Why is Microsoft Not Winning the Smartphone War?

skylar17 posted this on wmpower user a few days ago. Read it and comment. I think what he/she's saying is true to some degree. Long live Windows Mobile!

Why is Microsoft Not Winning the Smartphone War?
Microsoft, the personal computer juggernaut, has long dominated the computer industry with their Windows Operating System. Windows has managed to stay dominant and ward off both Apple and the countless versions of Lunix thus far. If Microsoft has been able to do this in the PC industry, why can’t they win in the mobile industry?

It’s personal
A mobile phone is much more personal than a PC. Microsoft’s goal (and how they make money) is to have every person in the world own a PC.

The truth is, there are more phones than PCs in the world today. Because of the huge amount of mobile phones owned, it has given room for six contemporary smartphone operating systems:

* Iphone OS
* Blackberry OS
* Android
* WebOS
* Windows Mobile
* Symbian

Unlike in the desktop/laptop/netbook/nettop/whatever industry, the mobile industry is brimming with competition.

Faster Paced
Microsoft is familiar with releasing an updated version of Windows system roughly every 3-5 years. This differs from the mobile landscape where new smartphone OS are being developed in intervals as little as 6 months.
Take for instance the Iphone’s OS. Each year a new version is debuted.
Android: 1.0 released in late 2008, was updated to 1.5 in early 2009
I could list more examples but it is clear that the industry is filled with constant evolution.
The PC industry evolves in steps. The mobile industry evolves up a hill (constant).

So will Windows Mobile Die?
No,
Windows mobile, or “Windows Phones” are here to stay. Because of the sheer size of the mobile industry there is room for 6 smartphone operating systems. For now, Microsoft is able to afford being ‘late to the game’.
Windows Mobile needs revolution, not evolution
This is where Windows Mobile 7 comes in. Like Windows 7, WM7 it is the opportunity for Microsoft to ‘get it right’. Microsoft is taking the correct path in my opinion, by having WM 6.5 and 7 out in the market at the same time. This way, they can attempt to compete in two different categories:

* 6.5:The all-in-one hardware/software experience (Apple, Palm, RIM’s approach)
* 7: The general operating system for many different types of hardware (Google and Symbian’s approach)

Who will become dominant?
If you are asking my opinion: undoubtedly Google’s Android.
Android is constantly evolving at an alarming rate and it thrives off of ‘the cloud’. Since cloud computing is surely moving mainstream I believe that Android will be the most commonly used smartphone OS.

How Could the others win?
Blackberry: is in a niche market for the business or text-happy consumer; failing to make real cutting-edge progress in multimedia consumption. They need to modify their OS for multimedia consumption and creation.

Iphone: is in too closed of an environment to allow innovation outside of Apple’s own updates. In addition multitasking is completely necessary.

Symbian: Nokia needs to step-up on their hardware’s power. The N-Series, E-Series devices are high-quality but the processors used inside of them are clocked at laughable speed. In addition the S60 email experience is terrible, to say the least. Perhaps the Symbian foundation’s next releases will rapidly improve on this. I am not quite sure yet.

WebOS: Palm has already made an Os that also thrives in ‘the cloud’. Palm’s hardware manufacturing sadly falls short of other manufacturers. Palm should let HTC manufacture their devices and instead put more time and effort into evolving WebOS. In addition, gaming support is necessary for the mainstream consumer.

Windows Mobile: Multi touch, capacitive screens, Zune integration. There are so many opportunities that Microsoft has refused to take advantage of thus far.

Let’s hope for a better tomorrow.

Long live Windows Mobile!

via clove via wmpoweruser

Windows Mobile App store opens to Developers

Looks like the Windows Mobile app store is open for Developers on monday, but as usual with new sites there's bound to be glitches as reported in The Inquirer. First there was a bug in the credit card process and hidden fees! Microsoft wants $99 per app from Developers to release an app in the store. WTF???

"Microsoft, in its all-powerful wisdom, has decided to levy an extraordinary $99 fee for each and every application, regardless of whether the code passes the company's 'rigorous' testing and selection process or not."

