Microsoft criticized in this spot Google to consider its customers as lab rats. The 3 million customers of Google Apps (2010 figures), offers considered a viable alternative by Gartner, doubtless appreciate the qualifier of Microsoft.
"The people at Google are smart. Without any experience in developing enterprise software, they rebranded their email client mass-market and incorporated it with some other Web applications, and voila! this became a professional offer " scoffs Tom Rizzo , head of online services from Microsoft, which is no longer in his first attempt .
The incumbent reported a profit drop of 20% less and is about to reward its shareholders. The rise of competition has been through it.
With stiff competition on the mobile market, especially with the anticipation of the arrival of Free the market, France Telecom has lost ground in 2011. The incumbent has just published its annual results marked by indicators down.
Last year, the company posted a net profit down 20% to 3.8 billion euros, according to a statement. Its sales fell 1.6% to 45.2 billion euros. Orange had 31 last December 226.3 million customers worldwide, up 8% year on year.
The gross operating income rose for the year to 15 billion euros, down 4.8% year on year.
In France, sales fell 3.3% to 22.5 billion for the year. In the fourth quarter, the growing impact of tariff adjustments and the decrease in sales of prepaid "no longer fully compensated by the growth of new applications and customer base packages", the turnover declined even more pronounced, from 4.1% (5.6 billion euros).
And the situation should remain the same at the beginning of the year with the arrival of Free Mobile. The operator claims to have lost between 1 January 15 February 201,000 mobile customers (1 million departures for 800,000 recruitments).
The share of conquest (from a new customer sector) on ADSL in France amounted to 30.5% over the year and the share of mobile market general public has stabilized at around 40% at December 31.
In Europe, growth is low except in Spain with a turnover up 4.5% to 3.9 billion euros, with sales growth in the mobile 7.1 and 6.6% % in fixed services.
Outside Europe, where the group founded many hopes, sales edged down 0.4%. But outside Côte d'Ivoire and Egypt, "Africa and the Middle East grew by 6.8%, driven by Cameroon, Mali, Senegal," said the group. Still, in light of uncertainties presented by market conditions and the arrival of Free competitor on the mobile market, the group has decided to decrease the of its shareholders. A first. "Aware that the macroeconomic environment remains uncertain and competitive in 2012, we (...) decide to adjust the compensation of our shareholders to ensure the Group's financial strength under all circumstances," warned the p- CEO Stephane Richard, said in a statement. and France Telecom will "adapt its policy of shareholder returns by aligning its operating cash flow generation" that he expects close to 8 billion euros for 2012. Total allocated to the dividend for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 should be within a range from 40 to 45% of operating cash flow of the exercise, "is from 1.21 to 1.35 euro per share," the CFO, Gervais Pellissier against 1.40 euros for 2011.
The new versions of the iPhone version of IOS and Twitter are a new feature that allows access to editing options by swiping the screen with a finger gesture.Twitter has released updates to its Android and IOS. Stamped respectively 3.1 and 4.1 , they add the ability to access options to meet, retweet, share or mark as favorite a tweet with a simple gesture of the finger, without having to leave his Twitter feed.
The other improvements common to both versions for the dissemination of a warning message when the user uses the "find friends" to remind him that the application transfers the address book servers on Twitter .
Android on the application, it has been optimized for version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and the tablet of Fire Amazon Kindle and Nook Tablet Barnes & Nobles. The version of IOS Twitter restores the ability to copy and paste the text contained in a tweet. Users can also copy and email them a link in a tweet.
The incumbent finds 1,038,000 terminations to competition from 1 January to 15 February 2012 but 837,000 new customers acquisitions over the same period. The loss is about 200 000 customers.
Given all the rumors circulating on the loss of subscribers of mobile operators since the arrival of Free Mobile, Orange was keen to play the card of transparency in communicating its figures.
Launching the troublemaker, cancellation requests have soared. We suspected a little. "In the first 48 hours after 10 January 2012, Orange has seen a spike in requests for RIO (statement of identity operator, to ask for his mobile number portability) to over 150,000 in one day."
But the operator points out that such requests have not resulted in a systematic termination and that this figure has now been divided by 10.
Concretely, 15 February 2012, the mobile subscriber base of Orange fell 201,000 customers, representing approximately 0.7% of its mobile customer base that included more than 27 million subscribers in France on 31 December 2011. In fact, Orange has still lost 1,038,000 customers from 1 January to 15 February 2012 but claims to have won 837,000 over the same period. "This sustained level of acquisitions is due to three factors : Orange commercial response, the quality of its networks and continuous improvement of customer relations, "said the trader who declined quite rapidly prices Sosh, its online offering. "The early response commercial by Orange allowed it to react quickly in adapting the one hand the prices for its low cost Sosh brand, launched in September for this purpose, and secondly, by enriching the quadruple play Orange Open. The new rates of Sosh have accelerated acquisitions, attractive 90,000 subscribers Sosh at February 15, 2012. Meanwhile, the Orange Open range was enhanced and reached 1.4 million subscribers to 15 February 2012. "added the operator.
