Microsoft Corp. announced it has completed its acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business. The acquisition has been approved by Nokia shareholders and by governmental regulatory agencies around the world. The completion of the acquisition marks the first step in bringing these two organizations together as one team.
The inevitable happened. Google apps got installed on the freshly announced Nokia X after a crafty member of XDA Developers rooted the Android handset.
The root was achieved via the Framaroot app. The bootloader of the device is unsurprisingly locked, so instead of flashing a single zip file, users need to copy the apk files for Google apps via a root explorer application.
According to the conventional wisdom, Nokia’s decision to launch the new Nokia X line is a slap in the face to Microsoft. An insult, an embarrassment, a major headache that Microsoft management will have to confront soon, when the acquisition of Nokia closes.
That conventional wisdom, frankly, makes no sense to me.
When Microsoft announced its intention to purchase Nokia's mobile handset division, it came away with two brands: Lumia and Asha. The Lumia line has been home to Nokia's Windows Phone efforts. The Asha line, on the other hand, is based on Nokia's Series 40 (S40) platform, which was first introduced in 1999. Nokia's mysterious Android efforts have made the rounds more than a few times since the fall.
Nokia Normandy, the Nokia’s Android phone has shown up itself on AnTuTu benchmark. The screenshots shared over Weibo in China reveal 5 MP camera, 854 x 480 display resolution and will run Android KitKat’s latest version 4.4.1. The device is codenamed A110 as seen in screenshots and should use Qualcomm Snapdragon processor though the screenshot doesn’t reveal which?
What’s the current Windows Phone landscape look like? There’s really no better way to tell than by looking at the data from AdDuplex. The cross-promotion network for both Windows Phone and Windows 8 gives us insight that we might not get from places like IDC or comScore.
Latest data from AdDuplex shows the Lumia 520 continuing to dominate. While at the same time Windows Phone 7.x concedes more market share to Windows Phone 8. Nokia finally reaches 90% dominance with Windows Phone.
According to the Washington Post, the US National Security Agency has had the ability to track mobile phones even when they are switched off. It's not new news, with the Post's article published July 22 and its source, troops from the NSA's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), stating they've been able to do this since 2004. The problem is, almost a decade later, no one knows how it was done.
Stephen Elop, a candidate to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft Corp.’s chief executive officer, would consider breaking with decades of tradition by focusing the company’s strategy around making the popular Office software programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint available on a broad variety of smartphones and tablets, including those made by Apple Inc. and Google Inc., said three people with knowledge of his thinking.
The Nokia smartphone name is dead, but it may live on as a German zombie. A team of German hackers want to revive the Nokia N900. They want to tear out its motherboard and give it a new, more powerful, and more open-source one instead. They’re calling it Neo900.
Once Nokia sells its handset business to Microsoft, it will build out its wireless networking business, possibly with the help of Alcatel-Lucent.
Now that Nokia has bought Siemens' half of the companies' joint venture and has agreed to sell its handset business to Microsoft, company officials now must figure out how to better compete in the wireless networking market with Ericsson and Huawei Technologies.
