Author: Surur

It is fair to say, as Apple’s market cap is set to exceed Microsoft’s, that consumer computing devices have become an increasingly important measure of the success  or failure of a company.  By that measure Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division have at best a passing grade, with Xbox success, but Zune and Windows Mobile failures.

Whether the current re-org was spurred by this report card will not be known (Robbie Bach’s “retirement” at 48 is certainly suspicious) but the effect has ultimately been to bring the division front and centre in Microsoft, with its two VP’s Don Mattrick from the Interactive Entertainment business (Xbox), and Andy Lees, from the Mobile Communications business (obviously Windows Phone) now reporting directly to Steve Ballmer, and presumable being closely performance managed. Given what we have heard about Steve Ballmer, he is likely not a person one would want to disappoint too many times either.

J Allard has left the company, but will in fact it appears be elevated in many ways to a Svengali-like figure, now with direct access to Ballmer, advising on UI and Design, an area which has never been known as Microsoft’s strength.

With rumours that Courier-type interfaces may still make an appearance after all, it is likely Microsoft will be moving aggressively into the post-Windows consumer computing market. 

What do our readers think? Let us know below.

It seems the “sources familiar with the situation” were correct after all, and a broad reshuffle of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division has taken place after all.

Steve Ballmer’s letter is below.

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 11:01 AM
To: Microsoft – All Employees (QBDG)

Subject: Executive Leadership Transitions

After almost 22 years with the company, Robbie Bach has decided to retire from Microsoft. I have worked with Robbie during his entire tenure at Microsoft, and count him as both a friend and a great business partner and leader. Robbie has always had great timing, and is going out on a high note – this has been a phenomenal year for E&D overall, and with the coming launches of both Windows Phone 7 and "Project Natal," the rest of the year looks stupendous as well. While we are announcing Robbie’s retirement today, he will remain here through the fall, ensuring we have a smooth transition.

Concurrent with Robbie’s retirement, I am making several organization changes to ensure we have the right leaders in the right positions as we set ourselves up for the next big wave of products and services. Effective July 1, Don Mattrick, who leads our interactive entertainment business, and Andy Lees, who leads our mobile communications business, will report directly to me. Don and Andy have built out strong leadership teams and product pipelines, and are well-positioned for the years ahead.

Independent of Robbie’s decision, J Allard (currently serving as senior vice president of Design and Development for E&D), will also be leaving Microsoft. Given his ongoing passion and commitment to Microsoft, he will remain as an advisor to me, helping incubation efforts, looking at design and UI, and providing a cross-company perspective on these and similar topics. With J’s change in role, corporate vice president David Treadwell will join IEB to lead the core technology organization, reporting to Don. David has a great set of accomplishments at Microsoft, most recently working on the Windows Live Platform Services team. Over the next several months, Robbie and I will work together to finalize reporting and structure for the rest of his org.

Now that Office 2010 has been launched to business customers, Antoine Leblond, senior vice president in the Office Productivity Applications Group, will take a new role as senior vice president for the Windows Web Services team. This team brings together the integral Windows services that today deliver updates, solutions, community and depth information for the Windows consumer. Kurt DelBene, senior vice president in the Office Business Productivity Group, will take on all of the engineering responsibilities for the Office business.

Transitions are always hard. Robbie has been an instrumental part of so many key moments in Microsoft history – from the evolution of Office to the decision to create the first Xbox to pushing the company hard in entertainment overall. J as well has had a great impact in the market and on our culture, providing leadership in design, and in creating a passionate and involved Xbox community, and earlier being at the center of our work seizing the importance of the Web for the company. But most important, both have been great team builders with a strong record of attracting, coaching and growing talent. As a result, their teams are primed to continue to step up and deliver great products, great services and great results for the company. Don has led the Interactive Entertainment Business since July 2007, where he’s significantly grown our entertainment footprint as well as our profitability. He can count as successes the evolution of Xbox Live, the launch of blockbusters like "Halo 3" and the much-anticipated "Project Natal." Previously, Don was president of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios. Andy has led the Mobile Communications Business since February, 2008, and has been instrumental in reinvigorating our mobility efforts, bringing in new business and development talent and overseeing the creation of both KIN and Windows Phone 7.

As we finalize and ship so many of our key products ("Project Natal," Windows Phone 7, Office 2010, Windows Live Wave 4 and others) it is a natural time for us to look ahead and make sure we have the right talent in the right roles to fuel our next set of offerings. I am confident that the changes above will set us up well for the months and years ahead.

