. $2.99 Fight Game Rivals
10 $4.99 PvZ

Number Of Spam Sent Per Month Has Dropped – How Did This Happen?

The number of spam sent per month back in July 2010 used to be around 90 billion. In a year’s time, this number has been brought down to just 25 billion. This is one of the revelations made in Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report. Click on the right arrow on the top of the article to see how this was achieved.

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Android Steals The Show At MWC

The absence of Apple at the Mobile World Congress has definitely given Google’s Android the definite edge over its competitors at the show in Barcelona this year. With the MWC for this year coming to a close today, everyone who’s been at the event has only one thing to say – Android is brilliant. With Nokia disbanding its own phone OS Symbian and partnering with Microsoft for Windows based Nokia phones, they did not have anything to offer this year. Almost every phone, be it the Motorola Xoom or the Samsung Galaxy S or the Sony Xperia Play smartphones or the Samsung’s second generation tablet or LG Slate, everything has been Android. There was Blackberry Playbook that was not running on Android but spoke of including Android apps and HP’s Tablet – TouchBook that did not use Android but WebOS.

So, this MWC belonged to Android completely.

Upcoming PS3 and XBox Games In The First Half of 2011

It’s been a while that we got to see some exciting stuff on our gaming consoles. After COD: Black Ops, there’s not been one game that has evoked the interest of gaming enthusiasts. Come 2011, there are definitely a few good ones to look forward to. The ones that we are going to get in the next four months are Bulletstorm, Killzone 3, Mortal Kombat and L.A. Noir.

Bulletstorm and Killzone 3 are due on the 22nd of February, Mortal Kombat is coming out on April 9th and L.A. Noir is out on the 17th of May. While Bulletstorm is an EA Games presentation for both XBox and Sony, Killzone is exclusive to PS3 gamers. Mortal Kombat comes from Warner Home Video games and L.A. Noir is a Rockstar games presentation for both PS3 and XBox.

Nokia Windows Phone 7 – Sneak Peek At Components

The Mobile World Congress at Barcelona has witnessed the components of the new Nokia Windows Phone 7. New slim and sleek Nokia devices that would run on Windows phone 7 OS were unveiled for a preview at the MWC. Two slides which contained the new Nokia devices were made available to the public. While the first phone is a slim one with rounded corners and contains a standard headphone jack at the top, a speaker grill at the bottom, a camera shutter at the back and a volume rocker to the side. The second phone that was unveiled looked a higher-end device with three standard Windows 7 buttons, a camera with a flash and a power button.

Nokia has also not revealed if the upcoming devices were going to be exactly the same. Also, an exact launch date of the devices is not out yet. For now, Nokia definitely wants to release their new phones by the end of 2011.

Nokia-Microsoft Partnership Helps Microsoft Earn Billions

Now that the Nokia-Microsoft partnership is official and both Nokia and Microsoft are trying to cope up with the competition being offered by Google and Apple, arises the question, who benefited the most from the partnership. Apparently, it seems like Microsoft is the bigger beneficiary when compared to Nokia. Why? It is rather simple to answer. Nokia has let go off its phone OS Symbian and has embraced Windows as its new phone OS. For doing this, it has to pay an unknown number of billions to Microsoft for allowing the use of Windows on Nokia phones along with paying some hefty royalties to Microsoft.

Following the announcement of the partnership, Nokia’s stocks slid by 14 percent. Under the pressure of the current situation, Nokia is planning to release its first Windows based handset by the end of this year. The once king of mobile technologies is indeed going through a tough time.

Is the Nokia-Microsoft Partnership A Boon To Rivals?

The Nokia-Microsoft partnership was made public yesterday. But, is this partnership a blessing for Google and Apple and may be RIM as well. Nokia as we know has embraced Microsoft’s Windows and has abandoned its own OS Symbian for developing new smartphones. Analyst Abramsky opines that this partnership is actually helping the iPhones, Androids and Blackberries more than it is going to help Nokia and Microsoft. The partnership between Nokia and Microsoft could help both the companies is the market were to be successful and take Microsoft’s market share from the existing 5 percent to 35 percent. But, if the partnership were unable to deliver the results as expected, then the share gains of their rivals are sure to go up.

On the other hand, there is a possibility that this partnership could also trigger further collaborations like Android /RIM which could influence the smartphone market immensely.

Nokia – Microsoft Partnership Happens, Once Again

We reported last week that Nokia was likely to enter into a partnership with Microsoft in order to deal with the competition from smartphones running on Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone. Well, the partnership has finally happened. So now, Nokia would be abandoning its own phone OS Symbian and will embrace the Microsoft OS, which is of course Windows. Analysts are predicting that this partnership favours Microsoft more than it does Nokia, although there is not enough clarity yet about how these two corporate giants wish to tackle with Apple Inc. and Google Inc.

Under this new partnership, Nokia and Microsoft will now be combining their assets in order to develop mobile applications and products. While the developmental tools that MIcrosoft possesses will develop applications for these phones, Nokia’s Maps will become a part of Microsoft.

Anyone out there who still wants to own Nokia’s stocks.

Windows 7 SP1 Out on Feb 22

Microsoft has announced that the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will be made available to the general public from the 22nd of February. The Windows 7 SP1 for the time being has only seen a manufacturer’s release. The SP1 is coming with only a few minor updates as there have already been some updates to Windows 7 in the recent past. The SP1 is coming with client side support for windows 7 virtual machines that will enable Remote FX and dynamic memory. Though Windows 7 has been deemed to be the fastest selling OS ever produced by Microsoft, an upgrade was expected much earlier by many.

Microsoft is going to make the downloads available on their download center from the 22nd of February onwards. Those who buy the Windows 7 OS after 22nd would get the SP1 pre-installed.