Clint off to San Diego

It had to happen one day but I, Clint Aerialhead, have decided to retire from life at Crimson Tide Towers. The days of Sam, Dave and myself being the face of Crimson Tide have come to a close to be replaced by the new "mpro from crimson tide" brand.

The modernisation of Crimson Tide's offerings also incorporates the new "simply smarter solutions" tag.

So, December will be my last month of blogging for the company and the "Clint Aerialhead Blog" will evolve into the "mpro blog" which will have an associated facebook group and twitter account.

Sync Framework

Our old friend the Microsoft Sync Framework has reached v4 CTP. This was the framework that we at Crimson Tide Towers called "Soprano".

Hopefully the chaps in Redmond have dealt with the speed issues we had a year or two ago

The interesting thing about the Sync framework which, if you recall, encouraged us to believe that you could sync "anything with anything", is that one of the "anythings" is Android - and another is iOS.

Of course those nice Silverlight tools have come into play since then so could be a useful tool when we bring mpro to those platforms. Look for RTW in early '11.

Kin Hell again

So, 'tis true, Verizon are once again selling Microsoft's Kin Phone - the one that "didn't exist"

Good luck with that project

Amazing what you take for granted, part 2

So, as a Windows Mobile house, we have edited our Word Docs/ Excel Spreadsheets and One Note (I love One Note) files on our phones

I heard today that you can now Edit Google Docs on your Android device. Whaaaat! just now ?

And only on Froyo 2.2

How lame is that?

Amazing what you take for granted, part 1

I have a new work PC at home, I've unpacked, fired it up and it is very nice. I didn't get round to installing Office 2010 and needed the disk etc to do so which was at Crimson Tide Towers. So I installed Open Office as I neede to edit a document.

A few weeks went by and I still hadn't got round to getting Office on the PC. Late last night, my chum Tim sent me a Word Doc to edit. I thought that Open Office would do the job........I was wrong

I probably cost Tim an hour this morning sorting out the errors in the document (and he's really quick) due to formatting errors and change tracking mistakes.

I'll get the disk.....

More NFC stuff

So, Nokia's C7 is also going to carry a Near Field Communications Chip, as (as is rumoured) will the Google Nexus S (see blogs passim)

The plot thickens......I wonder when we'll see a Crimson Tide application that uses such a chip.....

Nexus S Rumour

I hear through the grapevine that the Google Nexus S will carry a Near Field Communications chip......interesting for payment and location sensing technologies

Palm Pre receives visit from Grim Reaper

Looks like the end of the road for the Pre. We thought it was a very well designed device, and that WebOS was a good idea. It just seemed a bit slow to some and the keyboard was very fiddly.

So, we anticipate the end of the Pre and the beginning of the Pre 2.....good luck with that Palm/HP friends, we fear that the Android, iOS and WP7 trains may have left a while ago.......

A small bounce from LG

We're not convinced about LG's credentials in the smartphone market. Engadget report that their Android 2.2 powered Optimus One (Surely Optimus Prime !?) has sold a million units...Ho Hum, we said , until we are told that that represents sales in 40 days...not bad at all. Well done LG (and thanks to Engadget

Return of the KIN?

Allegedly, Verizon has Microsoft KIN phones on its roadmap........unbelievable unless you believe in the rumour that there are "tens of thousands" of the YouthPhone in a warehouse somewhere

NoSQL allowed in the Microsoft Azure Cloud

My friends in Redmond do take a lot of stick, however they do some things that other software companies would blanche at. For example, they are allowing versions of NoSQL on the Azure platform. You'd have thought that the Redmondians would be very protective of their SQL Azure offering, but no, they are so focused on Azure as a platform they are prepare to allow non_SQL server databases on the platform.

We at Crimson Tide Towers are big believers in the cloud and Microsoft is pushing it heavily. We should see a Crimson Tide Azure offering in 2011.

Palm Pre 2 Available

We have been friends with Palm ever since we started our mobile data business. devices such as the Treo Pro still bring a misty eye to those at Crimson Tide Towers.

Things have been slightly different since the takeover by HP , but we're glad to see the Palm badge still out there.

The New Palm Pre 2 runs WebOS, a great OS if you listen to many in the business, not one we have experienced ourselves . Good luck to Palm - it's a tough market to get penetration into but we hope they do well "for old times sake"

Handy Windows phone Spec Comparison

Thanks to Engadget we can see the spec details of a number of Windows Phone 7 devices here

Windows Phone 7 Selling Fast

Seems that my frinds in Redmond have an early success on their hands. Demand for Windows Phone 7 devices is outstripping supply and many places are out of stock.

Thanks to The Register for the info http://bit.ly/bX8vtk

Spotify on Windows Phone

Microsoft is obviously very keen to get as many apps as it can on Windows Phone devices. It has signed a deal with spotify to put the music sharing app onto both 6.5 and 7 phones. There is a monthly subscription of £9.99 payable if you should want to stream music over the air. And, errr....a sufficiently large data bundle.

Running Out of Names

It was pretty obvious that phone manufacturers would start to run out of superlative names for their devices (maybe one should be the HTC Superlative?). That same company is now down to the HTC Speedy (better have a decent processor)

How long until we hear about the LG QuiteNice?

New Palms !

We have always been big fans of Palm and our friend Tim has been a great supporter of Crimson tide over the years.

We're delighted to hear that there will be 6 new Palm devices in 2011 (allegedly). It will be interesting to see if hP has got hold of WebOS and made any strides in the face of stiff competition from Iphone, Android and now Windows Phone 7 devices.

Windows Phone Ads

I was shocked at the size of the Windows Phone 7 ads at London Bridge station this week. The Orange WP7 devices were dominating poster and screen space.

I hear that the devices are moving fast - good news for Microsoft. As the ads say "Microsoft is back in the game !"