Windows Phone to close in on iPhone by 2017

Summary: Microsoft and its partners are starting to operate on all cylinders and Canalys forecasts show Windows Phone market share nearly matching Apple's iPhone by 2017.

(Image: Nokia)

As Jack wrote yesterday there looks to be no slowing down for Android in the smartphone world, but another non-Apple company is predicted to make major advancements in the next four years.

While forecasts in the mobile space are difficult to make since things move so fast, I find it encouraging to see Canalys predict that Windows Phone will rise to secure third place and even closely match Apple and the iPhone by 2017.

(Image: Canalys)

We have seen Apple's market share stay fairly flat for some time, likely because a single, very expensive iPhone is released once a year while we see devices across the pricing and quality spectrum running Android and Windows Phone.

I wrote about the falling average selling price and the flip from feature phones to smartphones this year and moving forward. We will see growth from the four major smartphone platforms moving forward, but Windows Phone is predicted to have the largest change in market share.

Windows Phone has taken nearly three years to get to about 3 percent, but with things like Halo for Windows Phone, flagship devices on major US carriers, and low cost, full-featured phones Microsoft is doing the right things to position themselves for success.

Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.

Microsoft confirms Outlook RT to arrive with Windows 8.1

Summary: Microsoft officials confirmed plans to make Outlook RT available on ARM-based devices, including Surface RT, in conjunction with Windows 8.1, codenamed 'Blue.'
Microsoft will make available as part of its upcoming Windows 8.1 "Blue" release of Windows client the rumored Outlook 2013 RT mail client, company officials confirmed on June 5.

Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer of Windows, Tami Reller, made the announcement during the Computex show in Taipei, claiming that Office RT is a top business and consumer feature request.
A preview of a Desktop -- not a Metro-Style/Windows Store -- version of Outlook that has been adapted to run on the ARM will debut with the Windows 8.1 RT operating system on June 26, 2013. When Microsoft releases to manufacturing Windows 8.1 RT (a date rumored to be some time around August or September this year), Outlook RT also will be delivered in final form, officials said.
Outlook RT will run on Microsoft's ARM-based Surface RT devices, as well as any/all other ARM-based Windows RT tablets and PCs. As I blogged earlier this year, it will be positioned as a complement, not a replacement to, the built-in Windows Mail client on Windows 8 and Windows RT PCs. Outlook RT will function the same as Outlook 2013, in terms of how it is installed and maintained.
Currently, Microsoft doesn't include Outlook as part of the Office Home & Student 2013 RT suite that it bundles with the Windows RT operating system. Only Word RT, Excel RT, PowerPoint RT and OneNote RT are included. All  of these are Desktop versions, not Metro-Style/Windows Store apps. That said, Microsoft is building Metro-Style versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint (plus an updated version of Metro-Style OneNote) which it is expected to launch this fall as part of its "Gemini" wave of products.
Users both inside and outside Microsoft have been testing Outlook RT for the past few months.
At Computex, Reller also is said to have announced that Microsoft will be making available Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote available on Windows 8.1 PCs and tablets out of the box. The preinstallation of the core Office apps on x86-based Surfaces was expected by some after Microsoft recently announced that new 256 GB Surface Pros would be available in Japan with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OnetNote preinstalled. I asked Microsoft officials to confirm that these four apps will be installed by default on Windows 8.1 devices, but received no word back.
A recently unearthed Microsoft roadmap indicated that Microsoft might be holding off on delivering Outlook RT until October 2014. Either that roadmap was old or Microsoft officials decided to accelerate the release of Outlook RT. Now I'm wondering whether other dates on that roadmap might be incorrect. If so, I'm curious whether the Softies might deliver Office for iOS and Android sooner than October 2014, as the roadmap indicated....

Windows Phone climbing in the United Kingdom, but cheap androids reign in Spain and Italy

Windows Phone market share continues to inch up in the UK, but sub-150 € androids reign in Spain and Italy.

According to research by Kantar Worldpanel grown Windows Phone share of the smartphone market in the three months to April from four percent a year ago to 8.4 per cent, likely led by sales of Nokia devices.

Nokia's Fellow third-place contender Blackberry meanwhile has seen its shares tumble, from 13.6 percent last year to 5.6 percent of the smartphone market during the latest quarter.

Android still dominates in UK with 56.9 percent of sales, up 4.2 percentage points compared with the corresponding period of last year. It is followed by the iOS with 28.7 percent, down by 1.6 points every year.

The edges are 177,000 interviews with consumers in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain for their most recent report, which found the large Windows Phone share over five is now 6.7 percent, up three percentage points each year, while Blackberry is now 2.5 percent, down 4.3 percentage points.

All five countries, iOS for 18.4 per cent of sales, down 1.8 percentage points on the year – iOS has seen a year-on-year decline in the share of iOS in all markets except France, where it grew 1.2 percent points each year to 20.1 per cent — while Android at 69.6 per cent were up 9.5 percentage points.

The different States of each country's economy seems to shape the smartphone sales in Europe, according to Kantar's global insight Director Dominic Sunnebo, noting that Samsung Galaxy S3 accounted for only 4.7 percent of sales in Spain compared with 23.5% in Germany during the three-month period.

