Unveiled at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the company said it expected the strategy to start delivering returns as early as the second half of this year.

Mobile World Daily reports that the company aims to claim the top spot in the entertainment sphere through combining the attraction of images, music and communication.

Giving credence to this approach, Sony Ericsson unveiled a new Walkman video-optimised phone that will be available by mid-year. This device will feature Sony’s Media Go Embedded constant-syncing application, which the company says will be incorporated into future releases of all its phones.

Displaying its vision for its ‘Entertainment Unlimited’ world, Sony Ericsson showcased a prototype phone called Idou. Running the Symbian operating system, this is a multimedia and content-rich device that will be released in the second hald of this year.

Other phones in the touch-screen series include the UltraTOUCH – a full-touch slider that was launched earlier in February, two new BEAT music phones and its Blue Earth solar-powered phone.

The Blue Earth was the highlight of Samsung’s presso in Barcelona, with the company saying it has a ‘Blue Strategy’ when it comes to sustainability and environmentally friendly behaviour, since Earth is a blue planet when viewed from space.

Apart from it’s built in solar panel, the Blue Earth is also made from recycled plastic and has a five star energy rating.

Looking at its strategy from a software standpoint, the phone manufacturer also announced that it would continue to support multiple operating systems – that currently include Windows Mobile, Symbian and its own proprietary platform. Samsung would also be looking to introduce units running Googles mobile OS, Android, but not yet.

Brett Haggard, reporting from Barcelona, Spain.

And while its unlikely you’ll find a WiFi hotspot at a watering hole, Garmin’s latest updates to its Garmap Africa Series map data can certainly point you to one or the other of these points of interest.

The company says its 2009 updates now cover nine countries in southern Africa with an additional 184 000 km of map data including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mauritius, and, for the first time, Nigeria.

“Updating points of interest (POIs) has been a huge priority for us in this release,” says Andrew McHenry, head of mobile and content for Avnic Trading, official distributor for Garmap in SA.

“To date, we have over 193,000 POIs, which is an increase of 21% over the previous version of the maps, and we’re growing this list on a regular basis. We’ve also updated a lot of the road safety data to include new construction-related speed limits, traffic cameras and road hazards.”

Other useful POIs include more than 4 400 in over 60 national parks in southern Africa and nearly 300 WiFi hotspots around the country.

The Garmap DVD (both PC- and Mac-compatible) includes all seven of Garmap’s products, including: Southern Africa Streetmaps – featuring the general, Digital Elevation Model and Topographical & Recreational modules, South Africa Waterways, East Africa Street Maps, Indian Ocean Islands Streetmaps: Mauritius, and Nigeria Streetmaps.

Any users who bought their Garmin unit after April 2008 are eligible for a free upgrade to the latest equivalent version of the maps already loaded on the GPS navigator.

The company made the announcement at the Adobe MAX Japan trade show, at which it also said that its Adobe Flash Player 10 had been installed on more than 55% of computers worldwide in the first two months since its release. Adobe said it expected the installation base to grow to 80% by the second quarter of 2009.

The growing list of global brands using AIR includes the BBC and The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc.  Adobe says OEMs including Sony Japan are beginning to pre-install Adobe AIR on shipping computers, giving customers immediate access to the software.

Flash Player 10 has proven equally popular with well-known giants such as Comedy Central, MySpace, Toyota Motor Corporation and AOL Games.

In the past 12 months, there have been more than 1-million downloads of the AIR software development kit (SDK), the free open source Flex framework and Adobe Flex Builder.

Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player 10 are available for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems as free downloads in 15 languages.

Dubbed the ‘next-generation’ smartphone by Blackberry manufacturer, Research in Motion, the Storm comes standard with 3G (HSDPA) network support, integrated GPS, desktop-style web pages, advanced multimedia, built-in GPS and preloaded Vodafone SatNav.

Two of the newest features are the accelerometer, which automatically switches the display to landscape or portrait orientation as the device is rotated, and the SurePress touch-screen. This allows the touch-screen to respond like a physical keyboard, thereby improving navigation and typing.

