Day 3 @ MWC: Nokia Blatantly Targets Android with Windows Phone Plans
We are now on the third day of the Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. For a recap, click here and here for day 1 and day 2 MWC product launches and highlights.
Now, on to Day 3 at MWC:
Nokia vs. Android
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is straightforward as to who they’re going after with their Windows Phone: Android.
“Our focus is on competing with Android,” Elop said during a keynote address at the Mobile World Congress show here today. “We want to bring them to Lumia.”
Because of how fragmented the Android platform is, the Windows Phone platform can easily catch up making it more a favorable choice especially for first time smartphone users.
HTC CEO Peter Chou, which already has a partnership with Microsoft agrees with what Elop stated during the Q&A segment after their keynote speech.
“I believe [Windows Phone] will catch up,” Chou stated but side-stepped when asked if the OS is up to par with Android or iOS. “I don’t know. I’m not a fortune teller.”
Best Enterprise Mobile Service
Fiberlink, a maker of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for secure mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM), announced that their MaaS360 platform was honored with the 2012 Global Mobile Award for “Best Enterprise Mobile Service” at MWC. It’s an area of growing interest for the mobile sector, as BYOD trends take over the workplace. VMware, Symantec and SAP all took advantage of MWC to share their plans for the mobile enterprise as well.
The Global Mobile Awards selected MaaS360 as the Best Enterprise Mobile Service for providing the “most innovative mobile tools to help corporations or enterprise users to work smarter and do business better on the move.”
“MaaS360 continues to dominate competitors in awards, lab tests and in enterprise implementations around the world. The Global Mobile Awards win further validates how MaaS360’s approach is the way of the future for total enterprise mobile device management,” said Jim Sheward, CEO at Fiberlink. “We are honored to be recognized by the GSMA, among Apple, AT&T, Google and Samsung as winners in this prestigious ceremony.”
Unexpected Turn Of Events
A report stated that Research in Motion is making quite a splash at MWC. “Still waters obviously run deep because analysts at Citi said today that in a note that they were very surprised at the investor and public interest at the BlackBerry booth in Barcelona. Citi also said in that note that several emerging-market carriers in particular were cognisant of slower BlackBerry sales yet interested in what Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Hein’s operation will do with the BlackBerry 10 when, as expected, that launches in the second quarter of this year.”
Also IT professionals still view BlackBerry’s as the safest bet for use in companies.
“If IT could [stipulate] what employees brought in it would be BlackBerry,” said Verivo CEO Steve Levy. “It is the most secure solution. But those days of IT [making that decision] are gone.”
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