Windows Phone 8

With Microsoft planning to release an overhauled version of Windows 8 over the summer, some may be wondering when the company will give a similar treatment to its Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system. The answer, says ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, is likely not until 2014. Instead, Foley’s sources say that Windows Phone users can expect three smaller updates to roll out throughout the rest of 2013 in preparation for a more substantial update sometime next year. These updates will include “support for CalDAV and CardDAV, so that it will continue to work with Google contact and calendar syncing services” and will “reintroduce support for FM radio… a feature which was part of the Windows Phone 7 operating system platform, but which was cut for Windows Phone 8.”

It may be time for Steve Ballmer to crank up his famous “Developers, developers, developers!” chant again if it will get software developers more excited about Windows Phone 8. Sameer Singh at Tech-Thoughts has charted the growth history of the three major mobile app stores and has found that Windows Phone’s app store is lagging behind where iOS and Android were 30 months after their initial launches. What’s more, he’s found that the additions of new apps to the Windows Phone 8 app market have markedly slowed over the past six months, whereas iOS and Android both saw significant rises in app additions over the same periods after their initial launches. Singh speculates that the slowdown in interest from developers is due to “limited install base, low user engagement, monetization challenges and regional developer restrictions,” among other factors.

Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone 8 hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire since its release last fall and the company could face trouble gaining traction if things don’t turn around soon. Per Barron’s, BGC analyst Colin Gillis has released a new research note that casts doubts on Microsoft’s future in the mobile computing market despite the fact that he remains “supportive of the quality and innovation of Microsoft’s software to power phones and tablets.” The big issue for Microsoft, Gillis says, is that the company hasn’t figured out how to make people care enough to buy its mobile products, no matter how good they might be. More →

If Citrix’s mobile device management customers are any indication, then Microsoft (MSFT) has its work cut out for it in making Windows Phone devices staple features of workplaces. Citrix, which specializes in developing cloud, networking and virtualization technologies, reports that 62% of its North American MDM customers use iOS as their mobile platform of choice versus 35% for Android and just 3% for Windows. Although Citrix’s picture of mobility in the enterprise is incomplete since it doesn’t measure BlackBerry (BBRY) use, it does give an interesting glimpse into what industries use which platforms for their mobile computing needs. Among all the industry categories surveyed, Citrix found that only the oil and gas industry used primarily Windows-based mobile devices while iOS or Android topped every other industry.

The new comScore smartphone market share numbers are out and the weirdest number by far is the Windows Phone market share shift between October and January, when it actually shrank by 0.1 percentage points over three months to 3.1%. Of course, Nokia’s (NOK) Lumia 920 has been one of AT&T’s (T) top 3 models for the past two months. Verizon (VZ) has been selling the Lumia 822 as a free phone with a two-year contract. HTC’s (2498) new Windows model 8X has been at Verizon and AT&T since December. Nobody expected Microsoft’s share of the US smartphone to rocket with these new devices, but how can it be going down at the same time the BlackBerry (BBRY) market share is collapsing? More →

Microsoft (MSFT) struck a nerve with customers when it revealed that smartphones running Windows Phone 7 could not be updated to Windows Phone 8. This will not be the case for Windows Phone 8 with the company’s rumored Blue update, however. Greg Sullivan, a senior marketing manager at Microsoft, confirmed to PCMag that the company has “an upgrade path going forward” for Windows Phone 8 devices. The executive added that Microsoft’s current mobile operating system is also powerful enough to adopt to new hardware components, something Windows Phone 7 had trouble with.

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