#Microsoft offers #WindowsPhone #OS free to #Indian players

Desperate times call for desperate measures. With Windows Phone failing to make a significant dent in the market share of Google's Android and Apple's iOS in the last four years, Microsoft is waiving the licence fee and offering it to at least two Indian phone makers for free.

Last month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft announced that more phone makers, including two from India — Lava and Karbonn — will produce Windows Phone devices in the coming months. Both companies already make Android devices using Google's mobile OS which is free to use. Their Windows Phone devices are likely to hit the market in the next few months.

Multiple industry sources with knowledge of Microsoft's negotiations with Indian phone companies told TOI that it was in talks with local firms to produce affordable Windows Phone devices since last year. But the agreements were clinched only when Microsoft agreed to remove the licence fee it charges from phone makers for its OS.

This is unprecedented. Microsoft didn't even give the OS free to Nokia, which agreed to exclusively make Windows Phone in 2011. It reportedly charged Nokia between $20 to $30 for each Lumia device the Finnish company sold. Making the OS free also shows signs of growing frustration within the company at the lack of traction for Windows Phone in the market.

Historically, licensing the software has always been bread and butter for Microsoft. "For our planned Windows Phone handsets, we are not paying Microsoft a licence fee. The company is obviously exploring new models for Windows Phone. It must have realized that the older model where it licenced the OS did not work out well, even with Nokia's support," a senior executive with an Indian phone company told TOI.

While Microsoft is likely to offer Windows Phone OS to other manufacturers, including the global companies, under similar terms, the agreements with the two Indian firms are specific to them.

A Microsoft spokesperson refused to comment on the specifics of the talks the company held with Indian phone makers . But, the spokesperson said, "We have extensive programmes to help our partners build great devices. Our licensing model allows us to partner with OEMs across the world."

"Free Windows Phone is part of a strategic partnership. For both Microsoft and us, it is an experiment. Windows Phone still doesn't have lot of appeal in the market but now that it doesn't have any licence fee, it becomes easier for us to experiment with it," said another senior executive.

According to the latest IDC figures, Windows Phone OS has less than 10% share in India's smartphone market, which is dominated by Android. An IDC analyst said the "free" Windows Phone will definitely help Microsoft.

"If Microsoft has decided to waive the licence fee for Windows Phone, it is great news for local phone makers. Local phone makers are comfortable with Android. They are still not sure of the appeal of Windows Phone. If the OS is free to use, they will feel more confident while experimenting with it in the market," said Manasi Yadav, a senior market analyst at IDC.

Ref - TOI

#WindowsPhone 8.1 notification center leaked online

The much awaited Windows Phone 8.1 Notification Center has made its first appearance, courtesy of a screenshot from an internal Microsoft presentation that details the feature. 

Microsoft is reportedly working on a majorWindows Phone 8 update which is expected to bring the much demanded Notification Center which will offer all notifications in a centralized location in addition to toggles for commonly used settings. 

The screenshots, published by Winphollowers, reveal that the Windows Phone 8.1 version is inclusive of the notification center, dubbed 'Action Center', which comes out when a user takes a short swipe from the top of the screen. 

According to a report by The Verge, the center displays four basic quick settings that are shortcuts to options like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other system settings, apart from showing date and a battery level percentage. The four settings toggles are customizable, as per the report. 

When the Notification Center is pulled down further, a full 'Action Center' is displayed, showing notifications from apps, which can also be silently added, updated and deleted in the view. 

Previously leaked screenshots had revealed that Microsoft was finally splitting volume controls for ringer, notifications and media, and apps in the upcoming update.

Ref - TOI

Nokia reveals price, launch date of Lumia 720, 520

NEW DELHI: Nokia India has announced that its affordable Windows Phone 8-powered smartphones - Lumia 720 and Lumia 520 - will be launched in India in April. Lumia 520 will cost Rs 10,500, whereas the price of Lumia 720 will be revealed at the time of launch, Nokia said. Both the smartphones were announced at the Mobile World Congress 2013 in February. 