Obviously with charges like these, there will be no free apps in this store. Why can't MS learn from the successful Apple App Store? It is a very good model - free apps & paid apps. MS are late in starting an app store & now are charging for developers to upload their apps.

I don't know about you guys but I'll be holding my breath to see if the WM app store really will become a success. If not, I know where I can get some of the best freeware for my WM - xda-developers or warez sites hehehe

from The Mobile Spoon via The Inquirer

LG launches Windows mobile app store!

OMFG!! LG has beaten Microsoft in making an app store. WTF MS? LG so far has only managed to make a few devices with Windows Mobile and already has an app store. Whereas MS are still sticking their thumbs up their butts. I have nothing against LG, but this goes to show that MS are really lagging in updates and an app store.

With only 1400 quality apps in the store and going to be increasing by 2000, is not a bad start. when you go to the site, you will be greeted by where you are in the world. At the moment, it's only for Asia Pacific region, most precisely Australia & Singapore.

Navigating through the site is easy enough. Currently only limited to both countries above.

I surely wish MS get off their high horse and hurry up with their own official app store!

See it here

Developers here

News via wmpoweruser via reuters

Try the Samsung Omnia II emulator!

This microsite of the upcoming Samsung Omnia II is so cool. It's a virtual Omnia II, you can click on the buttons and have a 'play' of the Omnia II. The widgets based homescreen is nice compared to the native Winmo screen. The AMOLED is one of the pluses of this pda with vivid and apparently ultra bright images. The audio in the background really annoyed me as I played with this, it wasn't until I was almost finished I saw the graphic equalizer in the right bottom hand corner - make sure you turn it off, or don't if you like the music.

News via pocketnow.com

See it here

What were these thieves thinking?

Saw this on the nzherald site last night. What a bunch of idiots. after all the hard work in breaking into the shop, made off with only dummy phones.

Hey guys, I have of a dummy phone of a Sony Ericsson W800, are you gonna come and break into my house & take it?

Stupid thieves flog fake phones

10:31AM Thursday Jul 09, 2009

MORELIA, Mexico - Call it the case of the dead cells - both telephones and the ones in the brain.

Employees at a Telefonica Movistar cell-phone store in Morelia, Mexico say they arrived one recent morning to find that the store had been broken into.

An examination of the shop revealed the only items missing were hollow replica phones for display that are completely useless for making calls.

Employees say the clueless thieves overlooked real mobile phones and cash in another part of the shop.

Store owners nonetheless reported the theft to local police, who are investigating.

- AP

Read it here

Tough times ahead for Windows Mobile?

I saw this article today. It's with regard to Windows Mobile and how it is or will be doing against the 'new boys' of the Mobile OS.

I do believe Microsoft is lagging behind compared to... dare I say it, the iphone and even now with webOs for the Palm.

One of the main reasons for this according to that article is that Microsoft has not developed its own hardware to go with its software. Palm previously had a relationship with its Treo range but now has gone back to developing it's own os - WebOs. Motorola as well has backed away from Windows Mobile.

Windows Mobile 5 was released 4 years ago. With WM6 & 6.1, it was all the same with just a few updates. WM6.5 is not officially released but thanks to the good chefs at xda-developers, we have been able to test drive it. Even then, it's not as finger friendly or efficient as Mac OSX for the iphone.

Hopefully with the release of WM 7, things would change and put Windows Mobile back at the forefront of things, but I won't hold my breath.

Windows mobile to me is far superior to Mac OSX and WebOS in my opinion. It's been around the block a while and highly customizable. Lot's of apps are made for it especially for my medical field. Mac OSX to me is more eye candy than anything. I really do hate the fact that Windows Mobile is in fact buggy - programs don't work and the occasional soft or hard reset, just like your Windows PC I assume.

One new OS that is making waves is Google's Android and companies are taking notice - HTC for one.

Microsoft really needs to make a big leap forward to make Windows Mobile back in the limelight, but I sometimes feel they have missed the boat.

Whatever the future holds, I will stick to Windows Mobile, since I owned my first Windows Mobile device - the Dopod 818pro or the HTC Prophet. But then again, if something new is being offered and maybe better than Windows Mobile, I might go for it then.

What do you guys feel?

