BARCELONA — What a difference a year makes. Maybe.

Nokia was in dire straights this time last year. Having just announced a nearly universal reset of its business and betting its future on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, the company’s future was bleak but at least it had a new plan and operating system that could turn back the tide.

Today, Nokia continues to talk about its strategy and deep partnership with Microsoft, but only one of the two devices introduced here at Mobile World Congress are running on Microsoft’s OS. The other device is the 808 PureView, which features a hard-to-fathom 41-megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss optics and Nokia’s pixel over-sampling technology. The 808 PureView runs on the latest version of Symbian, a software with a future so narrow that Nokia dumped it (and 3,000 related employees) on Accenture last April. Read more

One of the more positive developments to hit the mobile industry of late is the immense media exposure being placed on the working conditions of those who build the devices that delight us and infuriate us. Media interest in this topic has been gaining for years, but it seems to have hit a new crescendo in the last couple months.

Device makers of every kind operate with virtual impunity. And yet we hear stories of mass suicides, debilitating ailments and poisoning — all a direct result of building the products we can’t get enough of. Not only has it become more difficult for journalists and consumers to ignore this reality, but also Apple and hopefully many companies to come. We all know that buying products built in China and other countries that treat millions of workers like modern-day slaves comes at a price that lingers well beyond the cash register. We vote with our pocketbooks, the saying goes, and this is what our money supports. Read more

**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