Xobni, the popular Outlook contact management tool, is now available for BlackBerry smartphones. The company also launched its Xobni One service.
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Xobni Mobile for BlackBerry smartphones now available
It seems hard to believe given Microsoft’s typical focus around business functionality in its smartphones, but rumors are swirling that its latest operating system, Windows Phone 7 Series, could last copy and paste support. If that’s the case, it sounds like something that needs to be added before the operating system’s expected launch during the holiday season of this year.
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Windows Phone 7 Series to lack copy/paste?
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc’s initial sales of its Nexus One smartphone have significantly lagged the pace of Apple Inc’s iPhone and Motorola Inc’s Droid sales coming out of the starting gate, an analytics firm said on Tuesday.
According to a report by Flurry, Google sold roughly 135,000 of its new Nexus One phones in its first 74 days on the market. By contrast, Apple sold 1 million of the original iPhones in the first 74 days, while Motorola sold 1.05 million Droid phones — which are based on Google’s Android software — during the same timeframe.
The sales estimates, which Flurry said it based on software applications featuring its analytics technology that have been downloaded to most of the phones, suggests a less than stellar start to Google’s plan to play a larger role in the mobile phone business.
Google launched the Nexus One phone, which it developed with handset manufacturer HTC Corp of Taiwan, in January, marking the first time the giant Internet search company had sold a hardware device directly to consumers.
But the Nexus One, unlike the iPhone or the Droid, can only be purchased on the Web and is not available at retail stores. Google has also advertised the phone exclusively online, foregoing the high-profile television ad campaigns of the iPhone and the Droid.
Kaufman Brothers analyst Aaron Kessler said he would have assumed that Google would sell more than 135,000 units.
“Clearly Google is not spending a lot of money marketing it. It doesn’t seem like Google has huge expectations on this one,” said Kessler.
But he noted that Google’s broader mobile strategy is to grow the overall base of devices from various manufacturers that use Google’s Android smartphone software.
According to a recent report by comScore, the market share of Android-based smartphones in the U.S. grew to 7.1 percent in January from 2.8 percent in October 2009.
By contrast, Apple’s share grew at a much slower pace, reaching 25.1 percent in January compared with 24.8 percent in October.
Google was not immediately available for a comment.
The Nexus One is currently available for $179 with a two-year contract from Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA, or $529 without a service plan. Google has said that the phone will be available with Verizon Wireless, the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., sometime in the spring. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.
Flurry said it used the first 74 days of sales as a benchmark, since that was the timeframe that Apple initially announced it took to sell the first million iPhones in 2007. Since March 19 will mark the first 74 days of Nexus One sales, Flurry said it forecasted results for the last few days of the
period.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
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Google Nexus One sales lag Apple, Motorola: Flurry
In case you’re not familiar with QR codes: QR is short for Quick Response (because they can be read quickly by a mobile phone through its camera). They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone – this can be links, videos, text, [...]
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Facebook Kicks Off Implementation Of QR Codes
A new report from mobile analytics firm Flurry reveals some interesting numbers about Google’s first attempt to sell its own custom branded Android device, an HTC-built phone called the Nexus One. It’s a flop. After 74 days, the same amount of time it took the original iPhone to sell its first million units, the Nexus One sold only 135,000.
But before you read too much into these numbers, thinking that it has any meaning with regard to the Android ecosystem as a whole, think again. Android market share is growing fast – it more than doubled from September to December of last year, for example. Oh, and the Droid, Android’s fastest-selling phone to date? It actually beat the iPhone by day 74, Flurry says. All this new data shows is that Google is no Apple when it comes to marketing their own device.
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In January of this year, Google hosted a press event to showcase its new Nexus One phone, a HTC device sold exclusively by Google on its own website in both a carrier-specific and unlocked version. When asked if the new phone was meant to be an iPhone killer, Google Director of Mobile Platforms Andy Rubin simply replied that “choice is a good thing.”
Prior to its launch, many technology insiders suspected (or rather, hoped) that the new “Google phone” would be exactly that – a killer, the first real rival to challenge Apple’s dominance in the smartphone market. With features like support for multitasking, Google’s own GPS navigation application, Google Voice (the VoIP app Apple banned from iTunes), a 3D photo gallery and, of course, heavy integration of Google services, the Nexus One had a feature lineup that Apple’s iPhone couldn’t beat.
So what happened? Why don’t the sales numbers match up with the excitement surrounding the device? The problem likely has to do with the fact that the phone is sold online only. You can’t march into a store and purchase a Nexus One and, apparently, that’s how most customers want to shop. Another problem is that the U.S. carrier for the N1 is T-Mobile, a much smaller network than either AT&T (iPhone) or Verizon (Droid). Also, the N1 isn’t available worldwide like the iPhone is.
However, don’t count the N1 out just yet. According to Google’s website, it will arrive on Vodafone in Europe by spring 2010, and, in the U.S., Verizon will get a version of the device at the same time. Given how well the Droid has done for Verizon, the Nexus One may have a shot at boosting its sales soon.
Meanwhile, Android, as a platform, is doing quite well even if the Nexus One isn’t. The Droid recently became the fastest-selling Android phone to date, beating myTouch 3G sales by more than four times; the Android market share has been growing by leaps and bounds; Android’s application store is now the second largest, second only to Apple’s iTunes; and, finally, some companies found their Android website visitors increasing by as much as 350% over the past year.
In the end, the Nexus One may not have succeeded the way Google had hoped, but clearly, Android itself has.
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Nexus One Flopped, but Android Didn’t