A new Mango season has begun in India: Microsoft

BY
In News
Dec 12, 2013
635
0

Lets see how the Mango OS will fare in the price sensitive Indian market, which is already awash with Android.

Almost a year after the global launch of the OS, Microsoft has launched its Windows Phone 7.5, which is also known as Mango, in India. By Diwali, Mango powered smartphones from device makers like HTC, Samsung and Acer are expected to make a debut in the Indian market.

While HTC's Radar is expected to be priced about Rs 24,000, Acer's Allegro will cost about 16,000, giving competition to Android based smartphones.

The most standout feature of these Mango OS phones is the presence of Live Tiles in place of conventional apps. The Live Tiles will provide real-time updates with information such as news, appointments or even the status of friends. Also, users can create new Live Tiles from the content of their choice like applications, websites and music among others.

The phones also feature the system of Hubs to bring together related content into a single view. So we have the People hub (for providing a central place from which users can post updates to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Windows Live), Pictures hub (it helps in sharing pictures and videos to social networking sites), Games hub (it has Xbox LIVE games, spotlight feed and lets the user see gamers profiles), Music + Video hub (for a better media experience), Marketplace hub (has over 30,000 apps and games) and the Office hub.

Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, said, Microsoft's vision is to play a role in a large spectrum of devices, the mobile phone is the key device in markets such as India." Microsoft has set minimum hardware requirements for a phone to run Windows Phone 7.5, and a set form factor with three keys, in contrast to Google, which has let vendors customise Android.

Since the Android platform is free and there are no restrictions on the type of device that can run Android, it is now the fastest growing smartphone platform. Google reports that it activates over 5,00,000 Android devices every day. Microsoft says it will follow a middle path in contrast to Google and Apple, whose business strategies are at extreme ends.

Test running, chaussures, montres cardio gps et habits sports