Microsoft to Buy Nokia’s Mobile Unit: Emergence of a Third Player in the Mobile Market?

While the Windows Phone is at the number two position (behind Android) in some markets that Apple has not cared to target aggressively, Microsoft has not tasted big success in the mobile market. Tech pundits have given good reviews about Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system, but it has always seemed that Bill Gates came to the smart mobile party a little too late. As Apple and Android dominate the global mobile market with over 90% of market share, the chances of a third player entering the field and competing with these two mobile giants have gotten slimmer and slimmer.

A Quick Glance at Nokia & Microsoft’s Relationship

When Nokia threw its lot with Microsoft and started manufacturing smartphones that run the Windows 7 and 8, many felt that it was a suicidal move. Samsung, one of Nokia’s biggest competitors in the mobile manufacturing, choose Android OS to run its best mobiles and emerged as one of the biggest forces in the mobile market. Nokia was unable to accomplish similar goals using Windows operating system: it dumped Symbian and used Windows 7 operating system for all its top-tier handsets, but was unable to compete with the iPhone or Android devices.

Just a few years back Nokia was respected as the most powerful mobile manufacturer; today, it is not even one of the top three mobile manufactures. Microsoft too suffered from the fact that none of the mobile manufacturers using its operating system could come up with a series of successful handsets. Technology experts and bloggers have expressed one idea since a long time: Microsoft and Nokia are a good fit and by closely partnering with each other, they can emerge as a force to reckon with. By preparing to buy Nokia’s mobile unit, Microsoft has done what many hoped that it would.

Has Microsoft found the Missing Piece of the Mobile Puzzle?

In a purchase that is set to complete by 2014, Microsoft has agreed to buy Nokia’s mobile unit, and it will also buy Nokia’s patents and mapping services in a non-exclusive agreement. The company will pay $ 7.2 billion in cash. The deal is a lifesaver for Nokia, a company that is steadily falling behind its competitors Samsung and Apple. It can also help rejuvenate Microsoft’s mobile image and help the company manufacture flagship mobile handsets that are specifically created for Windows 8.

While Apple has the iPhone and Android has Samsung’s popular devices that can showcase the best features of the mobile operating system and attract customers, Microsoft doesn’t yet have such a hit device for Windows 7 or 8. While people have not dumped PCs or Windows, Microsoft needs to find its way in a world where people are spending less time on PCs and more time on tablets and smartphones. With this deal, Microsoft doesn’t just get the capability to manufacture mobile, but also gets the skills and patents to create a slew of innovative devices that can help its mobile operating system find its feet in a competitive market.

Through the deal with Nokia, Microsoft has all the ingredients that go on into the making of a powerful and effective smartphone ecosystem: a well-conceptualized mobile operating system, devices that are specifically made for the operating system and an app store. Only time will tell if Microsoft has found the missing piece of the puzzle, but if you are a mobile app owner or a developer, the possibility of a third player giving competition to the existing market leaders is exciting.

Impact on Mobile App Development

Microsoft is the only company that has the wherewithal and background to compete with Apple and Android. Nokia still has a huge fan-following in emerging smartphone markets like India, and this will empower Windows 7 and 8 phones to conquer huge chunks of such markets. Just as Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility patents enabled the search giant to manufacture its own devices and safeguarded the future of its operating system, Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s mobile unit will help the company compete more aggressively in the mobile market.

It is notoriously difficult to foretell future in the dynamic mobile market, but the news indicate that Microsoft is going to do all it can to thrive in the world of smart mobiles. We can expect to see a surge in the number of developers building mobile apps for Windows. Also, if the Windows Phone OS gets a bigger market share over the next two years (and it is likely that we will see at least some rise), developers who build apps only for Apple and Android will start building apps for Microsoft as well.

Ready for a Resurgent Windows Phone Operating System?

In the current scenario, most businesses and developers are either building only Apple apps, or they build app for Android and Apple. If Microsoft succeeds in becoming the third player in the mobile market, apps that are already popular on its app store will be the biggest winners. By creating an innovative application Windows Phone OS now, or by creating a Windows Phone version of your existing app, you can profit from a world that has three major mobile operating systems.

