Microsoft will make a hard push for Windows Phone at this year's CES, starting with some pre-show news on the upcoming HTC Titan II.
LAS VEGAS - Ahead
of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's opening keynote at this year's Consumer
Electronics Show, the company is touting the first in what will almost
certainly be a plethora of new Windows Phone smartphones present on the show
floor: the HTC Titan II, a 4G Long-Term Evolution-capable device on AT&T.
In a Jan. 9
posting on the
Windows Phone Blog, Microsoft declined to
name an exact release date for the device, but it did call out some notable
specs, including a 4.7-inch WVGA screen, a 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor and a
16-megapixel rear camera.
That camera
features "a fast wide-angle lens (f2.6, 28mm), autofocus, and dual LED flash,"
Michael Stroh, a Microsoft spokesperson, wrote in the blog posting.
"Shutterbugs will appreciate extras like red-eye reduction, image
stabilization, a panorama mode for landscapes, and a burst shot mode for sports
or kids." It will also take 720p "HD" video.
Microsoft has
high hopes for Windows Phone, which attracted some critical praise but little
market share during its first year in release. In a bid to increase the
platform's presence among consumers and businesses, the company is now engaging
in something of a two-pronged campaign: muscling up the software with a variety
of new features and tweaks, and partnering with a broad constellation of
manufacturers to bring new devices to market.
On top of
that, Microsoft and its partners will pump hundreds of millions into marketing Windows
Phone to U.S. customers in 2012, according to a recent posting on Paul
Thurrott's
Supersite for Windows.
"According to
internal Microsoft documentation I've viewed, the total cost of this marketing
tsunami is in the neighborhood of $200 million," he wrote in that Jan. 4
missive. "And, again, that's just for the United States." Among the reported
initiatives: paying incentives to retail workers to push Windows Phone
devices.
There are also
reports that Microsoft will follow up its most recent software update, Mango,
with two other updates throughout the course of 2012. The first, "Tango," could
possibly target the midmarket with a stripped-down user interface to match the
lower cost. The second, reportedly code-named Apollo, might aim at the high end
of the market.
The question
is whether this wave of new software and hardware is enough to attract users
who might otherwise opt for an Apple iPhone or Google Android device. With this
year's CES, Microsoft continues its hard push to prove Windows Phones'
relevance against those competitors.
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