Rest now know the impact of Free among other operators. A few days ago, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, Executive Director of Orange France told us: "Of course, there was a transfer from Free Mobile but probably less than the competition." The latest figures in circulation, Free Mobile count to date over 1.5 million subscribers.
Finally, Orange is briefly revisited the issue of the roaming agreement and the traffic generated by Free Mobile. Recall that the group complained of breakdowns, accusing his partner of relying too heavily on its network considered undersized.
Orange nevertheless wished to calm things down by saying the "traffic generated by subscribers of Free mobile could be substantially higher than expected", "without having any effect on the quality of service for Orange customers."
Text messages are a boon for mobile operators. While the unlimited plans are beginning to generalize but it's hardly the case in all countries, especially in emerging countries. But the pension begins to be seriously reduced by some mobile Web services.
Free applications like instant messaging or Facebook Messenger on Blackberry BBM are extremely popular with users. Users who would turn en masse to these solutions rather than go through paid SMS to communicate with their community.
Result in financial losses for operators. According to the specialist Ovum, operators around the world have lost the equivalent of $ 13.9 billion SMS revenue in 2011 due to the transfer of practice (against 8.7 billion in 2010).
"The Social messaging has impacted the economic model of operators and from traditional services such as SMS services that will continue to be under pressure," warns Neha Dharia, an analyst with Ovum.
However, operators have a playing card, says the firm. "They are relying on the social messaging to find alternative sources of income, with innovative services." Ovum also advises operators to better work with developers, with manufacturers to incorporate social services and home work together to withstand the onslaught of Web players.
A global competition for mobile application development? This is the idea of society BeMyApp throwing to celebrate the year of the London Olympics, the "App'Olympics".This event will be held in parallel in four countries: France, United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. The idea is to develop mobile applications in two days non stop.
"If you have a good idea of mobile application, but do not know anything, you can participate in WeekEnd BeMyApp by presenting it on Friday night. If your idea please, developers, designers and marketers to develop with you in a week -end, "said BeMyApp.
The winning application in each country will integrate the international challenge to represent the colors of its flag in this competition.
On Friday night the bearers of ideas present their project, the five best will be selected by the jury. For 48 hours, each team will develop its application in order to present the Sunday night in 5 minutes application almost finished.
The winner of this weekend will be qualified to participate in the international final during which, from Sunday evening to Wednesday evening he will meet the most votes from around the world on the page appolympics. .
After tabletphone Optimus Given unveiled two days ago, LG continues its ads pre-Mobile World Congress. This time there are three Android smartphones grouped under a new series called "The Optimus".
First is the L3, an entry-level model with 3.2 inch 240 x 320 pixels, 3 megapixel camera sensor and version 2.3 of Android Gingerbread. Then comes the L5 midrange with its 4-inch screen and 4.0 Android as a operating system. Finally the L7 propose a 4.3 inch screen and Ice Cream Sandwich with probably a more robust configuration.
That's all that LG has unveiled yet, reserving details of ads for the MWC.
Initiatives around access to smartphones for the visually impaired multiply. Latest episode, an Android application being developed by IOS and Engineers of George Tech University. His name BrailleTouch. By displaying six buttons on the touch screen (see video below), the user can easily write words in Braille. The system is associated with a voice that repeats the letters entered. The result appears to be effective according to its creators as users would be able to write 32 words per minute with 92% accuracy. Remember that Nokia has launched Screen Reader, an application Free Code Factory developed, which allows to vocalize the contents displayed on the screen (in 8 languages including French). It is compatible with the Nokia C5-00, C5 5MP, 700 and 701, as well as other previously released models.
The smartphone is a tool for young? It is discussed, but it is often the dominant idea. To clarify the matter, the institute Nielsen has addressed the issue by surveying more than 20,000 people in the United States. Result, the use of the smartphone is related to two factors: age and wallet.
While the figures show a market penetration of 48% overall, it appears that the proportion increases with the focus on a younger audience. Indeed, among the 24-34 years, 66% of respondents own a smartphone. More importantly, this segment of the population is growing. Over the last 3 months, 8 out of 10 people have bought one.
Although the study lacks explanation, we understand that most young people first attracted. But in terms of income, the analysis focuses on the role of money in the choice of mobile. According to Nielsen, the greater the more ways we will choose a smartphone instead of a standard mobile.
To try to explain it all, the survey shows that when the purse and the age of individuals are taken into account, the "oldest" are also likely to have a smartphone. You get lost a little, but the following graph illustrates rather well the trend.
Without Apple, Android should again occupy the minds and conversations. With a global market share of over 50% in smartphones, the robot will be green highlighted by almost all manufacturers except Nokia and RIM.
Top model, entry-level, 3D or triple-core: the references will be counted in tens, Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, ZTE, Sony .... Google also provides some surprises again with a stand out of the ordinary and a keynote by Eric Schmidt.
If version 4.0 of the OS should take center stage, already address some ads around Jelly Bean (Android 5), although this seems very credible. In short, it certainly goes to a new release of Android World Congress ...
Teams BusinessMobile.fr and Cnet France will be present at the MWC with live news, analysis, videos and a daily newspaper which JT will return all the news of the day ...
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