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BBM coming for Windows Phone and Nokia X platform

BBM made a lot of waves when it became a cross platform messaging service and arrived on iOS and Android smartphones. At that time, the only envious users who couldn’t get their hands on BBM were Windows Phone owners and now, looks like things are changing. BlackBerry Messaging service used to be a very popular service when BlackBerry was a popular smartphone OS and now, with Android and iOS leading the smartphone battle, the messaging apps have gathered in huge numbers.

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Nokia MWC 2014 Live Blog

nokia mwc 2014
FoneArena is live from Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona and we are live blogging the Nokia Press Conference where Nokia is expected to announce an Android Phone. Catch all the action here as the news breaks in our live blog below. This is the first time Nokia is hosting a press conference at Mobile World Congress after the acquisition by Microsoft. This might possibly be the last ever Nokia press conference at MWC as the take over deal completes. So lets see what Nokia has got up its sleeve.

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Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone coming soon

Joe Belfiore, Vice President of Windows Phone has just announced Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone, at the Microsoft’s press & analyst event at the MWC 2014. The app is expected to go live in a few weeks. Even though Facebook would acquire WhatsApp, it said both the Facebook Messenger and the WhatsApp would not merge. Continue reading “Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone coming soon”

Microsoft partners with 9 more manufacturers for more Windows Phones

One of the main reasons that Windows Phones haven’t sold as much as Android smartphones is because of the lack of manufacturers. At launch, Microsoft had only a handful of manufacturers and as Windows Phone grew, the number of manufacturers shrunk and at one point, Microsoft bought out Nokia, which was probably the only company making Windows Phones.

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Dual SIM support coming soon to Windows Phone

dual-sim-windows-phone

Get ready for Dual SIM Windows Phones people ! At Mobile World Congress 2014 here in Barcelona, Microsoft announced that it is adding support for Dual-SIM functionality in Windows Phone with an upcoming update. This is heavily requested feature amongst users especially in India and China.Dual SIM smartphones are extremely popular in India and that is one of the main reasons that Windows Phone has failed to catch up with the ever expanding Android smartphone market. With support for Dual SIM cards, Microsoft can now compete with Google in the mid-range dual SIM smartphone market. One example of a hugely successful Dual SIM device is the Motorola MotoG which went on sale in India recently.

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Microsoft’s SkyDrive is now OneDrive

Microsoft was involved in a Trademark fight over the name “SkyDrive” and it lost. So, they had to rebrand it and from now on, Microsoft’s SkyDrive will be called as “Microsoft OneDrive”. Microsoft’s OneDrive is one among the many cloud storage options offered by big companies of the Internet – Google offers Google Drive, Dropbox, Box and many others.

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Bing Health & Fitness Beta app available on Windows Phone Store

Lack of popular apps doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore for the Windows Phone platform as they have lots of applications from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. They happen to have some exclusives for the platform and a fitness application exclusive for Windows Phones comes from the creators of Windows Phone themselves.

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Microsoft reportedly discussing support for Android apps on Windows Phone and Windows

Microsoft is in discussions to add support for Android apps in Windows and Windows Phone, according to a report from TheVerge. Sources have told TheVerge that Microsoft is serious about bringing Android apps to both its platforms, but the discussions are still ongoing and nothing is concrete yet. The ongoing talks currently point to adding Android apps in the Windows Phone and Windows Stores, according to the report, which will inadvertently boost the app numbers, something that Microsoft really needs. Windows Phone and Windows have been second thoughts for any new developer looking at developing an app, and at most of the times, there are not enough resources to dedicate for a third platform, so will Android apps support on Windows and Windows Phone make sense?

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Windows Phone 8.1 leak confirms SD card installation support, VPN and universal apps

Windows Phone 8.1 might be unveiled to the public only in April at the Build developer event, but some enterprising developers have already been able to get a preview of the SDK, as reported earlier by TheVerge. We had expected more information to pop up once it became available, and thanks to a redditor, who claims to be a high-profile WP app developer(there is proof), some details of the next big update to Microsoft’s mobile platform have leaked. While most of the details are developer-oriented, some of the long standing consumer complaints seem to have been resolved, like the support for installation of apps on the SD card, VPN support and the start of universal apps for Windows Store and Windows Phone Store.