The display has also been improved with the introduction of a 3.25-inch, high resolution (480×360-pixels), colour display.

Multimedia and document storage is enhanced through the 1GB onboard memory and standard 8GB microSD/SDHD memory card. This can be extended to up to 6 GB of storage per memory card.

The Storm’s capability as a communication tool is further enhanced with common applications such as Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and Flickr preloaded onto the smartphone.

Many of these data services are available to users at no additional cost over the monthly R59.00 BlackBerry Internet Service or R98.00 BlackBerry Enterprise Service subscription fee, which excludes the cost of the device.

FMTech reports that senior executives at Vodacom will be meeting shortly to discuss their broadband tariff plans, with the expected upshot being a substantial reduction in data prices.

“Data tariffs will have to come down. We will make an announcement soon,” said Romeo Kumalo, the group’s commercial director.

He said Vodacom hoped to trigger a “revolution” in broadband communications similar to that which followed the introduction of prepaid packages.

“Making the Internet accessible to the masses is our key strategy for this year,” Kumalo says. “The majority of South Africans will experience the Internet for the very first time on their mobiles.”

An indication of what lies in store for consumers – albeit at the higher end of the market – is Vodacom’s announcement that it was reducing the tariff for its BlackBerry service. Both contract and prepaid users will now pay R59/month for unlimited data access on their BlackBerry handsets.

This option is restricted to data downloaded on the BlackBerry device, whereas normal data tariffs apply when the device is tethered to a computer.

The price of the BlackBerry Enterprise service has also been reduced, from R139/month to R98/month.

Microsoft is cranking up the marketing in the lead-up to the eagerly-awaited Windows 7 release later this year, having unveiled the line-up for its new operating system.

Citing the need to simplify the choices for users from the six Windows Vista editions, the company will be marketing two primary editions – namely Home Premium and Professional.

Colin Erasmus, who heads the Windows business at Microsoft SA, says the simplified strategy is in response to extensive user feedback, providing the broadest choice.

“It’s all about choice,” says Erasmus. “We have designed Windows 7 so different editions can run on a very broad set of hardware, from small-notebook PCs (netbooks) to full gaming desktops.

Truth be told, users will still have six options to choose from when Windows 7 is released. The four other editions are:

• Starter;
• Home Basic;
• Enterprise; and
• Ultimate.

Beginning at the most basic option, the Windows 7 Starter edition is aimed at users with entry-level PCs and small notebook PCs, and will be only be able to run three applications concurrently.

The Home Basic edition will be released only in emerging markets and is aimed at users with entry-level requirements on a full-size value PC.

Windows XP will continue to be offered in emerging markets.

Home Premium is considered the recommended edition for most PC users, including owners of small notebook PCs (or netbooks), who wish to have the “full Windows experience”.

Microsoft has retained the Enterprise edition that features additional security, infrastructure and desktop management functionality required by this segment of the market.

This edition will be supported by Microsoft’s Software Assurance agreements, but will not be available at retail level or preinstalled by OEMs on new machines.

The top-of-the-range edition, Windows 7 Ultimate, will be retained for hardcore enthusiasts and non-enterprise customers who want enhanced security features such as BitLocker found in Windows 7 Enterprise edition.

“I have no doubt Henry will keep up the positive momentum we have achieved over the past four years,  continuing to grow the business as well as maintaining our longstanding customer and partner relationships”, says Rashid Wally. “I am happy to introduce him into the Lenovo family and assist him in the first four months of 2009, to ensure a smooth transition in the leadership of the organisation”

Says Henry Ferreira, “It is an exciting time for me to take over the reins and grow the business even further.”

Ferreira, a technology industry veteran, was previously with Microsoft Southern Africa. Prior to this he held various leadership positions at multinationals such as Nokia, Hewlett Packard and Compaq. He worked abroad for a number of years as VP Africa for Nokia Networks, based in London. In 2006 he returned to South Africa to take up the position of VP and managing director at Unysis Africa.