Would you like to explore this idea further? Get in touch with us and tell us about your mobile app idea. We would love to discuss it with you! 

Do’s and Don’ts of Mobile App Marketing via Social Media

The usage of mobile phones in the last 5 years has increased to a huge extent. With this leap, several mobile applications have been introduced which are available in various app stores such as Play Store, iStore, etc. In these scenarios, standing out from 5,00,000 plus mobile apps is a challenge, especially when the market is estimated to be worth $25 billion by 2015. Chances of getting to the top in the niche market is already saturated and hence the discoverability and possibility of reaching to the right target audience quickly is no rocket science. In these conditions, mobile app marketing via social media is the best option especially when you are on a tight budget.

We all know that the importance of social media in today’s time has grown by leaps and bounds. It has become more a necessity than an option to survive in the global marketplace and achieve success. Several companies have developed their presence on social media just to promote their brands and services on different platforms and websites. From product advertising to announcements to services promotion, social media is the one that provides quick and efficient results.

Image credit: www.appsgeyser.com

Mobile application marketing through social media can help you reach the widest and sharply targeted audience in no time. Mobile apps are being used by people of all age groups for recreational, informational and many other purposes. And this is why no other platform on the Internet could give your apps the exposure as good as social media. However, when you set out to market your apps on social media, you need to keep your eyes and mind open as marketing on social media can either make or shake your strategy. Hence, you should have a planned mobile application marketing strategy on social media which requires appropriate research before you dive into this deep ocean.

There are several Do’s and Don’ts of mobile app marketing via social media as highlighted in the following paragraphs that can really help you hit the right audience and help your increase mobile app download rates.

Do’s of Mobile App Marketing via Social Media

1. Use Promoted Tweets – Create a buzz about your app on Twitter with Promoted Tweets. Promoted Tweets are a great way to capture the attention of customers.
2. Connect with prospects via LinkedIn & Facebook – Users who frequently use LinkedIn and Facebook can become your possible customers. Just connect with them and promote about your application which would be displayed on their notification bars or news feed.
3. Promote on YouTube - Create a video to demonstrate the working of your app and promote it on YouTube.
4. App Reviews - Submit your application reviews on relevant blogs, websites and press releases
5. Use QR Codes – Create QR codes and publish them on different social media platforms from where customers can scan the code and download the app.
6. Answer Every Comment – People like it when they get reply for what they say instead of getting avoided. Be sure to answer every comment and specially be constructive when their comments are negative.
7. Delete Negative Comments – Be alert and quick to delete negative comments before they can ruin your app marketing strategy.
8. Be Active - Be always active in putting useful, informative and interesting updates which can drive customer engagement and keep them updated.
9. Be Participative & Polite - Post and comment everywhere that is relevant to your mobile app but in a polite manner.

With these Do’s come several Don’ts which you should avoid while promoting your apps on social media which are as mentioned below:

Don’ts of Mobile App Marketing via Social Media

1. Don’t be a Marketer, Be a Friend – While promoting your application on social media, avoid being a marketer who pushes the product. Instead be a friend and develop a healthy conversation which can really convince your prospect.
2. Don’t Make Mistakes – Avoid mistakes in typing and publishing things as even a small mistake is enough to portray your negative image.
3. Don’t Make False Statement – Just for the sake of increasing downloads of your app, do not make false statements and claims. Say what your app can really do.
4. Don’t Use the Same Strategy - Do not use the same strategy for every social media platform you are promoting your app on. Do remember each social media platform has different dynamics and needs to be utilized accordingly.

Now when you know that social media can be utilized in many way, it's up to you to decide what strategy will be more effective and how you exactly want it to work. Be creative while promoting your apps to create the curiosity among the users and make sure that you make it about them, not about you. In short, always publish from their perspective. On the other hand, make sure that your app is powerful enough that it can be recommended to others. Social media makes it undoubtedly popular but like I said before that your app must be substantial and worth recommending to others.

Conclusion

At the end, what you can get out of the social media promotion is what your customers want. The primary reason is that you can connect with your users better and find such more potential customers. Social media is essential to make your mobile applications popular. So make the most of it with planned strategy and research.

