With the holidays and the year end approaching, many anticipated the business technology online chatter to remain relatively quiet this week. Enter Microsoft, the federal government and any analyst concerned about security in the mobile workforce, and the industry has plenty to discuss over eggnog and fruitcake this weekend.
Microsoft sneakily revealed its sales numbers for Windows Phone 7 on Tuesday, which has only been on the market since October. Achim Berg, the company's vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phone, said manufacturers have sold more than 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices to retailers and wireless carriers.
Suspiciously, Berg leaked that information in an internal interview with the Microsoft News Center on December 21. On that same day, online conversations about Windows Phone 7 hit record highs for December. While it is unclear whether the company intentionally let the information slip in an effort to attract more attention to the device, it definitely worked.
The future of mobile technology, however, is Microsoft's bigger concern. Yesterday, anonymous sources reportedly told Bloomberg that Microsoft will unveil plans to align its Windows 8 operating system with ARM Holdings' notorious mobile technology at next month's Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. If the sources are correct, this will mark the first time a PC-based Windows operating system is compatible with mobile devices, throwing Microsoft into tablet competition with Apple. Prior to the report, the online conversation about Microsoft and ARM was basically nonexistent. Since, it's been difficult to ignore.
As more tech giants enter the competitive mobile technology market, security is likely to move to the forefront of their concerns. AdaptiveMobile released its study on mobile malware late last week, revealing a 33 percent increase in smartphone infections in 2010. With a growing number of mobile users, the firm warned against an increasing amount of complex mobile malware strains in 2011. The industry caught on this week, with a sudden jump in mobile malware searches coming days after the study was released.
The emergence of new web threats has put overall security on the priority list of both public and private sector tech executives. Responding to the new front of the cyber war, searches for "denial of service attack" jumped significantly this week. After WikiLeaks was targeted with a denial of service attack earlier this month, the trend spread like wildfire throughout the political cyber front. Since then, reported DDoS attacks have targeted MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, Spamhaus and even a number of human rights organizations.
While these major corporations continue to work with the federal government to build a case against WikiLeaks, others are more concerned about the government's recent net neutrality proposal. After the Federal Communications Commission released its groundwork for net neutrality on Tuesday, related online conversations exploded, with the topic gaining significant attention for the first time this month. The announcement has sparked political and commercial debate, with internet service providers and free speech advocates just as likely to debate net neutrality as Republicans and Democrats.
With the new year just around the corner, many of these concerns and expectations are soon to become reality in the business technology industry. Keep listening to the conversation to see what could happen next.