The all-new Lumia 520 comes with a 4-inch LCD IPS touchscreen and is powered by a 1GHZ dual-core processor. The phone comes with 8GB built-in memory and can support microSD cards with capacities ranging up to 64GB. The camera sensor in Lumia 520 is rated at 5MP and can shoot videos at 720presolution, but has no rear LED flash or a front facing camera. 

Nokia Lumia 720 features a 4.3-inch LCD touchscreen with ClearBlack Display technology. This display is extremely touch-sensitive and can be operated even when users are wearing gloves. It has 8GB internal memory, 7GB free SkyDrive storage and microSD support up to 64GB. It has a 6.7MP Carl Zeiss camera with LED flash on the back, and a 1.3MP unit in the front. Boasting of unibody design, this phone has 2,000mAh battery, wireless charging and NFC. 

The two smartphones will have imaging features like Cinemagraph, Panorama, PhotShoot and PhotoBeamer. The company also extended its location and mapping service Here to Lumia 720 as well as Lumia 520 and said that this platform will soon be made available to Windows Phone-powered devices made by other companies.

Gaana.com launches app for Windows Phone

Gaana.com, the music streaming service of Times Internet, the digital arm of the Times Group, launched the official Windows app of the music portal. 
With a library of more than a million songs, the application caters to a wide range of genres from the oldest Hindi film hits, world music, regional and folk songs to the latest Bollywood chart toppers. The app is already available on other mobile operating systems such as iOS, Android, Black-Berry and also on Java-based devices. The app is available for free. 
Times Internet chief executive Satyan Gajwanisaid that the app has seen about 500,000 downloads across all platforms since its launch in January. The app's features include social listening which allows you to see what your friends are listening to, realtime syncing of your favourite songs, playlists, albums and artists across your computer or mobile phone and a radio mode which allows you to create your own radio station based on the songs you play. 
"We're focussed on three things now. Providing more content, more access and more discovery for our users," Gajwani said. "Our biggest competitor is piracy. We want to provide a wide variety of music for our listeners which can be accessed easily and have them switch to a legal means of consuming music," he said.

Gajwani was in Bangalore for Microsoft's TechEd, an event for developers, IT professionals and students. Gaana.com became India's most visited music streaming site within the first four months of its launch and has consistently held that position ever since. According to Comscore Research (Nov 2012), Gaana has been the leading music service on the web, with over 3 million visitors per month.

Windows Phone Store now offering over 1,30,000 apps

Microsoft is trying hard to make Windows Phone a strong third alternative to Android and iOS. For that the company needs to boost up its app ecosystem.

The company has just announced that at the last count, there were over 1,30,000 apps and games in the Windows Phone Store. The total number of apps have witnessed a significant increase from 75,000 that the company was offering around a year ago.

Furthermore, 15,000 of these apps were Windows Phone 8-specific apps. This is a significant achievement considering that Windows Phone 8 was launched in October 2012.

Shedding more light on the numbers, Microsoft revealed at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it has witnessed a 75 percent increase in app downloads and a 91 percent increase in paid app revenue. It also confirmed that the total number of transactions on the store hit billion. Dissecting the data on a per user basis, Microsoft commented that an average user downloads about 55 apps.

Microsoft via its Blog has shared that the developer community for the Windows Phone platform too has seen an upward trend. Within 90 days of the launch of Windows Phone 8, there were over 40,000 developer registrations submitted to Microsoft.

However, in comparison to Apple and Android, Windows is still way behind. Google Play store is currently offering 675,000+ apps, while Apple has over 775,000 in its App Store.

The newest operating system BlackBerry 10 also boasts of having a catalog of over 70,000 apps. However, the Canadian smartphone-maker has been criticised for the overall quality of a majority of these apps.

Though number of applications is a good achievement for any platform but the bigger question still remains in terms of quality of the apps. A lot of users are still not very pleased with the kind of applications that are being offered in Windows Phone Store.