Tag: Microsoft

Microsoft acquire customer self-service company Parature

Microsoft acquire customer self-service company Parature

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday January 7 announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Parature, a leading provider of cloud-based social and customer retention software for more than 70 million end users worldwide. The acquisition will surely help Microsoft boost their Microsoft Dynamics vision focused at helping organizations deliver the best customer experience.

“Customers are more connected and better informed than ever before. Organizations are looking for business solutions that can strengthen their ability to connect with customers on their own terms, using whatever device and whatever channel they prefer”, said Bob Stutz, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “Parature is a perfect fit for every business and will enable us to offer customers one of the best cloud-based solutions for customer self-service. This is a compelling combination for organizations committed to delivering the best service experience that consistently exceeds their customers’ expectations.”

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Nokia present Lumia 900 at CES

Nokia Lumia 900 Black
Nokia Lumia 900 in black

Today Nokia presented the rumored Nokia Lumia 900. It’s a LTE device with a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, and with 2 cameras. The back camera has an f/2.2 apeture lens, and the front camera an f/2.4 apeture lens. Maybe there is videocall support through Skype on the horizon?

It’s using a 1.4GHz processor just as in the Lumia 800, and the memory specifications seems to be the same as well. The body is made of the same slick polycarbonate material used on the Nokia N9 and the Lumia 800, and the Lumia 900 uses the same beautiful design features as well. The device is also sporting a 1830mAh battery to provide good battery life even with the increased screen size.

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Microsoft opens up Live Messenger access via XMPP

Live Messenger and XMPP
Microsoft gives access to Messenger via XMPP

Yesterday Microsoft announced on their Inside Windows Live blog, that they have opened up public access to its Messenger IM network via the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). More than 300 million people actively use Live Messenger every month according to Microsoft, and the vast majority of them also actively use other services like Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter. As users contact lists and collection of chat clients and services start to grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage.

Microsoft have in Windows Phone 7 shown their recent ambition to collect all different people you know under one place. This approach lets you collect social media, phone contacts and also chat services under one place for easy access. The Messaging service itself has also been expanded to let you connect via a Windows PC, Windows Phone, and Hotmail trying to make it easier for the user to sign in to existing services, and chat with who they want, without having to re-spam all their friends and force them to join yet another network, or download yet another chat client.

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Nokia Lights up London with Lumia, Deadmau5 and 4D

Nokia Lumia 800 Live event
Nokia Lumia 800 projection from the Live event in London

This week had an amazing start for the residents of London, courtesy of Nokia and Deadmau5. Seems Nokia and Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to make Windows Phone and the Lumia phones a success. It really shows that they both mean business and Nokia is ready to take back their crown as the number one smartphone manufacturer, a title they lost in the beginning of this year.

Using the Millbank Tower in Westminster near the river Themes in London as their canvas, Nokia with the help of Drive Productions, showed of an amazing effects show, accompanied by music from Deadmau5. The grand finale being the projection of a huge Nokia Lumia 800.

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Spotify is officially launched for Windows Phone

Spotify on Windows Phone Mango
Spotify on Windows Phone Mango

Today at the Windows Phone press event in New York, Microsoft officially launched an application that a lot of users have been waiting for: Spotify for Windows Phone.

The application is looking very smooth, and like Windows Phone Mango in general, very snappy to use. It is also well integrated into the Metro UI making it look like a native application that just naturally belongs. The Spotify team has been working on this release since at least April, but after seeing the finished work it seems it was well worth the wait. In the application you can navigate by swiping back and forth in typical Windows Phone fashion between new releases, playlists, friend feeds, and more.

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Nokia have installed a headphone shaped arch at Olympic site

Nokia Headphone Arch
Nokia Headphone Arch Blueprint

Promoting their new Lumia handsets, Nokia today installed a headphone-shaped arch at Westfield Stratford, the shopping mall located at the gateway to the Olympic stadium. A similar installation was also in place at the unveil of the Lumia series at Nokia World 2011

The new Nokia Lumia phones will be on display at the London Olympics 2012 site, from today where up to 750,000 people a week will be able to get hands-on with the handsets. Rumors have previously mentioned that Nokia and Microsoft was preparing for a massive PR campaign to promote Nokia’s new phones running Windows Phone, and this is probably just the beginning. Personally I feel that this is not a day to soon, since I haven’t seen a Nokia commercial anywhere in years. This surely must have been big contributor to the dropped sales that Nokia have experienced in recent years.

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Lumia – New Nokia smartphones running Windows Phone.

Nokia Lumia 800 and 710
Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710

At Nokia World in London today Nokia revealed not only one, but two brand new Windows Phone devices. The stunningly beautiful Nokia Lumia 800, that brings content to life in a fun and easy way, and also the affordable Nokia Lumia 710 that brings the Lumia experience to more people around the world, with the same easy and fluent software functionality as her bigger sister.

Nokia Lumia 800 shares the main design features of the gorgeous Nokia N9, but with some changes and additions. The bottom part of the 3.9″ screen is dedicated to the three standard buttons that is a familial feature of the Windows Phone operating system. This leaves a 3,7″ part of the screen left to be used by rest of the UI. On the right side of the phone there’s also an added hardware button, dedicated for the on-board 8 Megapixel camera. Unlike other devices running Windows Phone, on a Nokia phone you will of course get something extra. Among things, you get free Offline navigation, and also access to the brand new Nokia Music service.

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Nokia World 2011, just a few days to go.

Nokia World 2011
Nokia World 2011, October 26 - 27, London

The countdown for Nokia World 2011 have started, and the excitement is in the air. Possibly it’s finally time to see Nokia’s first Windows based phones. I for one can hardly wait.

Nokia have gone through major changes since February when a collaboration between Microsoft and Nokia was announced, naming Windows Phone, Nokia’s new main operating system for smartphone’s. Finally we might be able to see the first tasty Mango fruits of this new partnership. And it does look tasty.

Meanwhile, Symbian have continued to evolve into new upcoming version Symbian Belle, showing the world that this old work horse is far from dead. It’s actually looking like a rather pretty lady, and with some new skills as well. We have recently seen a range of new colorful, and powerful devices running Symbian Belle being released: Nokia 600, 603, 700 and 701

Also Nokia N9 might be Nokia’s first and last MeeGo device, but it is already taken the world by storm. All these new devices has been released before Nokia’s main event of the year, Nokia World. One could only imaging what Nokia has in store for us just 8 days from now.

Next year, might just be Nokia’s year.