Procycling looks back at a team that dominated the sport of cycling

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They were the biggest and most ambitious team that cycling has ever seen and won practically everything. Looking back from another decade, we examine what earned the Mapei team its unique place in cycling history. Never judge a book by its cover, a building by its façade. even so, number four, Viale Jenner was and still is an unlikely mission control for the biggest – maybe the best – team that professional cycling has ever known. an anonymous boulevard like a hundred others in Milan’s urban cobweb. That facade, as grey and grim as the jerseys and their collage of cubetti were gaudy. six storeys – auspices of corporate nothingness from street level, a cycling fan’s el dorado beyond the vast swing doors: jerseys, memorabilia, trophies. Through the corridors, the murmur of common folk paid to develop, promote and sell chemical adhesives dissecting last week’s Tour of the Med, relishing this week’s Trofeo Laigueglia. on the sixth floor, in the gym, Tony Rominger’s Colnago rigged up to the turbo trainer for the secretary or accountant to use in their lunch break. two flights of stairs from there, an office, a desk and behind it the man Angelo Zomegnan defined as a “demiurge”, some a “demagogue”, and others a “hero”, a “saviour” or any number of other hyperbolic epithets: the boss, ‘dottore’ Giorgio Squinzi. the fact was that from here, for a decade, Squinzi presided over a team which won 653 races and dominated professional cycling. They were the biggest, richest and, some would argue, most influential team that has ever existed. It’s easier and more eloquent to name the champions who hadn’t sported their distinctive multicoloured jersey – Marco Pantani (though they tried), Lance Armstrong, Mario Cipollini and Jan Ullrich – and the major races that they hadn’t won – only the Tour de France and Milan-San Remo – than to do the reverse. “Ah, yes, I forgot about San Remo,” curses former team manager Alvaro Crespi with a laugh. “No sooner had we pulled out than our riders started winning it every year: Paolo Bettini, Oscar Freire…” Some regrets no doubt remain, not least about the circumstances of Squinzi’s exit nine years ago. Spurned by Pantani in 1998, ‘il dottore’, as he was universally known, had identified the climber’s teammate and heir Stefano Garzelli as the man to end a grand tour drought stretching back to Rominger’s win at the 1995 Giro. Garzelli’s positive test while wearing the pink jersey in 2002 heralded not only the end of his Giro but also of the Mapei cycling empire. having summoned Crespi and the late Aldo Sassi to tell them it was all over two years earlier, only to then change his mind, now Squinzi invited them to Viale Jenner to announce his irrevocable decision. the next day, Angelo Zomegnan, then still a Gazzetta dello Sport journalist before his promotion to the directorship of the Giro, penned an editorial which betrayed traces of personal malice. It also, though, highlighted some of the jealousy and criticism which had become the background music for Mapei’s successes. “Mapei bids adieu and pulls out because its demiurge, patron Squinzi, reckons that he’s been misunderstood and unsupported in his efforts to clean up cycling and eliminate the cheats,” wrote Zomegnan, infuriating Squinzi. “His mission is incomplete. There’s no more avid lover than he who thinks he’s been betrayed by the woman of his desires.” Zomegnan continued: “in the last few seasons, [Squinzi] has invested 12 million euros a year: too much for cycling and for a team which has been on the margins of the major tours. He’s gained a lot in terms of brand visibility but he has also drugged the transfer market by grabbing every sparkling object around him.” “There was a lot of jealousy,” says Luca Scinto, a rare domestique in a galaxy of stars at Mapei between 1999 and 2002. “Everyone wanted to ride for Mapei. the organisation was perfect. We may never see another team like it.” Scinto’s is an opinion you hear often in an Italian cycling scene which undoubtedly misses Squinzi’s millions and boundless ambition. Scinto’s friend,  Michele Bartoli, who quit the team in a huff in 2001 after three unhappy years, remains a rare dissenter. “Michele would turn up to Milan-San Remo, look around, and see seven teammates there to try and win and two domestiques,” Scinto recalls. “he wasn’t used to that, couldn’t deal with it. the blame for the divorce was 70 per cent his…” Filippo Pozzato and Bernhard Eisel, two of a number of Mapei alumni still racing, maintain that the best years of their career were the two they spent within a team that Sassi and Crespi created in 2001 to nurture their young talent. “There’s a reason why, when you go out onto the roads in Italy today, you still see so many of those cubed jerseys,” says the team’s former communications chief Alessandro Tegner, now of Quick Step. “That’s one legacy, in people’s affections. another big one is that group of young riders – not only the results those individuals have since produced but also the model which has been copied with great success by the likes of Rabobank since then.” Speaking to Procycling in September, Squinzi admits that he couldn’t and wouldn’t have dreamed of such an outcome when his friend, 1958 Giro d’Italia champion Ercole Baldini, called on the eve of the 1993 race and asked him to salvage the sinking Eldor team. Fired up by his family’s lifelong passion for cycling, Squinzi “made his decision in a day”. the following year, his Spanish directeur sportif Juan Fernández promised him that Tony Rominger would win the Tour de France. Squinzi got straight on the phone to Paris’s plushest restaurant, the Tour d’Argent, and booked every table for the night of the race’s arrival on the Champs-Élysées. Rominger ended up retiring, Miguel Indurain won the fourth of his five Tours, and Squinzi’s would-be champion’s dinner turned into rueful and expensive reflection on what might have been. What Squinzi didn’t know then was that the sport’s holy grail, the Tour, would forever elude him. two years later, though, he could have perhaps guessed the reason: a week into the 1996 Giro d’Italia, he called one of his directeurs to ask why his team leader, the world champion Abraham Olano, had conceded 40 seconds on a climb as innocuous as Monte Sirino. “the problem is that his haematocrit is only 52,” he was told. It wouldn’t be long before Squinzi was banning his riders from consulting external coaches such as Luigi Cecchini and Michele Ferrari. or before Ferrari’s most famous client, Lance Armstrong, was cold calling the Viale Jenner switchboard and ranting at Squinzi’s daughter Veronica about ‘il dottore’s’ assertion that it was impossible to finish in the top five in major tours without blood doping. even today, Squinzi maintains that Mapei “excluded ourselves from contention in major tours when we refused to tolerate blood-doping”.