Grails vs Ruby on Rails vs Play Framework

When it comes to developing web applications, the leading opensource technologies that comes to one’s mind are Ruby on Rails, Play framework and Grails. However, many a times it happens that the team faces a lot of challenges while choosing among these technologies.

Are you at a point where you are not able to decide which opensource framework would best suit your rapid application development requirements? Here is a good comparison chart of Grails vs Ruby on Rails vs Play framework that one of our open source technology experts has shared. Let’s take a look at it.

In the above comparison chart, one can see that Grails stands at par with Ruby on Rails while it exceeds the Play framework in many ways. Grails also surpasses Ruby on Rails in some factors such as programming language support, design patterns, ease of use, etc. Looking at the above comparison, it is clear that Grails is one of the best open source technologies of today’s time and should be opted over Ruby on Rails and Play framework for all your rapid web application development requirements.

 

Download our Free Whitepaper on Grails: Accelerating J2EE Application Development

How .Net is Helping Businesses Attain Maximum ROI

Globalization and increase of IT education have transformed every business sector. Businesses are taking the online route and applications are making the business process faster, smoother and more adaptable. In order to achieve the goals of your business, you need an IT platform that will give you the power and technology to simplify business and increase revenue generation. You need a technology that will reduce website/application development time and let you create quality, reliable and scalable applications. Microsoft .Net software development platform is ideal for that task.

Microsoft has created this platform to aid web and application developers. .NET was written from the very core to overcome some of the biggest challenges of application development such as long development time, helplessness to modify the features of an app, software development cost and deployment hassles.

Before I discuss the business benefits of .NET, let’s find out what type of corporate solutions can be custom developed with the help of this robust framework.

• Customer Relationship Management software
• Accounting apps
• Inventory management apps
• Warehouse apps
• All types of websites – personal, corporate and e-commerce
• Value chain and supply management solutions
• XML web services
• Apps for hand held devices such as PDA

When a company decides to build custom software for its business, they focus on two factors. How long the project will take to complete and how long the software will take to get their investment back? For example, the answer of the first question can be 6 months and if the total money spent on development is $10000 and the software increases your revenue by $2000 per month, then it will take 5 months to get the return on investment (ROI). After 11 months, you can expect to make $2000 profit every month for a prolonged period.

So, the big question is how .NET can help with ROI? There are a number of factors that make .NET framework one of the best return on investment providers.

Reusability of codes- Microsoft has given many re-usable codes and components in the framework to help developers do their job effortlessly. With the help of default features, developers can create end-to-end solutions and make the business operations more efficient. As codes and components are reusable, .NET reduces development time and if applications take less time to develop, they cost cheaper and you get faster return on investment.

Worried about scalability? Don’t worry- Many startup companies of the past are now billion dollar enterprises. Take a look at companies like Apple or Tata and you will realize that it’s hard to guess what the future holds for you. When a business grows, it puts pressure on the existing IT infrastructure and the apps running on it. .NET was created with scalability in mind. As your company grows, the apps can also scale and take the additional load.

Easy to maintain- Development cost is one time, but maintenance cost is incurring. .NET apps are easily maintainable, thanks to the configuration settings that can be modified without any need to rewrite the code.

Deployment is hassle free- Deploying software is always challenging and the most common problem developers face in this process is the existence of multiple DLLs. It’s hard to make sure that all DLLs will co-exist in the same machine. .NET framework solves this problem by allowing different versions of the same DLL to exist side-by-side on the same machine.

Security- .NET is one of the most secure web and application development frameworks available in the market. As it’s made by Microsoft, you can be absolutely sure about the security measurements. Hackers can never steal valuable data from your website or apps.

Cross platform friendly- What if you had developed an app for desktop and laptop computers and now after seeing the growth of mobile apps in the market, you want it in mobile version as well? You can easily develop an app that runs on the desktop and PDA without any issue. As you can re-use the codes and utilize the same development environment, your job becomes a lot simpler.

What else one wants from a technology stack? Given all these benefits of .Net technolgy, one can build apps and softwares that can really contribute in lifting business ROI by enhancing, automating and regularizing key process areas.

