Microsoft Gulf today announced the start of an exciting competition with the official launch of the MEA (Middle East & Africa) Windows Phone 7 Challenge in the region. Held in the region for the first time, the MEA Windows Phone 7 Challenge is a student technology contest which has been conceived to attract entries from students across the Middle East and Africa region to develop Windows Phone 7 compatible applications.

As part of this competition, contestants need to send innovative contest entries based on Microsoft Windows Phone technologies that address the theme: Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems. This will involve the creation of an original XAP Application package in Silverlight or XNA Game Studio.
“With opportunities like MEA Phone 7 challenge, you can go out and test yourself, your potential and your ability. This will motivate you to do more and more. For young students, it’s a cool platform to get your momentum going” said Amir Ali Jivani, MEA Phone 7 Challenge Round 1 Winner.

The Contest is split into five Rounds with the fifth round being the final round to select the eventual winner. The last date for contest entries is on April 20th 2011. A panel of qualified judges with knowledge and experience in software development will review all eligible entries received and select the winning teams based upon criteria revolving around originality and innovation, Visual XAP Appeal, Consumer XAP Appeal and unique mobile-oriented features.

According to Amintas Neto, MEA Academic Relations Lead., “ The MEA Windows Phone 7 challenge is a wonderful opportunity for talented students from across the region who can use this competition as a

The Omnia W, the first Samsung phone using Windows Phone Mango, will get more marketing support under this deal.
(Credit: Samsung)

Microsoft and Samsung Electronics said today that they had struck a cross-licensing agreement, avoiding the potential litigation that has plagued most technology companies.

Under the deal, Samsung has agreed to pay Microsoft royalties for technology used in its Android-based tablets and handsets. In addition, the companies agreed to work together to further develop and market Windows Phone devices.

The deal represents a rare example of compromise in an industry where lawyers have been the preferred weapon. Over the past few years, Microsoft has been more aggressive in extracting licensing agreements with electronic manufacturers using any kind of smartphone technology. It previously struck a similar deal with HTC.

Add caption

Aiming to take internet users’ online experience to the next level, wi-tribe has partnered with Microsoft to promote its faster and lighter browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), said a statement issued wi-tribe today.

This is another industry-first by wi-tribe, adding more value to their customers’ online experience.
Through this partnership, wi-tribe will ensure easy availability of one of the most secure, widely deployed and easy-to-use web browsers for its customers, which is sure to enhance their online experience by enabling the latest, media-rich websites.

IE9 is a highly advanced browser that supports HTML5, and promises to deliver a seamless and secure internet browsing experience, empowered by a robust set of built-in security and privacy features.

Microsft’s Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer revealed that company has sold some 400 million windows 7 license worldwide. Even then almost one half to two third of world’s personal computers are using Windows XP – which Microsoft is planning to not to support after 2014.

Ballmer told this at Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angles.

Support for Microsoft XP will end on April 8, 2014 and  security patches and hotfixes for all versions of Windows XP will no longer be available after this date.

In a blog post, Microsoft said:

    Windows XP had an amazing run and millions of PC users are grateful for it. But it’s time to move on. Two reasons:

    1) Extended support for Windows XP is running out in less than 1000 days

    2) there’s an OS out there that’s much better than Windows XP.

Mango By Windows

Microsoft execs previewed the next version of Windows Phone 7, a release known as “Mango,” and the big theme is setting up the first Nokia production phones powered by the software giant.

Gallery: Microsoft goes deeper inside Windows 7

Sure, Microsoft talked about 500 new features, but as Mary Jo Foley noted we only got a peek at a select few. But if you read between the lines it’s clear that Mango is a set-up for Microsoft’s Nokia partnership. To wit:

    * Mango phones will be available in the fall. Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices are expected late this year.
    * Microsoft noted that Mango would support multiple languages. How many? Try Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish. It just so happens that Nokia is strong in most of those regions with those languages.
    * New Windows Phone Marketplaces will open up around the world and China, Israel and Luxembourg will take app submission in those locales today.

A new feature of the Microsoft Knowledge Base system is called "Fix it live". Basically its a service from Microsoft that will attempt to fix certain problems outlined in the knowledge base articles.

Here is excerpt from the site: "Have you ever come across a Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article or been presented with a Windows Error Reporting (WER) solution and asked yourself, why can't Microsoft just fix this for me? Today KB articles and WER solutions provide you with a list of steps that can be followed to resolve your issue. However, tomorrow looks much different and we hope it helps ...