Instead, with its massive, multinational roster (44 riders of ten different nationalities in 2001) they “reigned supreme over one-day races” and “gave a massive return on the 100 million-plus euros we invested over ten years, as an integral part of our corporate globalisation strategy.”

Here, perhaps, Squinzi gets to the crux of what made Mapei truly unique. Other sponsors have also owned their teams, rather than relying on a separate management company as per the current model, but maybe nowhere has that team been such an integral part of the company’s day-to-day business, culture and image.

“Castorama did something similar but only in France – we did it on a worldwide level,” says Squinzi. “You really felt like the team was another department of the company, or a part of the marketing department,” Tegner adds. “It wasn’t just a case of sticking the company name on the jersey, they used it as a real tool. And in that respect, too, they really influenced a lot of things in cycling today. Team presentations, for example, had always been and are often still just glorified press conferences. well, [at Mapei] they were these big show business extravaganzas…” Scinto remembers “not training for three days because they used to have us doing three days of dress rehearsals for those presentations!”

But even his is a fond and admiring recollection. “There was a real connection to the company, a real loyalty. As far as they were concerned, it was as important to go and spend a week cycling and eating seafood with clients in Rimini as it was to perform well in races. But did they treat us well? an extra 80,000 lire on top of what you would have earned somewhere else meant nothing to il dottore but to a domestique it was double the salary. And Aldo [Sassi] was brilliant on a human level. If ever you had a personal problem, you could go to him and he’d take care of everything on the professional side. the family was sacrosanct to him. When my wife’s mum died, he told me i could take four months off if I wanted and it wouldn’t jeopardise my contract for the following year.” There is no doubt that the mists of nostalgia and, in a few cases, amnesia have distorted some memories of Mapei, just as a fog of resentment clouded perceptions ten and fifteen years ago. Zomegnan wrote that Squinzi was investing 12 million euros a year by 2002 but Crespi insists to us that the total budget was “10 million – and that was including what the minor sponsors also put in”. “It was a lot less than the 17 million that Sky put in now,” he continues, quoting a figure that the British team’s principal, Dave Brailsford, would doubtless contest. As for Zomegnan’s belief that Squinzi “doped the market” with his bumper salaries, Crespi claims it was too easy – and factually wrong – to reduce Mapei’s success to a question of spending power: “We never paid over the odds for riders, especially not the top riders,” Crespi says. “We also took gambles. For example, Oscar Freire’s agent called us after he’d won the World championships in 1999 and everyone was talking about a ‘fluke’ winner. We went to the doctor and he gave us the green light to take a gamble. We all know what happened next…” with regard to doping, some would argue that Squinzi himself isn’t immune to a spot of historical revisionism. To brag that Mapei ruled themselves out of major tours by ruling out blood-doping, then boast about riders such as Johan Museeuw’s performances in the classics, is almost as rich as Squinzi. It’s also odd that, having decided three-week tours weren’t a happy hunting ground for riders without the right chemical artillery, he and his team were so committed to winning the 2002 Giro with Stefano Garzelli.