Looking for .Net development partners? Hire our .Net developers on per hour basis or fixed cost basis. With Cygnet, you can be stay assured of the maintenance of quality and time-lines followed by our .Net developers.

Magnolia 5 – The Best Makeover of Magnolia CMS Till Date

Magnolia International Ltd, on 20^th June, 2013 released Magnolia 5 – the bigger and better version of Magnolia CMS till date. This latest iteration of Magnolia CMS has been released to support today’s mobile age and hence features out of the box mobile ready features which makes it the first mobile enabled CMS on the market.

Pascal Mangold, CEO & Cofounder of Magnolia International Ltd said “We designed Magnolia to be as simple and as flexible as a Smartphone. The result is a CMS that looks beautiful, feels natural and is fast and intuitive to use.”

With Magnolia 5, a number of groundbreaking features have been also released that promises to revolutionize the content management like never before.  Let’s dive into Magnolia 5 and check out whether it will stand out from the rest.

Touch Inspired Interface

Magnolia 5 has introduced an intuitive touch inspired interface that lets you manage your tasks in Magnolia with swipe actions on both PCs and touch screen devices like Smartphones, tablets, iPads, laptops. This enables users to navigate between applications easily  and complete the task quickly.

Application Launcher

Magnolia 5 features App Launcher, a feature that allows users to navigate between applications using a spring boat just like you do on a smartphone. Another advantage of this feature is that it allows developers to create their own customized applications that looks and feels just like inbuilt Magnolia apps with the same ease of use.

Image Credit: www.magnolia-cms.com

Intuitive Collapse Action Bar

Magnolia 5 leaves behind the bulky and cumbersome toolbars and drop downs and replaces them with intuitive Collapse Action Bars that appear on single side of the screens of devices like iPads. These Action  Bars collapses and highlights the icons as touch-targeted squares depending on the task you are currently working providing a better usability and interactivity.

Image Credit: www.magnolia-cms.com

Pulse

Pulse feature has been introduced to continuously keep you updated with notifications and feeds. It is the most active feature that helps you keep a constant track on content and enables real-time monitoring by providing updates related to comments, content status, requests, along with statistics and analytics.

Image Credit: www.magnolia-cms.com

Favorites

This is another smart feature in Magnolia 5 CMS which lets users create shortcuts and favorites of the most used applications and tasks like creating a page, adding tags, etc. This feature allows accessing the applications and favorite tasks quickly saving you more time and gives a personalized user experience.

Digital Assests Management

Magnolia 5 also provides Digital Assets Management feature that lets you manage your digital assets like videos, images, documents and use them to enhance your online channels.

Magnolia 5 offers flexibility, scalability and usability inside a single box empowering users to respond to the challenges faced in developing the most fluid and smart CMS. With these features and enhancements, Magnolia 5 bags the title of the best version of Magnolia CMS till date beating all the other CMS of today’s time.

Looking for developing or migrating your website to any version of Magnolia CMS? Email us at info@cygnet-infotech.com. Visit http://www.cygnet-infotech.com/java-cms-frameworks/magnolia-cms-framework to know more about our capabilities on Magnolia CMS

Sitecore with eCommerce – a Key to Successful Online Store

Sitecore is a web content management system and a marketing automation software that helps companies create their online presence with dynamic, fully-featured websites. It is a powerful CMS with an ability to manage and deploy multiple websites. Several companies around the world including national governments and Fortune 500 companies utilize Sitecore to manage their websites.

Over the years, Sitecore has undergone several updations to support various needs of the organizations. One such extension that Sitecore features is an integration with eCommerce platform to support the rising eCommerce transactions taking place across the world. The support for eCommerce over and above content management capabilities in Sitecore helps organizations deliver compelling web experience, attract new visitors, optimize conversion rates and sales through a single platform, i.e. website.

Sitecore with eCommerce

Sitecore’s eCommerce functionality integrated with marketing automation features provides the required tools to track and optimize the customer actions for particular eCommerce website goals such as account creation and order completion. The unique combination of Sitecore with eCommerce also helps in providing web experience with a more personalized touch based on the visitor’s profile and order history. Sitecore’s blend with eCommerce even helps website developers to customize checkouts, create traffic-generating email campaigns, create sophisticated forms, secure payment processing and shipping and maintain purchase history over and above eCommerce website content management.

