Hasta La Gadget!

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

The buzzword of last week was “market cap.” To those unfamiliar, market cap is the total value of outstanding shares of a company, and on May 26th at around 3PM Eastern, Apple’s market value reached $225.1 billion, surpassing Microsoft’s $222.3 billion. Apple isn’t the largest technology company around, but it’s become the most valuable, and it’s valuation is second only to Exxon in the US. Later that same week, Microsoft announced that Robbie Bach and J Allard, the head of its Entertainment and Devices group and the division’s CTO, were both leaving the company. There’s been speculation that these two events were somehow intertwined, but I don’t think that’s the case. In addition, as good as Robbie and J are, there’s more to the E & D team than two people — as grandpa used to say, the cemeteries are full of people who couldn’t be replaced.

Historically, Microsoft has always been two companies, the parts that made lots of money (Windows, Office, Server) and the parts that don’t make money yet but might someday soon. E & D is the latest incarnation of the latter. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Entelligence: Market caps and dunce caps

Entelligence: Market caps and dunce caps originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Conflipper is a regular in the underworld of HTC ROM cooking. So when he tweets about unreleased devices and their respective carrier support you really outta listen. First up is the HTC Scorpion (aka, Olympian) which he claims is going to Verizon and Bell Mobility — a device previously rumored to be packing Froyo with WiMax and a 1.5GHz Snapdragon whipped topping. Conflipper also claims to have the inside scoop on a quartet of Windows Phone 7 devices and their respective North American launch partners: the HTC Spark_W (Bell Mobility and Verizon), HTC Gold_W (Sprint), HTC Shubert (Telus), and the HTC Mondrian (Telus, Rogers and AT&T). Note that the “_W” in those handsets signifies a worldphone device with dual-mode CDMA and GSM radios. And in the immortal words of Klaus Meine, “Time, it needs time.” So true.

1.5 GHz Scorpion and quartet of HTC Windows Phone 7 handsets headed to North America? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft has been all over Computex this week, and we caught a few minutes with the software giant’s OEM vice pres Steve Guggenheimer (aka the Guggs) after his keynote this afternoon. Obviously, tablets were top of mind for us and he reinforced that Microsoft plans to push Windows 7 hard for the category, just as we have recently heard. “People are looking for a premium experience and the benefit of Windows familiarity,” he said. When we asked him about Windows Phone 7 scaling up into the larger-screened devices or even a tablet version of Windows 7, he was quite firm in saying that the current PC offering is the platform of choice. He cited netbooks being the record for the company, and that people want to use slates not only for “content consumption,” but also creation. On the other hand, Microsoft also has its Embeded Compact 7 for ARM-based tablets and devices.

Lastly, we couldn’t let Guggs talk about tablets without answering our questions about the Courier. As we have previously heard, he cited that the dualscreen tablet has always been a concept for the company. To paraphrase, he said that Microsoft’s constantly envisioning new platforms to see what flows. Well, that’s that then.

Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 not planned to hit tablets, Courier was always a concept originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zune Pass already felt like a pretty sweet deal for music buffs — $15 per month for unlimited streaming and 10 DRM-free MP3s — and now Microsoft might be lowering the subscription price even further. Or so says Senior Product Manager Terry Farrell, who added, “it’s a very definitely a challenging business.” No indication what that new price might be, but just this past April, RealNetwork dropped Rhapsody’s monthly fee from $15 to $10. If it does come to fruition, the new price would surely be a welcome boon to an already-promising Windows Phone 7 launch — and maybe even Kin. Maybe.

Microsoft considers a Zune Pass price drop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 19:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore certainly piqued our interest at MIX by demoing Windows Phone 7 on an unidentified Samsung handset, but our excitement soon faded when we found out it was just a hacked-up Omnia i8910 and not a real phone. Still, the Sammy remains only the third WP7 device we’ve seen other than the ASUS-built test mule and the prototype LG Panther that’s been popping up recently after debuting on the Engadget Show, so these two videos of it running a recent WP7 build at reMIX in France is still quite notable — the OS seems fast and responsive, and we’re told everything on the device was functional, including the GPS and camera. What’s more, there’s a demo of an Xbox Live Arcade / iPhone game port called Twin Blades by Press Star Studio — it was done in a week by one programmer using 90 percent of the Xbox Live code. That’s impressive, to say the least.

Of course, this device may look like an Omnia, but it doesn’t have the Omnia’s OMAP3 processor — as per WP7’s requirements, the internals have been swapped for a Snapdragon-based board. We’re still waiting for Microsoft and its partners to show us some more interesting hardware — let’s face it, the Panther and this Samsung are almost identically boring — but there’s no denying the software itself looks to be coming along quickly. Now let’s just hope it launches with enough heat to save Microsoft from another executive shuffle. Video after the break.

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 pops up on a Samsung prototype device, plays Twin Blades

Windows Phone 7 pops up on a Samsung prototype device, plays Twin Blades originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 13:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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