But then Squinzi, of course, remains of the view that his rider’s wasn’t a straightforward case of cheating – although he stops short of dredging up old conspiracy theories centering on Pantani and Garzelli’s old Mercatone Uno team. “I still think someone stitched us up there,” is all Squinzi will say. “There were a lot of strange things, like the fact we heard Stefano was positive even before they’d tested the sample.”

Crespi defended Garzelli at the time but, curiously, nine years later, has a slightly different take on what proved for Squinzi to be the last straw. “I don’t know, I honestly don’t,” he says, before pausing. “Thinking about it now, I just would have expected a more lively reaction from the rider. Okay, when some people take a hit, they can go a little bit numb, but he seemed cold…” Whatever really went on, Squinzi has no cause to regret his decision. Mapei’s profits have suffered in the worldwide economic crisis that crippled the building industry but the company retains clear global leadership in the chemical adhesive industry, with a turnover of well in excess of a billion euros. Over the past ten years, they have continued to invest millions in sport, through the training centre still used by top pros including Cadel Evans, Ivan Basso and the whole Lampre team, sponsorship of the 2006 Italian World cup-winning football team, lower league club Sassuolo, and numerous events in cycling including the World road championships. Sadly, though, like rumours a couple of years ago that Squinzi was about to purchase AC Milan football club, continual speculation that Squinzi is about to return to the peloton as the backer of a major team seems inaccurate. “No, it won’t happen any time soon. We’re not ready,” he says. while Ivan Basso confirmed to Procycling that he, Squinzi and Sassi very nearly concocted a plan to come back together after Basso’s doping ban, Luca Scinto believes there was only one man who could have tempted Squinzi to dip his toes again. “Franco Ballerini was the only man who could have persuaded him,” the Farnese-Vini chief assures us. We then put this to Squinzi, who corrects Scinto: “well, if we’d come back, there’s no doubt it would have been with Franco and Aldo Sassi, neither of whom are with us any more. As it is, we still feel that Cadel Evans, who we signed at the end of 2001, is our ambassador, our product. If the cleanest rider in the last 10 or 15 years can win a Tour de France, that shows something has changed.” unfortunately, not changed enough for Squinzi to reconsider, at least not yet. while yet another new brand of cyclisme à deux vitesses reveals itself – with one group of teams either folding or fusing and another growing ever richer and more voracious – there is still nothing on the horizon quite like Mapei. Whatever its war-chest, Sky may be the closest equivalent: a team with an identity, its own philosophy, sustainability, and, yes, plenty of cash to fund their innovation. We wrote last month that Bob Stapleton’s HTC-Highroad would leave a legacy “bigger and more positive than that of cycling’s last epoch-defining multinational, Mapei”. We stand by that  – but only because so much of what Mapei bequeathed was lost on a generation of Italian cyclists and teams, a fact now reflected by their dwindling numbers at the top level. Stapleton left a cleaner sport than the one he had entered, partly thanks to men like him; the same applied to Squinzi, but what progress had been made between 1993 and 2002 was largely and perversely due to a team which battled with Mapei for the title of the world’s greatest – Festina. in one sense, therefore, Zomegnan was right: Mapei’s mission was incomplete, ending as it did in a minor failure. in recompense, just as HTC’s ideas and riders will now go forth and multiply in other teams, so Mapei offspring such as Fabian Cancellara, Michael Rogers and Filippo Pozzato went on to enjoy success in other jerseys – yet still hark back to their days in the garish multicoloured ‘cubetti’ beloved to Doctor Squinzi.

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Article from here:Mapei: The greatest ever team

HTC’s next big thing after Sensation, the Sensation XE, is going to be released starting this week in India. The phone is already available from online stores.

HTC has launched a new version of its flagship Sensation smartphone. The new HTC Sensation XE is the refreshed version of the older device, but has the same form factor and design.

