Microsoft has reached a lot of milestones in the PC market with every new operating system that they unveil with the most recent Windows 7 getting a lot of success worldwide as the fastest selling operating system on the market with more than 60 million licenses already sold. Although Microsoft maintains a comfortable lead in the operating system market along with other Microsoft software, its top competitors Google and Apple and making waves in the mobile market and Microsoft aims to get a piece of that as well.

Microsoft’s Push to the Mobile Market

Microsoft is actually the first company among Apple and Google to get into the phone market by outfitting Pocket PC devices sold in 2000 with the Pocket PC 2000 operating system which is based on Windows CE 3.0. Some of the built-in features came in familiar applications present in Windows 98 and 2000 including a mobile version of Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Money, and Pocket Office suite of applications. This OS appeared in several Pocket PC devices while existing Palm-size PC devices can optionally update to the OS. Microsoft had its first taste of the smartphone market with the following release of the Pocket PC 2002 which had similar design elements to Windows XP and some enhancements to some of the applications.

The Windows Mobile Name

Two years after the release in June 2003, Microsoft made the Windows Mobile name official when they brought Windows Mobile 2003 to Pocket PCs and smartphones. Coming in four editions to cope up with the different models available, newer features were added without changing the interface very much. Some of the biggest features were the support for add-on keyboards and Bluetooth connectivity. The following year saw the release of Windows Mobile 2003 SE which adds WPA support and wider screen resolution support.

Bigger Updates

While Microsoft was busy working on the Longhorn project which later turned out to be Windows Vista, Windows Mobile saw another change in name where the version numbering system is used when Windows Mobile 5 succeeded the previous version in 2005. Many new features were provided including Microsoft Exchange Server push support, upgraded versions of Windows Media Player and its office products along with greater Bluetooth and GPS support. Performance and battery life has been vastly improved while the interface has a polished, yet familiar look.

A month after the release of Windows Vista came Windows Mobile 6 released on February 12, 2007. This time, the interface sported more noticeable changes that relate to Windows Vista, but the functionality still remains similar to Windows Mobile 5. Like other major updates, many new applications and features were added to the mix including support for HTML emails, better JavaScript and AJAX support on the browser end, and improved office applications that can read the .docx and related formats. It was widely praised for its stability and led to two minor updates.

The 6.1 version offered minor enhancements on the performance side with some added features to keep up with the competition like threaded SMS. The unintended 6.5 release does vast improvements to the GUI and serves as a gap to the much awaited Windows Mobile 7.

Windows Mobile Future

Not many details have been shared about Windows Mobile 7, but it promises to be a major upgrade and is rumored to take advantage of multi-touch and Silverlight technologies which is just what Microsoft needs in competing with its fast growing competitors – Android and iPhone OS.

This week it is expected that the merger between Orange and T-Mobile, forming the biggest mobile phone operator in the UK, will receive regulatory approval.

The European Commission has decided not to pass the enquiry back to the UK regulator, despite fears from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that the merger will “significantly” reduce competition.

What convinced the commission to allow the merger to go ahead were assurances from Orange and T-Mobile to protect the future of 3, the UK’s smallest mobile phone network. The two companies agreed, last night, that they would extend a network-sharing deal with 3 to 16,000 mast sites across the UK.

In fact, it was concerns about the future of 3 that prompted the OFT to ask for control of the investigation earlier this month. The OFT was worried that reducing competition from five players to three in the UK mobile arena would irrevocably change the mobile landscape.

There will also be an agreement stated between Orange and T-Mobile that they will let go of 25 per cent of their combined 1800 MHz spectrum, the wavelength required for super-fast mobile broadband internet.

It is not known whether competitors Vodafone and O2 will challenge the merger, but it is understood that they have pushed for more of the valuable spectrum, granted in the 1990s, to be relinquished by the merger companies.

Amidst concerns that the merger could increase the cost of mobile phone contracts, consumer groups such as Which? had been in favour of a UK investigation.

At the same time, France Telecom, which owns Orange, and Deutsche Telecom for T-Mobile had been pushing for a Euroapean investigation rather than a UK one which they thought would be slower to reach a decision.

Resource :
http://www.mobilemarketingnews.co.uk/Orange_and_T-mobile_Merge_Soon_to_be_Approved_9222215148343.html

4G means fourth generation technology. 4G mobile technology is the name refers to the next generation of mobile phones. There is not yet an agreed industry standard for what constitutes 4G mobile, so for now it is merely a marketing term.
G is for generations

• 1G technology – involved in mobile phones
• 2G technology started 1990s, used in Digital format and introduced text messaging
• 3G technology improved data is carried, carry enhanced information services such as web.

4G mobile is in its starting face not yet established as an agreed set of standards, so its features are simply goals rather than requirements increasing data transfer speeds, security messages and reduce blips during network switched. 4G mobile networks are based on IP address system.

In USA, two major systems using 4G mobile technology, one is WiMax and another is LTE.

4G mobile technology is widely used for internet access on computers and also used for cell phone communications. In which area, there is strong 4G coverage able to access broadband connections, not requires cabling.