Microsoft Pay's $1 Billion to Nokia

Microsoft paying nokia $1 Billion for the Nokia-Microsoft deal. The $1 Billion is to promote and develop Windows Phone 7 Platform. Microsoft has given Nokia freehand and it can tweak the WP7 in what ever way they want.

This looks like a win-win situation for Nokia. Nokia will still be manufacturing its Symbian Platform Phones, and even developing MeeGo Platform with Intel. So even paying $1 Billion does'nt gaurantee exclusivity of platform to Microsoft. Nor are these WP7 powered Nokia phones going to come any time soon.

The deal between the two giants is for a long 5 years. Microsoft will very well recover its $1 Billion by then and even make profits on it. But one thing that Microsoft now has by paying such a huge sum is that now it will have access to such a huge market, where ever Nokia has a presence.

In a way Microsoft has just paid this money to ensure that Nokia does'nt go the Android way.

Ove 12% people in India still using IE6

Microsoft is going all out to force users to upgrade their browsers from Internet Explorer 6. The IE6 was launched about ten years ago and still refuses to go away.

The comapny as part of its ongoing effort to make people upgrade, has launched a countdown site that has current statistics on the active IE6 users across the world.

According to Microsoft, this countdown website will remain online untill the number of IE6 users across the world drops to less than 1 %. Microsoft wants people to uprade to IE9.

According to the latest statistics, nearly 12.3 % people in India are still using IE6. China as usual leads in the numbers game(pun intended). A staggering 34.5 % people in China are still using the IE6.

Windows 8 leaked screenshots

More new leaks of the upcoming Windows 8 are making news. The latest being these new screenshots of Windows 8.


According to Win7China, Microsoft is promising users a mere 8 minutes of installation time. This is nearly 2.5 times faster than the Windows 7. Well, if your already getting excited looking at those numbers, keep in mind that the developers at Microsoft are using an eight core CPU.

Microsoft is also working to furthe develop its System Restore functionality. In Windws 8, it will be called 'Factory Restore', which basically means that it will restore the original system settings in approximately two minutes flat.

Microsoft + Nokia = MicroKia :P

So, I believe most of you must have heard of the Microsoft and Nokia partnership by now. Since the announcement, comments have been coming in whether it is good or bad for the two companies. Some say that it is a win win situation for Windows, where as Nokia has nothing to win from this deal.

Microsoft had recently launched their new Windows Phone 7, replacing the aging previous Windows OS. While many people have found the Windows Phone 7 as a great launch by Microsoft and a giant leap for them, but they only partnered with just 2 handset makers, Samsung and HTC. While this move is questionable, that why only two, but then there is a lot of stuff about Microsoft that is questioable to say the least.

Now, talking about Nokia, well this is one company that has seen it all. The comapny is fast loosing market share to new entrants and its number 1 position is also under threat. Its Symbian OS has not aged well and I blame the developers at Nokia because I believe the Symbian platform, if handled properly would never had crumbled like this. All it needed was a change in UI.

Apart from Symbian, Nokia had earlier partnered with Intel and were working on a new platform called MeeGo. This platform was promising, but then you cant take eternity to release a stable and viable version. The fate of MeeGo is not very clear as of now, but we hope Nokia does not drop that.

What has really caused all of this panic. Well, the answer is a little obvious by now, Android. This new open source platform developed by Google and a few other companies is fast rising and is being touted as the next big thing. One big difference between Android and the rest of the competition is that Google offers this OS for free. Its open source and manufacturers can tweak it to suit their purpose. Also , most of the major handset makers have welcomed it with both hands open.

Nokia has opted to remain stubborn and not adopt the Android platform, but I doubt if they can mantain this stance for too long. Lets hope this new partnership between Microsoft and Nokia can turn their fortunes.