Sensation XE is the first smartphone to benefit from the HTC and Beats Audio tie up, which should translate into an awesome music experience. Besides, Sensation XE gets a minor cosmetic upgrade as well in the form of Beats inspired red accents all around the phone.

HTC Sensation XE runs on Android v2.3.4 (Gingerbread) and has a 1.5 GHz dual core processor couple with 768 MB of RAM.

The Sensation XE from HTC has a 4.3 inch qHD screen with resolution of 540 x 960 pixels. HTC has integrated its Sense 3.0 user interface into the phone and that makes the whole experience much better.

The camera is also powerful with an 8 megapixel sensor with auto-focus, and a powerful dual LED, that can shoot images at a maximum resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. Geo tagging is supported on the phone.

Touch-focus, image stabilization, face detection and instant capture on this HTC handset make photography easy and fun. a secondary camera on the phone can be used to make video calls. You can record full HD 1080p videos at 30 fps with stereo sound recording.

A 1730 mAh battery powers this HTC mobile phone. The battery is claimed to offer talk time of 9 hours on 2G and 7 hours on 3G. This phone gives you a standby time of 310 hours on 2G and 540 hours on 3G. Sensation XE from HTC has an internal memory of 1 GB and is expandable up to 32 GB with the help of microSD cards.

Other standard features of Android are all available in full force without any compromises, including 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 and all the sensors, along with Google’s suite of applications

Another phone from the Sensation series the Sensation XL with much larger 4.7 inch screen and 16 GB internal memory is also expected to arrive soon. Rest of the specs are similar to XE but pricing will be an issue as it has to be priced significantly higher than XE given the specs and that could mean very few buyers.

Article from here:HTC Sensation XE in India next week

Special Operation Group (SOG) nabbed three mobile snatchers and seized 10 cell-phones from their possession on Saturday. The group also learnt that two of the arrested are college-going students.

SOG officials received a tip-off regarding three mobile-snatchers roaming near Polytechnic on their motorbike and were headed towards CN Vidyalaya.

The officials kept a watch near AMTS bus stop of Polytechnic College and nabbed Bhavesh Bhavsar, 19, a resident of Chandlodia; Dhaval Dalwadi, 21, a resident of Chandlodia and Minesh Patel, 35, a resident of Vatva.

They recovered 10 expensive mobile phones, including Nokia N8, Blackberry 8110 and Samsung GTS, worth Rs58,000 from their possession. In addition, they also seized their Yamaha bike worth Rs60,000. when they were caught near the college, they were on their way to sell the phones in second-hand market.

According to SOG, these youth were involved in mobile snatching in areas like University, Vastrapur, Anandnagar, Ghatlodia. They used to snatch cellphones when the person was busy talking on phone.

Just like chain-snatchers, they snatched the phone before fleeing on their bike. SOG also learned that Minesh Patel is an old timer, who was earlier caught for kidnapping and fake passport.

Article from here:SOG nabs phone snatchers, seizes10 mobiles – India – DNA

Could a higher-end addition to the existing Lumia lineup be in the works?

(Credit:Nicole Lee/CNET)

The Lumia 800 isn’t even out yet, and there’s already talk of the next big Nokia smartphone on the way.

The head of Nokia France, speaking to France’s LesEchos newspaper, said the company plans to have a full range of smartphones in an effort to attack every segment of the market, WMPoweruser reported today.

The exec likened the Lumia 800, which many assume to be Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone device, to a BMW Series 5, and said there would be a full range of products, including a Series 3 and Series 7 model as well. if the Lumia 710 is the lower-end model, and the Lumia 800 is a midtier product, that suggests a more powerful smartphone is in the works.

While Lumia is meant as a portfolio of products, the Lumia 800 is the current flagship phone, said Nokia representative Keith Nowak.

“We haven’t revealed what else may be in store in the future for the Lumia portfolio,” he said.

The Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 were unveiled at an event in London last month, providing the first tangible fruits of Nokia’s alliance with Microsoft. while physically similar to older Symbian phone, the user experience is completely different thanks to the Windows Phone operating system.

The Lumia 800, which features a unique polycarbonate plastic body, a faster processor, and better camera, was meant to be the higher-end device. It’s expected to be priced around $585 when it launches.

Nokia is also packing in special apps including its navigation service, a Pandora-like music app called MixRadio, and an ESPN hub in an effort to get its phone to stand out in the crowd. The phone is debuting in Europe first, with other regions to follow.