News via msmobiles.com via Total Telecom

New TF3D 2.5 screenshots

Looks like HTC is releasing a new enhanced version of TF3D - version 2.5. It goes much deeper than the few settings/screens in earlier versions. More personalisation and skins according to pocketnow.com

Seems this is officially for the wm 6.5 upgrade of TP2 and Diamond 2, if not for the upcoming Firestone.

I'm sure once it's out, the guys over at xda-developers will release it to the masses as usual! It does look visually appealing and hopefully replaces the ugly windows mobile UI.

via Pocketnow.com



Review in German. Notice that the contacts tab is not like previous Manila versions, which to me is not visually appealing.

Our new URL

Now, htcwinmobile will be known as http://htcwinmobile.co.cc, but will still be reachable via http://htcwinmobile.blogspot.com

*News* HTC Hero - another Android Phone

Just got this news from the clove.co.uk blog about the HTC Hero - another Google Android phone from HTC. It's HTC's first unlocked and SIM-free Android phone. It uses HSPA/WCDMA. It's available for pre-order via clove for £379(£435.85 inc VAT)

Technical Specification of HTC Hero

Operating System -
Google Android

Processor -
Qualcomm MSM7200A 528 MHz

Memory -
ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 288 MB

Display -
3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution

Contract -
No Contract SIM Free/Unlocked

Network –
HSPA/WCDMA:
900/2100 MHz
Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
850/900/1800/1900 MHz
(Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)

Connectivity -
Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
3.5 mm audio jack

GPS -
Internal GPS antenna with Google Maps Pre-installed

Audio -
3.mm Audio Jack
Supported Formats – MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media Audio 9)

Expansion Slot -
MicroSDHC Memory Card Slot (Support up to 16GB) (SD 2.0 compatible)

Camera -
5.0 megapixel colour camera with auto focus

Device Control –
Trackball with Enter button

Talk Time –
Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA
Up to 470 minutes for GSM

Standby Time –
Up to 750 hours for WCDMA
Up to 440 hours for GSM

Battery –
1340mAh Rechargeable Lithium-ion

Dimensions -
112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ( 4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches)

Weight -
135 grams ( 4.76 ounces) with battery

Other -
G-sensor
Digital Compass

The first stock will begin shipping on 3rd July.

Via blog.clove.co.uk

edit: Official HTC Hero Product page

Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit

Here is some good news to all the windows mobile software developers out there. Microsoft has released the Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit. I don't know much about programming, but what Microsoft mentions below about the new touch gesture framework sounds interesting. Hopefully it will be like multi-touch for the iphone. Windows Mobile 6.5 is officially here. I'm would really hope that there would be an official upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 for my Touch Pro.

Overview

The Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit adds documentation, sample code, header and library files, emulator images and tools to Visual Studio that let you build applications for Windows Mobile 6.5. This document contains important information about this package. For general information about writing software for Windows Mobile, please see the Windows Mobile Developer Center. The Windows Mobile 6 SDK must also be installed in order to use any of the Windows Mobile 6.5 Gesture API or samples. Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit comes with the following Emulator Images:

• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Square Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional QVGA Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional WQVGA Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional VGA Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional WVGA Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard Square Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard QVGA Emulator

Available locales:
0804 CHS Chinese Simplified
0409 USA English
0407 GER German
040c FRA French
0410 ITA Italian
0c0a ESN Spanish

A new set of APIs is being introduced that will enable application developers to take advantage of the new Windows Mobile 6.5 touch gesture framework. The gesture APIs allow an application to handle touch gesture input and provide a visually consistent experience with the rest of the device UI. Note that the gesture APIs are only available on the Windows Mobile Classic and Professional SKUs. The headers and libraries are installed in the Windows Mobile SDK\Pocket PC\ folder. Samples that make use of these APIs are installed into the Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit\Samples\ folder.

Get it here

Idiot of a Palm Pre fanboy

This guy is such a moron! He just got his hands on the Palm Pre, which was out on Monday in the US and hammered his gen 1 iphone literally! What the hell was he thinking? Is he that rich? He should've either just keep the phone, unlock & sell it or he could've given it to my sister who really wants an iphone (she won't bat an eyelid to Windows Mobile since iphone is the in thing at the moment).