"Increase the desire for phones that cost under € 150 in Spain and Italy has helped Sony and LG to push serious percentage gains. In Spain, Sony has 19 percent and LG is up to 17 percent from just three percent in the previous year, "Sunnebo wrote, pointing to the vendor entry level units, Sony Xperia you and LG Optimus L3 and L5 models.

Androids accounted for 92.8 per cent of sales in Spain and 66.7 percent in Italy, up 11.7 and 11.7 percentage points respectively each year.

Sunnebo told ZDNet that Nokia to deal with cash-strapped Spain and, above all, Italy – where its share of sales is 10.5 percent — by discounted older products such as Lumia 800 and 610. Meanwhile, Nokia's UK sales leads with 620 and 820.

According to Kantar, has Windows Phone share of turnover also increased in the United States, which accounted for 5.6 percent of sales, up from 3.8 percent a year ago, largely driven by Nokia's Lumia devices. Nokia recently said it expected to ship more than seven million Lumia phones worldwide in the second quarter of this year.

Android still dominates in the United States, grows each year from 50.3 percent to 51.7 percent, while iOS rose 2.3 percentage points to 41.4 percent. BlackBerry sales for the three months to April, accounted for only 0.7 percent, according to Kantar.

Windows 8 fortsätter att misslyckas

The real take-away from Net applications may 2013 version of NetMarketShare monthly operating system statistics is that PC sales continue to plummet, Microsoft's Windows 8 may be a factor behind the plunge.

Windows 8 is falling further behind Vista at similar points in their life cycle. Number at the bottom reflecting PC market share. (Data from NetMarketShare)

While Microsoft apologists focuses on Windows continues to be the dominant operating system, they keep missing the two elephants in the room: Windows 8 continues to fall behind Microsoft's former top operating system error, Vista, and Windows is no longer the dominant operating system when the end user be considered computers, smartphones and tablets.

True, on the desktop, Windows 7 still ranks as top operating system with 44.85-percent of all PC users, followed by the still popular Windows XP with 37.74 percent. Vista — Yes it never loved Vista – comes in at third with 4.51 percent. Despite that finding, and buying Windows 7 computers have become ever more expensive and difficult, just try to find one in a store, Windows 8 share is growing but still comes in last at 4.27 percent.

Worse still, Windows 8 month of growth lagging further and further behind Vista's terrible 2007 adoption numbers. When you compare operating system when they first launched, dragged Windows 8 adoption rate in its first month Vista at just over half-a-percent among PC buyers. Now, in her 8th month out, Vista market share numbers now lead Windows 8 with 3.64 percent. Of course, both lags far behind XP and Windows 7 numbers at similar points in their product life cycle.

I suspect it will only get worse for Windows 5.0 (blue). Windows 8, promises to fix some of the users ' concerns about Windows 8. But resolve enough of them?

For example, if all of the reborn start button does is give you a different way in the interface Metro unpopular, will Windows XP and Windows 7 users really care? No matter how good Windows 5.0 turns out to be, it seems likely that the companies will wait to buy any version of Windows 8 until blue in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Some would argue that because NetMarketShare changes how they measure browser and operating system market share from time to time based on changes in the Central Intelligence (CIA) Population data that you don't just compare NetMarketShare data from year to year, particularly as early as 2007.

You could argue, as NetMarketShare rival StatCounter, that "weighting statistics means that statistics are only as good as the weighing method. If the weighting information is incorrect or out of date, then make data totally incorrect. " Furthermore, StatCounter finds Netmarketshare's CIA-based data massasging be "vague and incoherent."

So why use NetMarketShare data at all? Because, for better or worse, it is the most common measure of operating system and browser share. Thus, to the best available information, I'm trying to compare, if not identical apple to apple varieties as Red Delicious apples Granny Smith. While you can't expect to be completely accurate, the figures show significant trends.

In larger retail market, as Mary Meeker, the well-regarded analyst and venture capitalist, pointed out in her 2013 Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers ' 2013 & Internet trends report, Windows is in decline regardless of how to measure it. Apple iOS and Android now has the lion's share of computing devices, including computers, smartphones and tablets, with a 65% share of Windows 35%. Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu Linux founder, was on to something when he declared that the Ubuntu Linux first error, that "Microsoft has a majority market" was now closed.

Modern versions of Windows is non-player on tablets and smartphones. (Credit: NetMarketShare)

Netmarketshares mobile operating system statistics showing Apple iOS keeps the lead with a strong 59.49 percent, followed by Android with 24.4 percent. Java ME, take with 10.2 percent and Symbian with 2.06-percent, which is not even smartphone operating system up the back.  During these we find the once mighty BlackBerry OS, with just 2.06 percent, and combined all versions of Windows Phone with a 1.21-percent.

Microsoft's mobile operating system share is actually worse than it seems. None of its latest smartphone/Tablet OS, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 or RT. break even mark 0.01% on Netmarketshares mobile/tablet operating system market share chart. How bad it is? Android 1.6, with 0.01 percent, make the chart.

Some would argue that comparing mobile and desktop operating systems are like comparing apples and oranges. A more apt comparison is horses and cars. Both give you transport. Experts say computers and their operating systems are on the way out. Microsoft, a maker of buggy-whip might disagree with this analogy.

Windows will no longer matter? Of course not. Some users always need computers and most of them will stick with Windows. The question for Microsoft today is "will someone want to Windows 8?"

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