Development of Motorola's market share from Q1 2004 to Q2 2008

Techcrunch.com had a story yesterday about how Motorola is going full throttle with Android. According to the article, Motorola currently has about 50 developers on its Android team, but expects to grow the team to some 350 developers.

The story immediately reminded me of some comments Russell Beattie posted on Motorola about a year ago. Beattie noted how Motorola seemed to release handsets with every conceivable OS there is, and went on to attribute Motorola's market share decline to lack of platform focus. The numbers certainly speak for themselves. Between Q4 2006 and Q4 2007, Motorola's market share went from 23% to 13% of the global handset market. This decline is really bad considering the global handset market had yearly growth rates at about 10% during the same period. Losing market share in an expanding market is bad.

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HTC G1

What do you think of the HTC G1 that was released today- the first handset to feature Google's Android OS?

I have not taken a closer look at the G1, or its specifications until this evening, but now that I have, I really think it is quite an attractive handset. I did not realize the G1 had a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, but it looks very cool.

And you cannot really argue about the price point - 180 $ (w/o taxes and fees) with a two-year plan on T-Mobile in the US. Pretty interesting what that will translate into here in Europe - I read the G1 is slated for a November UK release.

I for one might be very tempted…

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List of 20 Danish blogs with most incoming links - I am #14!

A friend just pointed out to me that this blog - gersbo.dk - is featured on a just-publicized list of the 20 Danish blogs with most incoming links.

I am ranked at #14 and I had no idea.

I am aware traffic has risen quite substantially in the past few months, but since I have decided to keep this blog in English (long story), I mostly draw a foreign crowd. Visitors from Denmark only account for about 4 % of traffic, according to Google Analytics.

Another fun fact is how the story accompanying the statistic (see link above) is actually about how the top 5 blogs on the list are all right-wing, political blogs.

I personally find it more interesting that:

1. My blog made it onto the list.
2. My blog is the only one on the list labeled as being focused on IT.

Really?

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SanDisk 16 GB microSDHC card

I have just received an email from the price agent I set up to alert me when the 16 GB microSDHC card came into stock at blueunplugged.com.

That just happened and now the million dollar question of course is: which handsets will support the 16 GB card?

I am pretty sure the recently announced Nseries handsets - the N79, N85 and N96 - all support it. Without actually saying so, Jonas Geust (Vice president, Nokia Nseries) hinted at precisely this during a QA session that took place as part of the recent online  launch event.

Other than that, the 16 GB card is currently priced at €80.23 inc vat, at blueunplugged.com.

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Using a "credit card magnifier" enables you to record macro shots really close up.

For a while I have been wanting to try our something I initially read about at James Burland's Nokia Creative Blog: using a small magnifier to "boost" the macro capabilities of an Nseries camera. Steve Garfield had a go at this too.

The 5 mega pixel camera in handsets like the N95, N82 and 6220 Classic is capable of taking close up shots using the "close up" - or "macro" - scene mode. But the macro capabilities are limited - both in terms of how close you can get and the motifs that can be captured. Sometimes it is simply impossible to get the camera to focus on the object you want to close in on. or macro shots at quite close ranges.

A bit of warning: This is seriously geeky stuff - my girlfriend walked in on me as I was tinkering away with this and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was experimenting with attaching a magnifier to my phone using rubber bands so I could get even more close up for macro shots. She basically just shook her head and left. I think what little confidence she had in me evaporated just there and then…

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A week ago, Symbian Guru informed us about new firmware v30.0.019 being released for the Nokia N82, product code 0558752.

Since then, I have been checking daily with Nokia device software update to see if the new firmware is available for product code 0551515 (Scandinavia). I am happy to report that this is now the case - I got a "positive hit" when I checked this morning.

I have not updated my N82 yet because I am at work, but I will report back later when I have had a chance to do so.

I have included a full changelog below - the main points seem to be general improvements in responsiveness; improved display auto rotation (ASR); improvements in video quality and music player; and a significantly improved camera startup time.

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I went to Stevie Wonder's concert in Aalborg last night and the man really is a musical genius. Definitely one of the best concerts, I have been to.

I brought my N82 to the concert and used it to shoot some photos and videos. Uploading to "Share on Ovi" using "Share Online" this morning made me appreciate just how much the new video quality on "Ovi", and the sound quality on the N82, rock. Check out the video above - I am aware the image sucks big time because it was recorded from much too far away, but check out the quality of the sound! It is really excellent, in my honest, non-audiophile opinion.

I was at the concert with a group of friends, all of which had recorded bits of photos, video and sound during the concert. As we compared notes on the way home, there was general agreement the N82 provided the best quality recordings.

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