Besides, Sitecore CMS with an enhanced support for eCommerce provides retail-marketing oriented websites with following benefits which unlocks the doors towards delivering an exceptional shopping experience to the customers.

Customer Management: This is the major benefit of Sitecore’s integration with eCommerce. From checkout to shipping to managing orders, Sitecore helps in managing complete customer lifecycle with

• Product information management & order management
• Payment processing and shipping management
• Integrating with ERP, customer databases and other back office applications
• Customizing the checkout process

Personalized Shopping Experience: Sitecore with its intuitive wizard driven profile and personalization tools helps deliver a personalized shopping experience. Moreover by combining Geo-tracking, account management and visitor’s activity, Sitecore helps in

• Optimizing cross-selling and up-selling business
• Customizing shopping carts
• Increasing order values

Mobile Ready: Sitecore provides enough flexibility to design a mobile version of your eCommerce website to ensure a personalized mobile experience.

• Generate more revenue with m-commerce by serving content on different devices
• Enables shopping anywhere, anytime
• Sends alerts to website administrator to publish or edit website pages on the go

Optimize Sales: Sitecore gives inbuilt analytics such as visitor counts, average time on the website, best-selling items, etc. to optimize sales along with key metrics like

• Conversions with referring urls
• Successful search terms
• Popular downloaded content

With all these eCommerce capabilities of Sitecore, businesses gets a key to successful online store along with an ability to deliver incomparable shopping experience that sets them apart from competitors.

Planning an online store? Get it built on Sitecore with the help of Cygnet Infotech. Email us know to discuss your ecommerce website development requirements.

How Outsourcing PHP Developers Will Save Time and Value?

Internet technology is leading the people to a vast growth which has not been experienced by any other form of marketing techniques. The effect of using online resources to establish a business serves the owners and users with more benefits. Thus websites that have been designed to transform the shopping experience online from a user friendly perspective. This has created the need for business websites to get republished with latest internet technologies. An attractive and informative web design that is made with PHP or HTML platforms is suitable for profit making through online presence.

Significance

PHP is one of the popular scripting languages which most of the web site developers adopt. With PHP it is quiet effective to augment the layout and navigation part of the websites. If you are in search of a dynamic web page layout PHP will stay a suitable option. For creating custom web designs most of the programmers prefer to use PHP programming language. Since, PHP programming language contains user-friendly formats, techniques and applications it is therefore easy for the programmers to adopt the applications in an easy way. 

Benefits

For efficient website deigning PHP, ASP.NET and Java are considered suitable and significant programming languages. And as far as PHP is concerned, there are certain specific advantages such as

• Usability- with PHP the programmer can experience excellent usability and bring out efficient website designs
• Fast data processing- Working with PHP can fetch the programmer to process data in a fast mode.
• Well-matched – PHP programming language can get along with popular operating systems like Windows, UNIX ,etc
• Compatible- one of the interesting advantages of using PHP programming language is it adaptability to get into HTML version
• Pricing- it is very easy to get affordable PHP development services

PHP growth

The demand for PHP programmers is always on the increasing mode. Since its adaptability and convenience allows the programmers to design custom website designs for their client’s website needs expertise programmers always have a good reception all over the world. Hence, many companies prefer to outsource PHP developers from abroad. Indian is one of the leading countries in the field of software and programming languages. The educational system is India has been focussing on the importance of computer education; the scope for development in enhancing knowledge in computer software and programming languages is equally growing. As a result, it is easy to outsource PHP developers from India. In addition, one can find PHP services in a cost effective pricing from India. Outsourcing PHP developers will bring unique results and it will also reduce the cost of forming a development service with expert professionals. Above all outsourcing PHP development based services will also save a lot of time for the web development services to focus towards other marketing aspects of their services. One can get a team of expertise PHP developers from India and make their website development process complete quickly. 

Author Bio: The services offered by Addictive Media are highly professional. You can easily look for http://www.addictivemedia.co.in/