Stupid idiot mofo with too much money or just plain stupid. Not worth the 15 seconds of fame as with the Zune tatoo guy (who now is much happier with his ipod).

Gizmodo via Pre-thinking

HTC Touch Pro battery revenge!

Very funny this. kidmet from ppcgeeks reports that his spare HTC Touch Pro OEM battery exploded and caused a small fire in his laundry basket. Maybe the temperature was high in the basket and because of his @ss sitting on the battery (it was in his back pocket) caused this fire. Luckily it was a small fire and his other clothes and his @ss are fine. So people who have this habit of storing spare batteries in their back pockets, I recommend not to do this anymore!

I walked into my house early this week to the smell of burning. I couldn't find where it was coming from. Last night as I was gathering my laundry I noticed a burn through the back of my jeans. A HUGE hole. I had a spare Touch Pro battery in my back pocket. It had expanded and obviously started a fire in my jeans. They were in a clothes pile and buried, so I assume that there wasn't enough oxygen to start a fire. I will post pictures later, but be very careful where you store extra batteries. I was very worried about my home.

Microsoft Windows Mobile website

I was having a look at the Microsoft Windows Mobile site. It is even better now. You can get updates for Active Sync, Windows Mobile Device Center and Office Mobile. There are previews of pda's running WM and also what WM has to offer - familiar software like IE (even though I use firefox on my laptop & Opera on my Touch Pro), Office and Outlook. Information on how to get started with WM pda's are also included.

I'm still wondering why Microsoft still hasn't perfected WM for the masses. Palm used to be THE system, then after the T5 which I have and models after it, it seemed sooo outdated. It was a bit ok when Palm released the Treo for WM. Now Palm is coming back with the Pre using it's own OS. When the Iphone was released, everyone thought it was the best thing since sliced bread with it's ease of use & fluid GI. Enough about that. Back to the WM site

Register your email and you can get updates & tips on WM straight to your email monthly. Under the Free Extras section, you can get ringtones and free software but apparently limited to US customers only. I managed to download Guitar Hero 3 though a few months back and a few other games, I can't remember if I put down US as my country, but I don't think so. Try your luck if you're not from US and see if you manage to download the games. If you are a developer, there is a section dedicated to you. I would love to make my own apps but just don't have the time to learn. There is a link to the Windows Mobile Catalog which takes you to an 'App Store', but it's basically a front for Handango, Pocketland & Mobiland. When will the "Real App Store" come live as rumoured here?

Anyway, have a look here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/default.mspx

Unite For Hunger And Hope

Objective:
All you have to do to help end world hunger is to join thousands of others bloggers on April 29 and write a post about world hunger.

BlogCatalog members and Heifer International are partnering to call for the end of world hunger and start of hope on April 29. All we ask is that you join thousands of other bloggers and write a post about world hunger on April 29. You can make a difference.

• Right now, more than 500 million people are living in "absolute poverty" and more than 15 million children die of hunger every year.

• World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the population is underfed and another third is starving.

• Even in the United States, 46 percent of African-American children and 49 percent of Latino children are considered chronically hungry.

Organizations like Heifer International are the solution. Every day in April, Heifer International is lifting people out of poverty by providing communities with livestock and agricultural training to improve lives and inspire hope. What can you do?

• Join this event and add a badge to your blog before April 29.

• Watch for upcoming news releases and topic backgrounders.

• Visit Heifer International to learn more about Pass On The Gift.

• Make a small donation or take some other action to end world hunger.

• Post about world hunger on April 29 with links to solutions all over the world.

News: Microsoft to unveil Windows Mobile app store plan

I just read about this on the New Zealand Herald site today. Seems that Microsoft does have plans to create an App Store or Application Store like Apple did. I think this should've been done back a few years ago before the release of the Apple Iphone & App Store.

Developers have been making their own apps and most of them are free, such as the apps that are on xda-developers while some are shareware or commercial. The best free apps that I've used are A_C's S2 series, PHM Regedit, Total Commander, G-Alarm etc etc. These developers are making these apps in their own spare time & hoping for donations from people that use their software, which usually is a paltry sum & not that much. Free apps & forums like xda-developers are integral for the developers to release their apps. The forums provide a more personal mode of customer service as it were, where the users can directly communicate with the developer.

