windows mobile software blog

Fiat Auto and Microsoft unveil automobiles with a new infotainment platform at Geneva Motor Show.

Fiat Auto Group and Microsoft Corp. will unveil their jointly developed infotainment system Blue&Me™ at the 2006 Geneva International Motor Show. Beginning in March, motorists can connect their personal mobile devices with the integrated solution in four brand-new models: the Fiat Grande Punto and the Alfa Romeo Brera, 159 and Spider models. Later in the year, Blue&Me will be also available in Lancia cars and the Fiat Light Commercial Vehicles. The new system comes at a very competitive price. The Windows Mobile^® for Automotive-based infotainment package comes with Bluetooth^® and USB connectivity, which allows drivers to listen to music from their personal integrated media player. It also features a hands-free phone kit that can be controlled completely by voice control. The system is the result of the partnership that Microsoft and Fiat Auto initiated two years ago — an extremely short time in which to bring such a device to market.

Integrating personal mobile devices into the car has just become much easier. Drivers and passengers can integrate their digital music players via the USB port and mobile phones using a Bluetooth connection in the car to place and receive calls and play digital music hands-free using voice commands. In addition, the integrated hands-free phone kit in the four cars connects to a large number of mobile phones as well as to digital USB mass storage devices.

“With the unveiling of the new Fiat Grande Punto and the Alfa Romeo models Brera, 159 and Spider with Blue&Me, we also launch the successful realization of the Fiat Auto-Microsoft project. We are more than happy that we will be able to offer our customers a system by which they are able to integrate their personal devices effortlessly into the car — a solution they cannot get anywhere else,” said Giuseppe Bonollo, vice president of Product Portfolio Management at Fiat Auto.

“Today, we advanced the partnership of automotive, software and entertainment represented by Fiat Auto and Microsoft. The result is the world’s most flexible, upgradeable infotainment solution for drivers and passengers. Consumers can now enjoy their personal mobile devices while on the road, giving them heretofore unknown freedom,” said Todd Warren, corporate vice president of the Mobile and Embedded Devices Product Group at Microsoft. “We value our collaboration with Fiat and the industry-changing offerings stemming from this partnership that enable consumers to use their mobile phones, PDAs and portable media devices in a safer and more integrated way in the car.”

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Рубрики: Windows Automotive

Forgot about Nokia’s software for photo blogging, i.e. forget about Lifeblog.

use Shozu (shozu.com). It’s much better and easier to use because it suspends and resumes upload when you lose mobile connectivity

Roland “i love Shozu and have no interest in the company” Tanglao

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No one is debating that Symbian has the lion’s share of the market. That’s a given. What I take issue with is your statement that Windows Mobile is “just hanging on by fingernails”; a statement that is backed by……nothing. You threw out a quote from a Symbian press release, some insulting comments about Linux weenies and MS shills, and more bull about random numbers you pulled out of nowhere (”I seriously dispute even 5%”). All your opinions are just that, an opinion by random internet guy, backed by nothing but hot air. The only crap around here, amazingly enough, isn’t being spewed by the resident evangelist.

I am not a blogger type, so maybe I’m entitled to ask for some credentials? With Scoble, at least, I know where I stand. All you have are your bombastic ramblings that most people simply ignore. You don’t even bother backing it up with facts. No, I don’t want to debate percentages with someone who has no data to back himself up.

OEM hedge bets by spending millions on stuff that doesn’t, at least, have some hope of selling? Wow, amazing. It sounds like something out of a Dilbertian nightmare; “Johnson! Time to hedge our bets. Here’s a few hundred million, go spend it on something no one buys!” Statements like that make your claims sound even more ludicrous.

BTW, I love how you first quote a Symbian PR piece and then the Register as your sources. Classic. Does any other online publication have a lower credibility than the Register? It’s hard to have a paper that’s entirely consisted of troll posts, but that rag comes close. Too bad you don’t have any more emails to forward to your pal Andrew Orlowski over there to create more sensationalistic headlines.

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Damon, I am not going to tit for tat, I could endlesly pound you with tons of analyst and various other stats, grepping in Gartner and ilk, or culling from my press listservs, or go hog wild on Lex/Nex, heck I could write a book, but each sourcing has their own set of spin. But I can say with confidence, without even looking that Symbian toasts Microsoft Smartphone in worldwide marketshare, where exactly you place that dial, depends on the sourcing. But all my indicators, have Symbian well up, and that’s not up for debate. What other point you have? Debating percentages? Spare me that.

And I think it’s funny this push for “credentials” from blogger types, who spend all their time telling us that Enthusiasts, Amateurs, and Average Joes are in charge, not the Experts, PR people or Journalists, and that the Press World is now flat, yet they demand their critics show their papers at the door. Double standard, but my Tour of CIO duties, would be credentials enough for most. Where’s Scoble credentials? He just links to someone jazzed up by Microsoft song and dances near 3GSM. I find the “timing” suspect. So true, so true…

“Once a year, whether it needs it or not (but oh boy, it does…) Microsoft shows up at 3GSM with the latest release of its explanation of why its mobile business is not totalled.” - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/14/ms_explains_at_3gsm/

PS - OEMs hedge bets all the time, betting on all tables, and it’s half future investment style. So yes, they can bet on an OS that sells next to nothing.

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You “dispute” 5%? OK, where are your sources? Your “facts” are, in fact, simply made up out of your own hot air. Reports by credible research agencies who do this for a living are dismissed through a simple wave of the hand by the brilliance of Coulter. The reports are wrong simply because Coulter disputes it. All who disagree are labeled Linux weenies and Microsoft shills. Surely mere logic cannot withstand such rhetoric. The only document you’ve cited so far is an obvious Symbian PR piece. The Emperor indeed hath no clothes, but Scoble is hardly the Emperor here, Christopher Caligula.

Yes, OEMs are not marketshare, but there are two points here:
- Many OEMs are apparently willing to provide phones for an OS which, according to you, sells nothing. I don’t know who these OEMs are, but hey, hook me up; I also have a made-up OS with no apparent market share to sell to them.
- I also cited a document which links to other docs that have concrete information, as opposed to, you know, the random pontifications of some internet bozo.

Once again, you who dispute all and know so much. State your credentials. Why should anyone believe you? So far you’ve displayed no credibility save an axe to grind. To use classic blogger lingo, ‘you just don’t get it’.

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