I want to close by thanking Robbie for the incalculable contributions he has made to Microsoft over the years. He will be greatly missed when he retires this fall, and I am glad that I’ll have the opportunity to continue working closely with him between now and then. And as J makes a similar transition, I look forward to working with him in a new way.

Steve

Via Engadget.com

Yesterday’s video by InnovationSingapore did not in fact work very well (likely due to a Slashdot by Engadget) but this version uploaded by vuhoangdung shows the start-up experience very well.

Of note is that the device boots fast, appears to be fully multi-lingual, and the device can actually start up without signing into Live ID, contrary to previously leaked information.

As before, see more at InnovationSingapore here.

Da_G has written a layman’s version of the challenges facing those intent on porting the leaked HTC Mondrian Windows Phone 7 to another (like HTC HD2) handset.

He writes:

The Mondrian NBH posted in this thread is a format that HTC uses, that you can consider a "container" like a cup or a box. We know this format fully and can dump and create it at will (NBHImageTool)

The qualcomm snapdragon can be thought of a miniature dual-core computer. It is different from a normal computer that has dual cores in an important way: Each core is assigned it’s own block of memory, and runs its own operating system. There is a shared block of memory allowing the 2 operating systems to communicate with each other.

Inside that .nbh container, are some more containers. One is "radio.nb" – inside here is the various software that drives the "second processor". Another is "spl.nb" – this contains the tri-color bootloader that most of you are familiar with as HardSPL. This bootloader has changed considerably for WP7 and it’s layout will need to be determined. Another is "unknown-0×0804.nb", as you might guess we don’t know what that is yet Finally, there’s "os.nb" – the last container. This one has the OS we want to work with (WP7), and really it’s not os.nb as that is the format used on WM6, so far all the WP7 ROMs ive seen use the "flash.store.bin" container format. My NBHImageTool currently names the output file incorrectly as os.nb. I will update a future version to check the actual content of the file and name it properly (flash.store.bin)

In order for us to port the OS from one device to another, one basic thing we need to be able to do is "dump" the "flash.store.bin" container format to its components (I did this manually with a hex editor, and posted on post 2 of this thread), and re-build the flash.store.bin from those components (after we’ve edited them to do the actual "porting")

We don’t yet know the flash.store.bin container format, which is the current hurdle i’m working on. Once we are able to easily dump/rebuild that, there are a number of other challenges to meet, such as how we relocate modules to function on another device. Modules are built with a pre-determined memory layout, and each device has a different memory layout. On WM6.x ROMs we have the tool "g’reloc" or "wmreloc" or "platformrebuilder" to handle this for us. With WP7 ROMs the memory layout is entirely different, so a new tool needs to be developed.

We currently don’t yet know how the memory layout looks, i’ve just been going by CE6 documentation on MSDN. If we’re lucky not much has changed in that regard, and we’ll be able to create a relocation tool based on that documentation.

Anything that has changed since then will need to be reverse engineered. If that is necessary it probably won’t be likely until we can get hands on a device running WP7, inject some native code, and figure out the memory layout and other such goodies.
So, assuming we have those things hammered out (we don’t yet), we need to make our current device bootloaders able to load the WP7 OS. This would be accomplished using some ARM assembly trickery. This is where JTAG comes in because there’s a high probability of bricking and we will be able to obtain debug output from the process to determine where any failures are occuring (and there will be failures!) – another hurdle with this is that it’s looking like there is only one JTAG unit capable of supporting the snapdragon at this moment, and it costs upwards of 4x the original donation drive guesstimate, which is far too expensive for this project. I’m currently researching alternatives. It’s looking like I will end up having to go with one of the less expensive "home brew" JTAG models and writing my own Snapdragon support into OpenOCD (the open source debugger platform that the "home brew" JTAGgers use) – that is far from a trivial task and i’m not looking forward to it at all

Once that’s hammered out, we’ll be at a place where the OS itself is loading up. However it is quite likely at that point, some of the drivers will fail to work (hopefully not basic ones such as the kernel, display, etc.) – here we’ll have to perform some more trickery to get the drivers functioning properly. One potential problem is that since we will be using our original device’s radio.nb, more than likely the protocol the drivers use to communicate with it will be different. This will need to be changed.

Now, all of the above stuff needs to be packaged into a deployment system that’s user friendly, and relatively fail-safe (we don’t want bricks!)

At that point, it’s "done" – not complicated at all, right?

The above certainly sounds like a momentous job, doesn’t it. Follow Da_G on twitter here for the latest on the effort.

Responding to customer complaints, Pharos has announced the free replacement of faulty Pharos Traveler 137 handsets, currently being sold on Cincinnati’s Bell’s network in USA.