With the setting up of this Windows Mobile App Store, I hope that these developers can make some money on their hard worked apps, but I fear that forums like PPCGeeks/xda-developers might lose the 'testing ground' for developers and the quality of apps released on this App Store would be crap. On the other hand, it would spurn other developers to make new apps.

We'll just have to see if this Microsoft App Store really does happen & see what the future holds...

From New Zealand Herald via AP:

"Microsoft vows to play nice with mobile app store

SEATTLE - Microsoft plans a central market to sell programs for cell phones running the Windows Mobile system. It hews closely to the setup of Apple's App Store for iPhones, with one notable exception - Microsoft promises to communicate more openly with outside software developers."

Read more here

From vnunet.com:

Microsoft fleshes out Windows Mobile app plans

Microsoft is providing further insight into how the company will be operating its Windows Marketplace for Mobile software service.

The company first revealed the service last month at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) conference in Barcelona. Microsoft is hoping that the Marketplace will help the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 release remain competitive with the iPhone, Blackberry and Android platforms, each of which maintain their own online stores for third-party software.

Read more here

HTC Touch Pro 2 & Diamond 2

Goddammit! I hate HTC... Only about 3 months since I spent NZD $1200 on my HTC Touch Pro, they now launched the Touch Pro 2. I guess that's technology for you. New today, old tomorrow.

Specifications:

Processor	Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
Operating System	Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Memory	ROM: 512 MB RAM: 288 MB
Dimensions	116 X 59.2 X 17.25 mm (4.57 X 2.33 X 0.68 inches)
Weight	175 grams (6.17 ounces) with battery
Display	3.6-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution Adjustable tilt screen
Network	HSDPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSUPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
Device Control	TouchFLO™ 3D Zoom bar
Keyboard	Slide-out 5-row QWERTY keyboar
GPS	Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity	Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0, audio jack, and TV Out* in one)
Camera	Main camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
Audio supported formats	AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A
Video supported formats	WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI
Battery	Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery Capacity: 1500 mAh Talk time: Up to 270 minutes for WCDMA Up to 419 minutes for GSM Standby time: Up to 454 hours for WCDMA Up to 348 hours for GSM Video call time: Up to 150 minutes (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
Expansion Slot	microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter	Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz DC output: 5V and 1A
Special Features	FM Radio, G-Sensor

I for one, will not be upgrading to this. Apart from the bigger screen & tilt, it nothing else to offer. They've crossed bred the Tytn II or Kaiser with the Touch Pro or Raphael to make the Touch Pro 2. Why not do that in the first place? A lot people on xda-developers forum feel the same. The keyboard has less keys than the Touch Pro. Anyway, it does look really sexy doesn't it?

More info here at HTC



The Touch Diamond 2 on the other hand, if by far superior to the original Diamond. It now has an microsd card slot so you can expand beyond 4Gb! I think this is worth the upgrade.

Specifications

Processor	Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
Operating System	Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Memory	ROM: 512 MB RAM: 288 MB
Dimensions	107.85 X 53.1 X 13.7 mm (4.25 X 2.09 X 0.54 inches)
Weight	117.5 grams (4.15 ounces) with battery
Display	3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution
Network	HSDPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSUPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
Device Control	TouchFLO™ 3D Zoom bar
GPS	Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity	Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
Camera	Main camera: 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
Audio supported formats	AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A
Video supported formats	WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI
Battery	Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery Capacity: 1100 mAh Talk time: Up to 300 minutes for WCDMA Up to 340 minutes for GSM Standby time: Up to 500 hours for WCDMA Up to 360 hours for GSM Video call time: Up to 150 minutes (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
Expansion Slot	microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter	Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz DC output: 5V and 1A
Special Features	FM Radio, G-Sensor

More info here

Mozilla to release Fennec browser for the HTC Touch Pro

Great news for all Mozilla/Firefox & HTC Touch Pro users. Fennec - the mobile version of the popular browser Firefox, will be released in the 1st week of February, meaning next week, for our HTC Touch Pro. That is really good news! So now we have 1 of the best browsers, Firefox on the PC to our Touch pro. There might be a browser war going on after this. We PIE, Opera & now Fennec. I will give this a try on my Touch Pro & see how it compares to Opera. I don't do a lot of internet browsing on my Touch Pro nowadays. Might just settle for Opera, but if it is brilliant like Firefox, then I'll make the switch to Fennec.