Nokia will certainly need as much attention as it can get for its products. The company is throwing a massive marketing campaign around the world to get the word out on its new phones. It is banking on its strong brand recognition in different markets around the world to drive its comeback.

In the U.S., Nokia is still relatively quiet, with no carrier partner announcements yet. A product isn’t expected here for another few months. The company has a larger challenge in the U.S. in reviving its brand, having struggled in the region for years.

A higher-end Lumia phone could potentially run on a faster 4G connection, which would at least draw the interest of the U.S. carriers, which are all rolling out their next-generation networks now.

Not content to simply dish on another Lumia phone, the Nokia exec also confirmed that Nokia would have a tablet running Windows 8 in June. Microsoft’s next-generation operating system is expected to ship some time next year.

Nokia hasn’t released information about its plans for atablet, Nowak said.

Article from here:Did Nokia out a higher-end Lumia?

Toshiba is poised to launch a model in its Z830 Portege Ultrabook series for $799.99 at Best Buy, which will be a new low price point for this emerging laptop category.

The Portege Z835 at Best Buy (model: Z835-P330) packs a “Sandy Bridge” 1.4GHz Core i3-2367M processor, 4GB DDR3 memory, 13.3″ LED-backlit display (1366×768), and 128GB solid-state drive.

The 0.6-inch thick, 2.5-pound laptop also includes Intel HD 3000 graphics, built-in webcam and microphone, one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet LAN, Wi-Fi, and Windows 7 Home Premium.

Interestingly, a virtually identical more

Originally posted at Nanotech – The Circuits Blog

Article from here:Windows 8 posts on CNET

Windows Phone interfaceNo one expects Windows Phone to leap over Google Android and Apple iOS in a single bound, but industry analysts have been revising their projections for Windows Phone, now forecasting a dramatic surge in sales over the coming 12 months.

Other data finds growing consumer awareness of and interest in the Microsoft platform, almost exactly a year after the first Windows Phone handsets became available on all major U.S. carriers. [Find here the full current lineup of handsets, including those formally debuting next week.]

[Read: Apple iOS vs. Google Android vs. RIM BlackBerry OS vs. Microsoft Windows Phone]

The invitation to press and analysts shows three AT&T-branded smartphones with the distinctive Windows Phone user interface. Only one carries a visible manufacturer’s name: Samsung. AT&T announced in September it will offer new three new phones, running the latest Windows Phone 7.5 firmware:

• Samsung Focus S, with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED plus screen, and a 1.4GHz processor.
• Samsung Focus Flash, with a 3.7-inch Super AMOLED screen, and 1.4GHz processor.
• HTC Titan, with a big 4.7-inch display, and a 1.5GHz processor.

Prices, with subsidies and rebates, will range from $50 to $200 with a two-year contract and a $15 minimum data plan.

T-Mobile this week began selling the previously disclosed HTC Radar 4G phone, with a 3.8-inch screen and 1GHz processor, for $100 with a two-year contract. this Windows Phone 7.5 device will run on the carrier’s 14.4Mbps HSPA+ network, but not its fastest HSPA+ 42 network.

Though not designed as a high-end phone, the Radar shows a new awareness of the relationship between styling, performance and price for Microsoft’s mobile platform. Reviewers have been generally favorable, often in spite of an admitted built-in skepticism.

The Radar has a mainly aluminum design that gives it the heft and solidity of a much more expensive, and expensively built, phone, reviewers agree. Its 1GHz Qualcomm processor and 8GB of storage seem paltry compared to the dual-core chips on some high-end rivals. Yet reviewers found the UI and apps very fluid and responsive. “In fact, we were quite happy with its responsiveness, especially when using Mango’s built-in apps, which pop open with very little delay,” writes Zachary Lutz, reviewing for Engadget. “Yes, its RAM is limited to 512MB, but even when playing music in the background and surfing the web with multiple tabs open, the UI happily kept pace and never left us waiting.”

Microsoft’s emphasis on creating a highly integrated user experience for Windows Phone is gaining respect and notice. In his Radar review for InformationWeek, George Ou observed: “After seeing how Facebook and Microsoft Live and Twitter updates are consolidated into ‘People Hub’ and how Facebook and Microsoft Live photos are consolidated into Photos, it made me wonder if I even need a Facebook or Twitter app. the message app consolidates all SMS text messages, Facebook chat, Live Messenger chat — and I presume Skype chat in the future — into one place. that seems to be a much cleaner and simpler alternative to the kind of app and icon sprawl I’m used to on my Android smartphone.”

