**As published in RCR Wireless News**

SANTA MONICA, CALIF. – For all the momentum Google’s Android operating system is enjoying of late, there are some key areas that many executives believe Apple has it beat on with the iPhone OS. These differentiating features – billing, user interface, development ease and scale (for at least the time being) — are nothing to scoff at either.

Now, with the iPad already surpassing 1 million units sold in as many months, there’s a reinvigorated sense of interest and easy-to-understand business reasons for placing more focus and investment in Apple’s mobile flavor.

A crowded panel of eight representing big media and publishers at Digital Hollywood yesterday spent considerable time heaping praise and wonder on Apple’s latest gadget. Later on, the OS offerings from BlackBerry, Google, Microsoft and HP-Palm got their fair shake, but Apple kept cropping up as the main draw. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – At Mobile World Congress today, Microsoft finally offered an entirely new look and feel for its mobile operating system in Windows Phone 7 Series.

Presented as a complete reboot with no obvious remnants from the existing Windows Mobile operating systems (except for that “Start” button), Microsoft has finally delivered what almost every other competitor has already done to varying degrees of success: an answer to Apple’s iPhone.

When Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage this morning, his near-feverish excitement almost matched some of those who regularly clapped and yelped gleefully in the standing-room-only crowd. Read more