The news was picked up on 26/01 from the Fennec wiki.

Windows Mobile
We are targeting a Milestone release for the first week of February, targeting the HTC touch pro.

We are two patches away from the meta goal of building from trunk. The tools changes have review from dougt, and are waiting for review from ted, who has promised review by the end of the week. NSPR changes are waiting for review from Nelson, who asked for and received a patch against NSPR trunk

Thanks to the guys at wmexperts.com & pocketnow

News: Nvidia teams with HTC in bid to save 2009 revenue

Something I found while trawling through the net. Hopefully the new pdas coming out would have better graphics or at least the proper drivers! Shame on Qualcom, hopefully Nvidia would serve HTC better.

From: http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/20090112/nvidia-teams-with-htc-bid-save-revenue.htm
By Daniel Jacobs
13 January 2009 @ 02:37 am AEST

SAN FRANCISCO - Chip maker Nvidia will power new mobile devices made by HTC, the maker of the popular 'Touch' series handsets, as it moves to shore up what could be a disappointing 2009.

The maker of popular Geforce graphics cards -- technology enabling computers to render 3D imagery -- is pushing a new Tegra processor that is aimed for mobile devices and lower powered Netbooks. The new platform comes at time when other core Nvidia business are expected to see a slow down.

"We believe that HTC has selected the NVDA Tegra applications processor for a new handset design that will ramp in [the second half of 2009]," Doug Freedman of American Technology Research says."We estimate Tegra could add $100M to 2H09 results."

Announced in early 2008, Tegra puts an Arm-based processor core, a GeForce graphics core and other components onto a single chip. The product lineup will include the Tegra 600 running at 700MHz and the Tegra 650 running at 800MHz. The lineup also includes the Tegra APX 2500.

"This revenue will likely be very high margin, given the low-power design in a small-profile package is helping HTC achieve small form factors," Freedman adds. "We expect Tegra to sell in a range of $15 to $25 and have more than one customer in '09."

Nvidia is suffering from a slowing global consumer demand. The firm's new GTX295 -- announced at CES this year -- will likely regain the price performance crown in the GPU market, but the reward will likely be muted given the weakness of the high-end consumer. Market demand is for low-end mainstream, causing a mix shift to lower revenue and margin products, Freedman says.

Freedman contents basic business metrics are likely all very poor: revenue, margins, and inventory (driven in large part by the collapse of desktop enthusiast GPUs). Weakness is likely to persist into a seasonal soft period,

"We continue to recommend that investors avoid the PC-related semiconductor food chain due to the incredibly challenging short-term environment, though we remain optimistic on long-term design wins, stable pricing, and eventual inventory replenishment providing a floor of support."

AmTech maintains a neutral outlook on Nvidia, and reduces their price target to $7 from $8.50.

Shares of Nvidia fell 36 cents, or 4.54 percent to $7.57 by mid-day trading.

From http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=2423

The Tegra 650 that is targeted for handheld devices has the following specifications:
800 MHz
LP-DDR (200 MHz)
2.5 ~ 4 watts envelope
All-day media processing, for 130 hours audio, 30 hours HD video playback
HD image processing for advanced digital still camera and HD camcorder functions
Optimized hardware support for Web 2.0 applications for a true desktop-class internet experience
Display support for 1080p HDMI, WSXGA+ LCD and CRT, and NTSC/PAL TV-Out
Direct support for WiFi, disk drives, keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals
A complete Board Support Package (BSP) to enable fast times to market for Windows Mobile-based designs

If you are still unconvinced, then the next video (a prototype device powered by a Tegra processor) will definitely have you standing in line for the next Tegra powered HTC phone.
We should also remind you of the recent reports, about HTC choosing Ericsson’s platform (EPM) instead of Qualcomm’s. This fact, compined with what the awesomeness of above video, should add up to some great devices. What do you think?