We’re exactly one week away from the start of Mobile World Congress, the wireless industry’s largest tradeshow, and one thing that’s definitely going to be on everyone’s mind is Microsoft. If they don’t execute brilliantly this year on Windows 8, as well as Windows Phone 8 Apollo, then they better brace themselves because the next few years are going to be bumpy. Now part of Microsoft’s push to become relevant again, and by relevant we mean loved and admired by people working in the tech press, is going to center around increasing their market share. Today Windows Phone is on less than 2 out of every 100 phones sold. Why? Because it’s a new platform, so people are unfamiliar with it, but also because Nokia has lost mind share in many of the markets where it was once hugely popular. That being said, Nokia is still seen as a major and respected brand in several emerging economies, but people living in those countries can’t afford a 400 Euro smartphone. That’s where Tango comes in, an upcoming version of Windows Phone that’s meant to be run on low end hardware.
According to WPDang we’re going to see Tango smartphones landing on Chinese store shelves as early as next month. And best of all they’re going to be from not just Nokia, but HTC, LG, and ZTE as well. The Chinese version of Tango is going to strip out support for XBOX Live, Facebook, and Twitter, and instead integrate the locally relevant services. One key concession Microsoft has made in China is to change the search engine that’s brought up when you hit the hardware search button. In America, Europe, and other parts of Asia, when you click search you get Bing. In China it’s going to be Baidu.
This begs the question, why hasn’t anyone hacked Mango to pull up Google? All kidding aside, will Windows Phone 8 let people finally pick the search engine and services they want to integrate?
[Via: The Verge]