At Monday’s event, it’s possible that some of Microsoft’s newest manufacturing partners such as Lenovo and ZTE may unveil their first phones for the OS. Images purporting to be of a Lenovo Windows Phone handset recently appeared on a Chinese website.

The market share data for Windows Phone is confused for several reasons. one reason is that none of the carriers, manufacturers, or Microsoft itself has released data on Windows Phone handset activations. Another reason is that most market data includes both Windows Phone and the older Windows Mobile platform.

Gartner’s latest projections for 2011 suggest that Windows Phone may have been popular enough to stop the declining unit sales of Microsoft-powered smartphones; in 2010, Windows mobile device sales worldwide to end users totaled 12.4 million units; for 2011, Gartner is now projecting 12.8 million (about half of what Gartner was projecting in April 2011). because the smartphone market as a whole has soared, Microsoft’s market share dropped this year to 2.7% compared to 4.2% in 2010.

But next year, Gartner thinks Windows Phone devices could come close to 64 million units, a growth rate of nearly 400%. That’s roughly equal to Gartner’s forecast for RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones, but of course far less than projected iOS device sales, at more than 128 million, and Android units of more than 300 million.

Strategy Analytics recently forecast that Microsoft will double its market share next year in Europe. “We forecast Microsoft Windows Phone to be the fastest growing major platform next year, doubling its share of the Western European smartphone market from 6% in 2011 to 12% in 2012,” according to Tom Kang, a director with the technology research firm. “Increased distribution and marketing support from major hardware partners such as Nokia, Samsung and HTC will help to drive growth for Microsoft.”

A bigger and savvier marketing push can help, but people have to be willing to buy Windows Phone handsets over better-know rivals. and there’s some data that suggests they are.

The NPD Group’s Connected Intelligence service released in September data from a consumer survey. one set of numbers confirmed that Android continues to account for about half of all smartphone purchases in the U.S. in the last three quarters.

As writer Ingrid Lunden noted, in covering this survey, “[H]ere’s a curious fact: when all mobile users who either owned a smartphone or intended to purchase one were asked about what kinds of devices they want to buy next, 44 percent also said that they were considering Windows Phone 7 devices — meaning that the door is open for significantly more sales of Windows Phone 7 devices, if Microsoft and OEMs (and specifically its newest and biggest OEM, Nokia) get their acts together.”

Lunden noted the new data showed that 45% of consumers say they are “unaware” of the Windows Phone OS. Another data point: “And among the 50 percent of consumers who said they will be buying a smartphone [in the coming quarter], but didn’t want to buy a Windows Phone, the biggest reason, accounting for 46 percent of respondents, was because they didn’t know enough about the Windows Phone OS.”

“Microsoft’s ad campaign needs to focus on what is the value of this operating system,” says Ramon Llama, senior research analyst for mobile devices at market research firm IDC. “Android and iOS can have a ‘carousel’ of homepages. Microsoft’s UI with its Live Tiles and Hubs [of related apps and services] is a big change from those static icons.”

Nokia, which has bet its future on Windows Phone, has launched an aggressive ad and marketing campaign designed to emphasize the unique qualities of the OS, as embodied in its first two Windows Phone handsets, the Lumia 710 and higher-end Lumia 800. the phones, and the campaign, were unveiled at the recent Nokia World conference in London.

It’s not yet known if Nokia will be present at next Monday’s event. At Nokia World, CEO Stephen Elop promised that a “portfolio” of Windows Phone devices would be unveiled for the American market in early 2012.

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World.

Twitter: twitter.com/johnwcoxnww

Blog RSS feed: networkworld.com/community/blog/2989/feed

Read more about anti-malware in Network World’s Anti-malware section.

Article from here:Microsoft to Host Unveiling of New Windows Phone Handsets

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world

Article from here:Fry

Google’s Android smartphone operating system had a 43 percent share in the US smartphone market for the period ending October while Apple’s iOS seems stuck at 28 percent.

According to a report released by research outfit Nielsen, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry OS seems to be struggling with a 17 percent market share while Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform had a 7 percent share.

The company also revealed that out of 43 percent mobile phone users who own a smartphone in the US, around 54 percent are between 18-24 and 35-44, eWeek reports.

