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Although many traditionally think of cell phone carriers as huge conglomerate organizations intent on nickel-and-diming the consumer at every corner, one cannot forget about the heavy subsidies on phones that these companies take on in order to lure consumers to sign for longer term contracts. With the release of the new iPhone 3G, however, companies have actually started to eat into their profits to stay competitive in the fast-paced wireless market. According to analyst forecasts, AT&T’s $200 iPhone offering has helped profits drop almost 5% from Q2 to Q3: the phone is selling faster than the company had expected, and that directly hurts their bottom line.

Not wanting to be outdone, Verizon and Sprint, second and third respectively in the US wireless market, also dropped rates on high-end smartphones, causing smaller, but still noticeable drops, in profitability, according to analysts. With the worsening economic conditions, carriers will be hard pressed to find ways to attract new customers without further hurting their bottom line. Some analysts think higher subsidies will be cut in favor of cuts to service fees, whereas others feel smartphone subsidies are still the best bet, as smartphones usually come attached with an additional data plan on top of the voice plan.

"I think we’ll see average revenue per user (ARPU) decline but the real question will be to what degree," said Stanford Group analyst Michael Nelson, adding that as voice call prices have fallen, carriers have depended on data for ARPU growth.

Truphone, the service that allows you to make cheap long distance phone calls using VoIP technology on a mobile phone, is now available to users of BlackBerry devices as a beta offering. This product is called Truphone Anywhere for Blackberry.

London-based Truphone’s service, which typically uses Wi-Fi connections for VoIP calls, has so far been available on the Symbian OS-based Nokia devices and Apple’s iPhone. The service doesn’t support Windows Mobile for now.

I downloaded early versions of the software on two WiFi-enabled BlackBerry devices — the 8801 and T-Mobile Curve — and it worked fine on both the devices. It was fairly easy to download the Truphone software using Blackberry’s built-in browser, and I installed it without many problems. Upon installation, it asked me if my device had Wi-Fi or not. (In case of non WiFi-enabled devices, Truphone behaves like any other callback service.)

Read more @ gigaom.com

Company releases comprehensive Azure Services Platform for the cloud, offering unprecedented power of choice and open connections for developers

LOS ANGELES — Oct. 27, 2008 — Today, during a keynote speech at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008 (PDC2008), Ray Ozzie, Microsoft Corp.’s chief software architect, announced Windows Azure, the cloud-based service foundation underlying its Azure Services Platform, and highlighted this platform’s role in delivering a software plus services approach to computing. The Azure Services Platform is an industry-leading move by Microsoft to help developers build the next generation of applications that will span from the cloud to the enterprise datacenter and deliver compelling new experiences across the PC, Web and phone.

Ozzie described how this platform combines cloud-based developer capabilities with storage, computational and networking infrastructure services, all hosted on servers operating within Microsoft’s global datacenter network. This provides developers with the ability to deploy applications in the cloud or on-premises and enables experiences across a broad range of business and consumer scenarios. A limited community technology preview (CTP) of the Azure Services Platform was initially made available to developers in attendance at PDC2008, giving them a chance to try out its features and functions and plan for their own future development.

“Today marks a turning point for Microsoft and the development community,” Ozzie said. “We have introduced a game-changing set of technologies that will bring new opportunities to Web developers and business developers alike. The Azure Services Platform, built from the ground up to be consistent with Microsoft’s commitment to openness and interoperability, promises to transform the way businesses operate and how consumers access their information and experience the Web. Most important, it gives our customers the power of choice to deploy applications in cloud-based Internet services or through on-premises servers, or to combine them in any way that makes the most sense for the needs of their business.”

Read more @ Microsoft

Microsoft has started two new blogs centered around Windows 7, to complement the existing "Engineering Windows 7" blog most Microsoft enthusiasts are already used to reading.

The first one hosted on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) titled "Windows 7 Blog for Developers" and is centered around Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer’s favorite subject… developers, developers, developers! Specifically those developers who want to take advantage of new code features being implemented in Windows 7. In the first post, poster yochayk states that the blog is intended to be a "one stop shop on the road to get yourself familiar with what Windows 7 has to offer for developers and how you can light-up using Windows 7 features in your application."

The second one is hosted on Technet and is titled "Springboard Series" and is centered around IT professionals in an effort to decrease the amount of misinformation out there among that group. Commentary about new features or fixes, as well as best practices for administrating Windows 7 are a few of the goals of this blog. The Springboard Series blog will also feature information about administration on previous version of Windows.

It would seem that Microsoft is trying to get an early start on getting positive spin out about Windows 7 and perhaps as learned from some of the mistakes made by the launch of Windows Vista.