The handsets had been presenting with issues related to a faulty power buttons, which would fail to start after charging overnight, requiring a soft reset to fix, and also with a faulty battery meter, meaning in some handsets the battery meter may read 100% when it is actually empty.

The handsets, which originally shipped with Windows Mobile 6.1, will be swapped out free of charge for Windows Mobile 6.5 versions.

"It’s true that Pharos is a very small player compared to the big names in the smartphone business," a spokesman said, "but maybe the way they treat their customers shows that it can be better to deal with a small outfit that cases."

More at Twice.com

MobileTechReview have published this video review of the LG Fathom, one of the most vanilla Windows Mobile handsets I have ever seen.

The flash performance is surprisingly good, and the device is of course a true world phone, but the handset otherwise does not do much else to differentiate itself.

Anyone picking up this smartphone? Let us know below.

Press Release:Wireless and LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., Inc. (LG Mobile Phones), today announced the LG Fathom™ will be available in Verizon Wireless business sales channels beginning May 27 and online and in Communications Stores beginning June 3. The ultimate on-the-go office, the LG Fathom redefines productivity with Windows Phone power, stylish design and smart global capabilities for making voice calls in more than 220 countries and accessing data in 200 countries, 110 with 3G speeds.

Key features:
* Sleek slate blue case takes customers from Monday meetings to Friday outings
* Large 3.2" touch screen with Improved Touch Experience and vibration for tactile feedback
* 1 GHz processor
* Full slide-out QWERTY keyboard with simultaneous touch screen capabilities
* microSD™ slot for up to 16 GB of memory
* Wi-Fi® enabled (802.11 b/g/n)
* Bluetooth® 2.1 capabilities with support for the following profiles: headset, hands-free, dial-up networking, stereo, phone book access, basic printing, basic imaging, object push for vCard and vCalendar, file transfer, and serial port
* Built-in MP3 and WMA music player with music library, repeat and shuffle features, as well as stereo sound via headset or Bluetooth
* Windows® Media Player 10 Mobile and video player for WMV, MP4, and 3GP formats
* USB mass storage for file transfer between microSD card and PC
* One-touch speaker phone and speaker-independent voice commands
* Text to speech and voice-activated dialing for up to 4,000 entries

Additional lifestyle features:
* Dedicated task manager key for quick access to mobile Task Manager
* Windows Mobile Device Center and ActiveSync allows users to synchronize Outlook®, Office® and contents from Microsoft Exchange Server® to keep personal information organized and updated
* View and edit with Excel® Mobile, OneNote® Mobile and Word® Mobile or view important presentations with PowerPoint® Mobile
* Scroll, zoom and view rich PDF content with Adobe® Reader LE
* Global roaming frequency automatically switches from CDMA/EVDO to GSM/UMTS depending on geographic location
* VZ Navigator® capabilities – Receive audible turn-by-turn directions to millions of points of interest and share the directions with others
* VZ Navigator Global capabilities – Get turn-by-turn directions and maps in English while navigating through more than 20 destinations such as Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. This easy-to-use application also marks distances in miles or kilometers and finds restaurants, gas stations, banks/ATMs and other popular spots using the Local Search feature
* Wireless manager enables and disables wireless connectivity for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular network
* Luminous sensor designed to adjust LCD backlight brightness depending on light conditions
* Proximity sensor instantly locks touch screen buttons while talking on the phone
* Text and send clear images and fun animations through Flash User interface support
* International charger plus up to four different adapter clips for multi-country use
* 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera and camcorder that includes:

• Five different camera resolutions and three different video resolutions
• Macro Mode for detailed, up close pictures
• Panorama for three guided, sequential shots
• Continuous shot for up to six consecutive photos
• Scene mode for auto, portrait, landscape, sports and night settings
• Image editor with zoom, rotate, resize, crop, added frames and stamps
• Customizable brightness, white balance, shutter sounds and color effects and a self-timer
• Choose between mute and unmute to record video with or without sound
• Optimize video quality with normal, fine or super camcorder settings
• Video recording time up to one minute for sending or up to one hour for saving

Pricing and availability:
The LG Fathom will be available in business sales channels beginning May 27 and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores nationwide and online at www.verizonwireless.com beginning June 3 for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.

LG Fathom customers will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan. Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access. Email and Web for Smartphone plans start at $29.99 for unlimited monthly access. Business customers interested in the LG Fathom can contact their Verizon Wireless Business Sales Representative at 1-800-VZW-4BIZ.

For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com

Via Engadget.com