Meanwhile, 62 percent of mobile phone users in the US are between 25 to 34 years, underlining the growth and penetration of smartphones.

“This is a wake-up call for potential advertisers waiting for a tipping point for mobile media or for smartphones to reach the majority,” said Don Kellogg, director of telecom research and insights at Nielsen.

“We’re already there with certain segments – 62 percent of those ages 25 to 34 already have smartphones. That’s critical mass,” he added.

The report also revealed that smartphones are slowly becoming popular with older users, with 30 percent of people aged between 55 and 64 owning a smartphone.

Article from here:Android OS Beats iOS and Windows Phone Platform with 43% Market Share

We’re starting to see more and more devices break cover to feature the Tegra 3 processor, otherwise known as the Kal-El chip, and now we’ve got reports of another one to come. Seems the folks out at HTC are getting together their own version, and they’re planning to show it off at the next Mobile World Congress show when it hits in early 2012.

Naturally, since the tablet itself isn’t even set to be shown off for about another six months, there aren’t a whole lot of details on the ground as to just what the tablet will be offering when it breaks cover. However, some have already theorized that the HTC tablet in question will be running Ice Cream Sandwich, as Windows 8 won’t be available for regular use until the second half of the year, which is well after this one will start showing.

Moreover, that doesn’t seem to be the only thing that HTC has in store, as reports have also emerged of two Android phones HTC’s planning to show. best of all, one of those phones will pack a Kal-El of its own. Judging by what we know so far, this may well be the HTC Edge that we heard so much about just last week.

A new HTC tablet with the Tegra 3 processor is pretty exciting in its own right, especially considering that the iPad 2 is only set to undergo a minor retooling in that same time span, but getting a chance to see the Edge front and center? Now that sounds like a great idea to me! of course, it does remain to be seen whether these plans will actually come off; the MWC 2012 show is still about four months out, and in tech circles, that’s half a lifetime. but still, it sounds like HTC could have something interesting in mind for the big show in Barcelona.

So what do you guys think about this? will the Edge break cover in Barcelona next year? What about that tablet that’s set to follow? a lot of unanswered questions to speculate on here, and you know we’ll be keeping an eye out, but until then, head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!

Article from here:HTC Tegra 3 Tablet To Hit 2012 MWC, Say Reports [An HTC Tablet & Smartphone Packing A Kal-El Chip Will Hit The 2012 Mobile World Congress Show, According To Reports]

What’s the difference between a smartphone and a feature phone? According to Mary McDowell, who is leading Nokia’s feature phone charge in emerging markets, it’s the fact that software applications can be written to run natively on the operating system. It’s a definition that average consumers likely don’t care about.

Ms. McDowell is trying to blur that line with feature phones that surf the web and run applications (not natively on the OS) such as Facebook and WhatsApp. when asked why, she says it’s more about getting these consumers to pay a little bit more for their features phones—which help Nokia’s margins—and less about prepping people to trade up to smartphones.

“It’s not a stepping stone. It’s a good business in and of itself,” she said in an interview at Nokia World in London this week. “There is growth.”

Ms. McDowell likes to cite Africa, which has a population of over 1 billion, but a mobile penetration rate of just 35%, as an example. As a result, the company is currently building out its distribution network there. Her Mobile Devices business unit was the darling of Nokia’s third quarter, after posting higher sales and lower operating expenses than its smartphone business, thanks in part to new dual-SIM phones it recently launched.

Besides the new Nokia Windows smartphones, the Finnish concern also launched the Nokia Asha family of lower-end feature phones for youth in emerging markets.

The sleeper of the quarter Ms. McDowell said were the apps. Nokia’s app store has reached 10 million downloads a day, and the percentage coming for the company’s feature phones grew to a third of that total in the third quarter from 12% in January. these are free and paid apps.

“WhatsApp” gets 500,000 downloads a day from feature phones, and Nokia just launched angry Birds for its touch and type feature phones. The company also recently launched an Internet browser for its feature phones that compresses the data download from web pages and making it more affordable for consumers in these markets. User count to date on the browser, she says: around 10 million.

Nokia’s effort to “bring the Internet to the next billion” is an interesting strategy that doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. while it’s true that the margins in the handset business are in smartphones, it’s also important to also think about where the next wave of growth is coming from—especially for Nokia, now that its smartphone business isn’t providing the margins it used to.

Article from here:Nokia Targets the “Next Billion” Internet Users