conventions and expos: October 2007 Archives
As far as news go, the presence of Microsoft at CTIA permeated the
coverage of CTIA. In their assessment of the show, writers
commented on the following:
- Sascha Segan at PC Magazine in his analysis of the show pointed out the prevalence of MIcrosoft and the overwhelming denial of the “i” word, liking it to the earlier PC battles between Apple and Microsoft. He called the Windows Mobile I-Mate handset one of the flashiest new phones at the show. He noticed the slew of social networking services and reported that Guitar Hero could be the superhero of the show.
- Eric Zeman in his CTIA wrap up for InformationWeek wrote “nothing set the show on fire. Hell, the parties were barely fun,” and thought that making the show in late October, too late for the holidays caused the announcements of handsets to be done way before the show.
- The hottest phones from Yahoo’s Gadget Hound were the BlackJack II, I-Mate Ultimate 9502, Sprint Touch, Samsung F700, and Samsung SCH-i760.
There were few mentions in analysis of CTIA about Xohm
Senior Vice President of Mobile Broadband Operations Atish Gude’s
Day 3 keynote, where he talked about Sprint’s commitment to their WiMax
strategy and the ecosystem of the wireless Web.
Comment from Mobile and Wireless News:
Most of the
coverage CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment lacks the
entertainment aspect. Perhaps, when the show is in San Francisco,
it tends to loose the entertainment flare like it had when
it was in Los Angeles, The Entertainment Capital of the World.
While Southern California was still burning, the news from Day 2 of CTIA included more announcements and SMS help for SoCal:
- The announcement by Dustin Moskovitz, founder of Facebook and Mike Lazaridis, founder of RIM, during a keynote address at CTIA that Facebook will be developing an open Facebook application for BlackBerry devices was reported by almost all wireless publications. The San Francisco Chronicle commented, “The deal underscores how much Facebook wants to attract older members, and how willing RIM is to go after a younger market.
- PC World noticed the AT&T Blackjack II, that runs Windows Mobile 6, will be one of the first devices to support Microsoft’s System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008.
- Guy Krakow a MSNBC thought the new mobile game from Cellfun, Mobile Ring that pits presidential candidates in a boxing match was a “big hit,” as well as being impressed with the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic phone.
- The Associated Press reported on the fact that users can now get AOL Instant Messaging on Verizon and Alltel phones.
- Wireless Week wrote about CTIA CEO Steve Largent’s suggestion that “subscribers of participating wireless carriers can donate $5 to (Southern California Fire Red Cross) relief efforts by text messaging the keyword “GIVE” to “2HELP” (24357).”
Although Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was a keynote speaker and
announced a new server smartphone software from Microsoft there were
lots of other news stories at CTIA.
- Tom Kraznit at CNET posted a blog entry about how a panel talked about how instrumental the iPhone has been in influencing the mobile market.
- PC World IDG News Service noted that Microsoft will be backing the mobile enterprise services company, Enterprise Mobile Inc.
- The competition is heating up because AZ Central made sure its readers knew that Microsoft plans on decreasing the price of Windows Mobile Phones below $100.
- PC World has reported on some neat new PC/phone related products to keep PC files on your phone or vice a versa, Web access, GPS sharing, microblogging, and ad supported free International calls from Talkster.
- The Seattle Times mentioned the presence at CTIA of it’s local biz Whrrl, a social discovery service with mobile and Web access.
