Mobile moves

08/04/10 posted by Liz Niland

Although Apple is seeking to ride the iPad wave into this week’s iPhone 4.0 announcement (early tomorrow morning our time, today US time), Microsoft are also stepping into the handheld hardware ring. Images of “Project Pink” were leaked a while back - so there’s no real surprises on that front - but the big issue everyone will want covered at the rumoured April 12 unveiling is what operating system the new social networking-optimised smartphones will run.

While we got a sneak-peek of the new (and rather delicious) Windows Phone 7 Series operating system about a month ago, it was originally slated to not make the market until Christmas 2010. The question now is, what will these phones run? If it’s not WP7S, “Microsoft will have to explain how it intends on supporting a two-pronged strategy that could result in consumer and developer confusion,” as reported by mocoNews via the Guardian. All will be revealed next week!

In other mobile news, Google’s acquisition of AdMob might be in jeopardy with authorities in the US looking to quash the purchase. As noted on The Australian today, the primary concern is that “Google would use AdMob, the leading supplier of advertisements that run on smartphones and other mobile devices, to gain a controlling position in a key new technology sector.” Which really, will be hard for Google to deny, let alone fight in court. Apple were rumoured to be heading into mobile advertising too, which may provide Google with a much-needed ally. TechCrunch reports that AdMob “is approaching a $100 million business within the next three years”, so when combined with Adwords, Google will no doubt be looking to defend their move.