Hasta La Gadget!

You may not remember the Motorola ES400 announced back in June; it’s the first device to run Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Handheld platform, after all — an offshoot of WinMo 6.5.3 — and doesn’t have a whole lot of relevance to the average consumer. Well, let this be your refresher: Sprint has revealed that it intends to launch its own version of the phone, the ES400S, through a variety of Sprint sales channels next month, marking the first time an enterprise-oriented Moto has been branded and offered directly by a carrier. It meets a variety of standards for ruggedness and includes a 3-inch VGA display, full QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 megapixel camera (which actually performs the barcode scanning duties, not a traditional laser scanner), 802.11a / b / g, GPS, and both CDMA with EV-DO Rev. A and GSM / HSPA for international use. You get a 1540mAh battery in the box, but a whopping 3080mAh unit is available separately if you plan on enterprisin’ away from a charger for days on end. “Qualified” businesses will be able to get in on the ES400S starting sometime before the end of October for $499.99, while average Joes will have the option of paying $549.99 on a new two-year deal. Follow the break for the press release.

Continue reading Motorola ES400S earns its keep on Sprint in October

Motorola ES400S earns its keep on Sprint in October originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Considering that Steve Ballmer himself said that Microsoft “missed a cycle” in the smartphone sales universe, we guess it’s not too shocking to see Android leap past Windows Mobile and Friends in ComScore’s latest US smartphone report. If you’ll recall, we saw back in July that Google was tailing Microsoft by the slimmest of margins, and now that the latest data is live, it’s clearer than ever that Android is rising while the competition is slipping. The research firm’s MobiLens report found that Google’s market share in the US smartphone sector surged five percent in the three month average ending April 2010, while RIM sank 1.8 percent, Apple 1.3 percent, Microsoft 2.2 percent and Palm… well, Palm remained flat with just 4.9 percent of the pie. Of course, one has to assume that Microsoft loyalists are holding off on upgrades until Windows Phone 7 hits the market, but there’s little doubt that the flurry of higher-end Android phones has done nothing but help Google’s cause. And if Gingerbread actually brings support for serious 3D gaming? Look out, world.

[Thanks, S.H.]

ComScore: Google’s Android surpasses Microsoft in US smartphone market share originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Phone 7 Office Image via Microsoft.

Traditionally, Microsoft has been a software company, leveraging its office suites and operating systems, but selling applications for any compatible hardware and platform. For smartphones in particular, its strategy has been to supply the software and let other companies worry about developing the phones. So why not go all the way and sell its software for every device on every platform?

That’s what Business Insider’s Dan Frommer proposes the company do: “Microsoft should develop Office apps for the iPad, Android, Chrome OS, BlackBerry tablet, and any other computing platform that is likely to become popular over the next 5-10 years,” adding that “if Microsoft wants to keep people tied into its Office suite, it needs to go where the people are going.”

Office is integrated into the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 OS, but would compete on several fronts in smartphone and tablet platforms, including iWork on Apple’s iPad, Google Docs on the mobile web, and Dataviz’s multi-platform Documents To Go, just acquired by Blackberry maker RIM.

Frommer sees RIM’s purchase of Documents To Go as a defense against the possibility of Microsoft introducing an Office app for Blackberry. Ironically, if RIM stops active development of Documents To Go for other platforms, that could create just the multi-platform opening needed to entice Microsoft to swoop in.

See Also:

• RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go
• Microsoft Office Web Apps
• Wired 15.04: Desktop, R.I.P.
• Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Takes Aim at Apple, Google
• Apple: The Microsoft of Mobile?
• Microsoft's Mobile Shakeup: Will It Unleash Windows Phone …
• Microsoft's Challenge With Windows Phone 7 Is Wooing Developers …
• BlackBerry Tablet 'BlackPad' Readies to Take On the iPad
• Documents To Go: Finally, an Office Suite for the iPad
• Microsoft Tells Windows Phone 7's App Story

If you’ve been holding yourself back during these early rounds of the smartphone wars in anticipation of Windows Phone 7, your wait just got a tiny bit shorter. Today Microsoft is announcing that its fancy new mobile operating system has been released to manufacturing, making the idea of you holding an actual WP7 device in your hands that much closer to reality. The finished product is now rolling out to partners around the world where it will be getting carrier and manufacturer tweaks and additions, and going through the kind of pre-launch testing you would expect for a release of this scale. If you had any doubt that the Windows Phone 7 onslaught was close at hand, feel free to abandon them now.

Furthermore, the folks on the 7 team have managed to cram a few last minute goodies into the OS, one of which we’re particularly excited about. As you probably know from our in-depth preview of an early version of the software, we had a lot of issues with overflowing Facebook contacts in our phone. Microsoft has now solved that problem by enabling a contact filter system which looks for pre-existing matches to your Facebook contacts. If it doesn’t find a match, it doesn’t pull that contact into your address book (kind of like how Android filters Facebook friends). It’s a welcome addition and should make the Facebook / Windows Phone 7 combo a lot more palatable to a lot of people. Furthermore, Microsoft has added functionality into the People Hub which will allow you to “like” someone’s posts, and you’ll be able to comment directly onto someone’s Wall right in the hub. The company has also made tweaks and fixes focusing on feature discoverability (another issue we pointed out in the early look), along with the expected set of polishing and finish you’d expect from a product that’s gone gold master.

Windows Phone 7 goes gold master, begins rolling out to partners for final launch preparations originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve known that proper Xbox Live gaming (powered by XNA) was coming to Windows Phone 7 devices, but we’d yet to see any of that thumb-spraining goodness in action besides a brief demo and a few developer videos. Well, Microsoft has finally come clean with details about its launch strategy for the platform, and from where we sit, it’s definitely looking pretty promising. First off, the company has announced a full list of launch titles for WP7 handsets, including some familiar names and franchises like Castlevania, Halo: Waypoint, Star Wars, Crackdown, and Guitar Hero, alongside a handful of newer properties like the ultra-cute ilomilo, produced in-house by Microsoft Game Studios. In total, the company will launch with over 60 game titles, with new offerings appearing every week in the Xbox Live Marketplace, just like its big brother console version. We’ve got all the details, a full list of the launch titles, and our hands-on preview after the break — so read on to get the scoop!

Continue reading Xbox Live launch titles for Windows Phone 7 finally revealed, we’ve got the full preview

Xbox Live launch titles for Windows Phone 7 finally revealed, we’ve got the full preview originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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