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Notification Center for Windows Phone 8.1 spotted in fresh leak

A new leak doing the rounds today is giving us a first glimpse of what is expected to be the notification center in Windows Phone 8.1 . Obtained from a confidential slide deck sent internally at Microsoft, the notification center will be dubbed ‘Action Center’ but will pack all the functionality that we’ve come to expect from such a feature.

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Stephen Elop will lead Microsoft’s Expanded Devices team, working on Xbox, Surface and Nokia

Stephen Elop, the ex-CEO from Nokia, will be heading the expanded devices team at Microsoft, as per reports. Previously rumoured to be in the running for the top job at Microsoft, Stephen Elop now gets to lead the newly formed team, like previously agreed upon. This is pretty obvious now, as Microsoft just announced its newest CEO, Satya Nadella, who takes over the position from Steve Ballmer. Elop stepped down from his role as the CEO of Nokia immediately after the announcement of Nokia-Microsoft acquisition, to avoid a conflict of interests.

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Microsoft invests $15mn in Foursquare, enters deal for licensing data

Foursquare, the popular location-based social network, has just received a 15 million dollar investment from Microsoft. This equity investment from the Redmond company comes after a successful $35mn round of VC funding for the New York based Startup in December last year, reports the Wall Street Journal. Along with this fresh investment, Microsoft has also entered into a multi-year deal with Foursquare for licensing its vast location-based data. This will apparently be put to use in its Search Engine Bing, and naturally in Windows Phone too, as an extension. Foursquare has a massive point of interest database that’s heavily crowd sourced with tips, check ins, comments and so forth, hence we think this deal is a biggie for Microsoft.

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It’s official, Satya Nadella is the new Microsoft CEO

Just as several reports had predicted, Satya Nadella is officially the new Microsoft CEO, succeeding Steve Ballmer as the tech giant’s third Chief Executive Officer. Having led several Microsoft divisions including the wealthy Enterprise and Cloud business, Satya Nadella becomes the insider CEO, after several reports of an outsider being considered as the next CEO. Bill Gates also announced that he will leaving the board Chairman position, leaving way for John Thompson to take over that post, which is seen as a move to appease investors of radically lesser influence from the Gates-Ballmer era. While we scour for more publicly available information, here’s an introductory video directly from Microsoft –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI

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Windows 8.1 Update 1 leaked ahead of official March release

Windows 8.1 Update 1, a small evolutionary update to the controversial operating system from Microsoft, has leaked ahead of its official March release. The update 1 is squarely aimed at desktop users, with enhancements made to lessen the gestural actions that don’t make sense for people using Windows 8 with a keyboard/mouse combination. New mouse-focused context menus, search and power/shutdown buttons on the lock screen and the ability to add metro apps to the taskbar are some of the notable changes in Update 1. This sets the stage for the next version of Windows codenamed “Threshold” which will be detailed at the Build developer event in April and released to OEMs sometime next year.

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Satya Nadella all set to be the new Microsoft CEO according to reports

The end to a long CEO search is getting near, as reports are piling up from the other side of the planet that Satya Nadella, a senior VP who heads the enterprise and cloud business at Microsoft, is all set to become the new third CEO, after his predecessors Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. It’s been a long while since Ballmer announced his retirement from the CEO position, with pressure from investors mounting as Microsoft fumbled its mobile and tablet strategy, the two fastest growing consumer electronics markets. However, under the same leadership, Microsoft became a company with a diversified portfolio, with hit consumer products like Xbox and the fast growing enterprise products like Office 365, a key initiative by Satya Nadella. This might be one of the biggest reasons why the Board members are narrowing down on Nadella to be the next CEO, he is the moneymaker in Microsoft’s wealthy still-growing division.

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