| Nokia and Microsoft responded to the iPhone |
|
|
|
 Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, launched its Barcelona store, called "Windows Market Place." Nokia and Microsoft have responded to Apple Store and Ovi Windows Market Place. They want to compete with the firm at the heart, which is carving a big success thanks to the iPhone and its application store, AppStore. In six months, this online store for users of iPhone and iPod Touch, launched in July 2008 by Apple, has attracted download 500 million applications from the 15 000 available. Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, launched yesterday in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress its virtual store competitor, called "Windows Market Place, which will enable users of its mobile phones to download applications from 20 000 software. "The service should be launched in the fall," says Nicolas Petit, head of telecoms at Microsoft France. But the Redmond giant, present since 2002 on the mobile market, remains a small player, even if it scores points on the segment of smartphones. Microsoft has delivered, while "more than 20 million of operating system for mobile phones last year, with 50 manufacturers and 160 operators." In comparison, Apple will sell 20 million iPhone this year after entering the market in June 2007.Finnish Nokia is of another caliber. "We have more than one billion users of mobile phones in the world," said yesterday its CEO Olli Pekka Kallasvuo. The Scandinavian group promises to simplify and meet all of its services around a store called "Store Ovi", which is based on the mobile internet portal Ovi - which means "door" in Finnish -- launched last year. Upon initiation of service in nine countries, in May, "we have 50 million potential customers. And we're 300 million users in 2012, "warned Niklas Savander, vice president of Nokia. The Finnish group is moving towards five types of services: messaging, games, music, GPS (with an application for the whereabouts of his friends) and video. In addition, Nokia announced 3 new devices, including two just to get e-mails. The stakes are enormous: the downloading of content on mobiles is expected to grow 18% to reach $ 67 billion in 2009, says the firm Strategy Analytics. Other companies have ambitions in the virtual stores. SonyEricsson introduced its PlayNow plus, already chosen by Telenor in Sweden, for downloading movies and music. RIM is expected to launch in March a virtual store application. And Google already offers its own. Today, the British operator Vodafone launched the second mobile telephone of the Taiwanese HTC, equipped with Google. This unit would be delivered "in April or May," including at SFR. But most Asian manufacturers do not want to intrude on the services market operators. They have all relied on mobile phones touch screen. The two future terminals HTC, LG three and four new Samsung mobile is equipped with a touch screen. Each plot its arms deal with the iPhone. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
