Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft has announced the dates for BUILD 2012, its next big developer conference, held at the Microsoft campus the week after Windows 8 goes on sale. Kicking off October 30 and running until November 2, BUILD 2012 will focus not only on the new desktop platform – and its ARM-focused Windows RT counterpart – but cover Windows Phone 8, Windows Azure, Server2012, and Visual Studio 2012, among other things.

There’ll also be some surprises in store, though Microsoft is playing its cards close to its chest. “This will be unlike anything we’ve held on our corporate campus in a long time” Microsoft’s Tim O’Brien teases. “Most of the speakers and participants are from our engineering teams, so a campus event puts you in the thick of things along with the engineers directly responsible for our products and the platform opportunities they represent. This one’s not to be missed.”

Back at BUILD 2011, Microsoft officially released the Windows 8 Developer Preview into the wild, while chipset partner NVIDIA demonstrated a prototype Windows RT on ARM tablet running its Kal-El platform. That chip went on to launch as Tegra 3, of course, expected to be at the heart of Windows RT models from ASUS and Lenovo later this year.

Registration for BUILD 2012 opens at 8AM Pacific on August 8 2012, at the BUILD site, when Microsoft says we can expect more details on keynotes, sessions and the like. SlashGear will be there to bring you all the news from the opening keynote, never fear.

Microsoft BUILD 2012 puts developer focus on Windows 8 and WP8 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Up until now, Box.net (otherwise simply known as Box) had been quietly snubbing the Windows Phone platform altogether, but today’s the day the cloud service finally ports its storage and sharing goods to Redmond’s mobile OS. As far as the app goes, Box is keeping things relatively simple — much like on iOS and Android — but adding a few tweaks to fit nicely alongside that Metro UI, including tidbits like pinning tiles to the Start screen for viewing updates on files. Of course, you’ll also be able to manage your content straight from the application, as well as locking any docs with a passcode in case “paranoia” is your middle name. Notably, Box knows it’ll have to compete directly with Microsoft’s own SkyDrive, to which Chris Yeh, VP of Platforms, says his company “will be watching carefully to see if SkyDrive gets the better integration” of the two. Regardless, folks can download the Box app now from the WP Marketplace, and best of all, it won’t cost you a single dime.

Filed under: Cellphones, Storage, Software

Box shares the app love with Windows Phone, hopes SkyDrive doesn’t get special treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seems that some benchmarks out there on the Internet have shown the presence of Juggernaut Alpha with Windows Phone 8, and WMPoweruser claims that the Juggernaut Alpha results which you see above hail from a Windows Phone app known as WP Bench. WP Bench’s alleged results point to Juggernaut Alpha being a whole lot faster compared to its nearest competitor, and we are talking about nearly 200% the speed of the HTC Titan. Of course, this should not come across as a surprise to leave you wide mouthed, considering the number of improvements that Microsoft announced in June. All we can do is sit back, relax and wait to see just what Windows Phone 8 will actually deliver when the fall release date arrives. Patience, my young padawan, patience.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Rebtel Windows Phone app delivers low-cost international VoIP calling, Windows Phone 8 goes RTM in September and Devices will come in November,

When you’re trying to kick-start your tablet platform, apps are everything, so why has Microsoft decided to opt out of the most common price point in recent years: the $0.99 app? Confirmation this weekend that Windows 8 and Windows RT users would be offered paid apps as well as free (unsurprising) and that developers would be able to price their wares from $1.49 to $999.99 (surprising) is a distinct departure from Apple and Google’s strategy. According to the stereotypes, iOS users love paying for apps while Android users only download free ones (or steal them until the apps are made free out of exasperation), but what do Windows tablet owners do?

Microsoft makes no mention of the thinking behind the price tiers, though there are a couple of assumptions we could make. The first is purely motivated by greed: Microsoft gets 30-percent of each paid app sale (dropping to 20-percent should the app make more than $25,000). If a developer wants to make money from their software but opts for the lowest possible price to encourage downloads, Microsoft will take away $0.45 on a $1.49 purchase, versus $0.30 on a $0.99 app.

If that were entirely the case, though, then you might expect Windows Phone to also kick off with the $1.49 tier, and yet on Microsoft’s smartphone platform there are $0.99 apps. Perhaps, then, Microsoft simply believes that tablet apps should be more expensive than phone apps, reflecting some greater expectation of functionality in software designed for the bigger screen.

Such an expectation holds true for developers as much as users: Microsoft could be trying to gently persuade Windows 8/RT coders to up their game when they create tablet apps for the platform, and to stretch a little further than they might for a relatively “throwaway” dollar app. Similarly, users could grow to expect more from the software they buy, with the $1.49 price point acting as a mental graduation up from the assumptions made around cheaper software (even if that cheaper price point isn’t even available on that particular platform).

“Could Microsoft be taking a moral stand?”

Still, is it too much to hope that Microsoft might be taking a moral stand of sorts, and suggesting that it believes software simply should be more expensive? Plenty of developers have grown disillusioned with the app ecosystem and its race to ninety-nine cents, and while some software is certainly disposable enough to make the price tag fit, other coders find themselves stuck facing either devaluing their hard work with a price that will get attention, and asking a little more and ending up ignored.

The reality is likely a combination of the three: a healthy dose of self interest and, yes, the preoccupation that, as primarily a software company itself, seeing apps undervalued doesn’t bode well for the long-term. It’s a potentially dangerous strategy given Microsoft’s position near the back of the tablet race, but it could be the wildcard that prompts developers to give Windows a second look.

Is Microsoft’s Windows $0.99 app omission madness, money or moral? is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nokia is considering inking exclusivity deals with European operators for Windows Phone 8 smartphones, promising a financial stake in the success of the next-gen handsets, in an attempt to boost its profile. Partnerships with specific carriers in European countries would be paired with a promised share of the sales proceeds, a source tells the Financial Times, to encourage in-store promotion. The whispers don’t come as a huge surprise, however; CEO Stephen Elop said in the aftermath of the company’s last quarter financial results that Nokia would trim its European carriers to mimic the deal with AT&T in the US.

Nokia has already begun talks with potential carrier partners, the insiders claim, with France Telecom named but apparently not yet inking a deal. Negotiations are described as “exploratory” and potentially unfounded, and there’s the possibility of a more broad-ranging deal with T-Mobile’s owner Deutsche Telekom that could see handsets crop up on Everything Everywhere in the UK too.

The move would be a considerable departure from Nokia’s sales strategy to-date, including its Windows Phone 7 Lumia handsets, in Europe. Nokia has traditionally pushed for the broadest possible availability, relying on saturation to boost demand. However, according to Elop, the complete opposite approach undertaken in the US – pairing up with AT&T on the Lumia 900 for a concerted and focused push into a market dominated by iPhone and Android – has been more successful.

Exactly by what metric that success is measured is unclear, though it’s presumably in bang-for-buck terms. Actual sales of Nokia devices in North America totaled just 600,000, dwarfed by sales in other regions, including Europe. However, it’s not clear how much Nokia (and Microsoft) spent in promotion per handset sale across regions.

The goal, it’s believed, is to encourage carriers to push Windows Phone devices through in-store promotions, retail staff  training and advertising, by giving them a greater-than-average kick back based on the platform’s success. In contrast, Apple is believed to be relatively miserly with its deals with carriers, relying on the iPhone’s existing allure for sales, while the market for Android devices is growing increasingly saturated.

Nokia in Windows Phone 8 carrier revenue sharing talks say insiders is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.