New IDC research: IDC: European Mobile Phone Market in 3Q06

Western European total Mobile Phone Vendor Shares are:
Nokia - 35%
Samsung - 17%
Motorola - 13.5%
Sony Ericsson - 13.4%

In absolute numbers they are:
Nokia - 15.5M units
Samsung - 7.4M units
Motorola - 5.9M units
Sony Ericsson - 5.9M units

The amazing growth was showed by SonyEricsson and it was +29%.
A very strong showing for Sony Ericsson, due to its Walkman line and the K800/K790i, meant the vendor challenged Motorola for third position, shipping under 10,000 units less than Motorola despite the lack of an extensive entry-level portfolio. 3Q06 also saw Sony Ericsson begin to rebuild its converged device presence following the launch of the M600, and with the long awaited P990 and W950 launching in the final quarter, IDC expects a substantial sell in for 4Q06 and into 2007, particularly given the consumer orientation of the W950.

New PC Suite 6.82 with firmware updater available

Nokia has released a new version of PC Suite application. The updated version 6.82, adds stability fixes to the backup and restore functionality, improves Nokia Music Manager, adds fluency in information exchange with Microsoft applications (auch as Windows Media Player 11) and integrates Nokia Software (actually firmware) Updater, which allows to download and update phone's firmware from PC.

PC system requirements for version 6.82

• Available hard disk space: 200 MB (file size approx 25 MB)


• Operating system:
  • Windows 2000 (service pack 4)
  
  
  • Windows XP (Professional or Home Edition) (service pack 1 or service pack 2)
  • Windows XP Professional x64 edition
• Connection methods: USB cable, infrared, or Bluetooth


• Supported Bluetooth software (Bluetooth stacks):
  • Microsoft Windows XP Bluetooth (included in XP SP2)
  
  
  • Toshiba Bluetooth stack for Windows XP/2000 v 4.0
  
  
  • WIDCOMM BTW 1.4, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0
  
  
  • IVT BlueSoleil Bluetooth stack for Windows XP/2000, driver version 1.6.1.4

Now Skype on Symbian mobile phone!

The 3 Group a division of Hutchison Whampoa Limited are launching the X-Series Symbian phones (Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson W950) including software to make Skype calls!These X-Series applications include:

• Skype (Voice and IM)


• Skype to Skype calls will be free on 3 mobiles.


• Google Search and services


• Mobile Browsing


• Sling Player


• Orb (place shifting content from your PC)


• Yahoo and MSN IM


• Yahoo Service through Yahoo Go!

T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl 8100

T-Mobile has presented the exclusive BlackBerry® Pearl 8100. This phone makes staying connected via e-mail to friends, family and life as easy as calling. The BlackBerry Pearl is a full-featured quad-band world phone, with 1.3 megapixel camera, real Web browser, Bluetooth® 2.0 connectivity, and a media player with extra storage.