If CTIA is anything like Mobile World Congress, application stores will be all the rage yet again. Microsoft today unveiled more details around Windows Marketplace for Mobile, its application store response to Apple and Android, as well as its Windows Mobile 6.5 platform. The company is focusing on personalizing the mobile handset as a fashion accessory, playing up its social networking features and gaining the support of the developer community. (more…)

Motorola today introduced the Evoke QA4, a touch-screen slider phone using virtualization technology based on Open Kernel Labs’ OKL4 embedded hypervisor to run both Linux and another real-time OS (RTOS) on a single processor. OK Labs is calling it the world’s first mobile handset that can run multiple operating systems simultaneously, potentially – although not yet confirmed by Motorola – including Android as the Linux OS. (more…)

Motorola will showcase its long-term evolution (LTE) base station at CTIA Wireless, and while the product itself isn’t new—it’s the same kit it debuted at Mobile World Congress and is trialing in Europe—the location of the showcase is: the roof of Las Vegas Convention Center. Moto will be conducting a live trial of LTE in Las Vegas at the show, including drive-around demos of HD video streaming. (more…)

Starent Networks today announced a host of in-line services it is embedding in its long-term evolution (LTE) packet core platform, which will ultimately allow operators to optimize network traffic for specific customers, applications and network conditions as well as implement detailed billing schemes to individual subscribers. (more…)

Nokia, accustomed to selling in the open channel in North America, today announced it will make the Nokia E71x available in the United States through AT&T. The carrier will offer a version of its globally popular E71 smartphone based on Symbian’s S60 operating system. The partnership marks the first time the handset manufacturer will ship a carrier-branded, qwerty-keyboard smartphone to the U.S. market, since it launched the E62 with Cingular in 2006. (more…)

Nokia Siemens Networks will be going after a new target at CTIA Wireless this year, the CDMA operator. While traditionally a supplier to the GSM ranks, NSN sees a new opportunity with long-term evolution to jump across the traditional technology divide, and at the show will be demonstrating different LTE-CDMA convergence solutions to CDMA operators. (more…)

The four largest U.S. wireless carriers – Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile – today agreed to incorporate their mobile marketing guidelines with the Mobile Marketing Association’s best practices. By working together for consistent campaigns, the MMA believes this initiative will bring upwards of $200 million in annual cost savings, while also speeding time to market for mobile campaigns and improving customer satisfaction with the ads they are receiving. (more…)

The United States recently knocked the UK out of its number one spot in mobile browsing and buying, but it’s not the attention-stealing iPhone that’s driving the growth. Apple’s iPhone did not even make the top 20 list of most popular phones for browsing and buying content on the mobile Web worldwide, according to Bango statistics released in advance of CTIA. Based on Bango’s February calculations, the Nokia 3110c is number one, followed by the Samsung M800 and the Nokia 6300. The iPhone comes in at 24. (more…)

Go2 Media, formed in 2007 from the merger of wireless local content providers go2 and 80108, got its start in the WAP yellow pages business. Since the merger, the company has evolved to focus on all aspects of mobile marketing and advertising and is now it is turning its attention to the competitive market for application stores, according to CEO Dan Smith. (more…)

Acme Packet is teaming up with several femtocell vendors to make their case for tomorrow’s femtocell today. At CTIA Wireless, Acme Packet will be demonstrating interoperability between its session border controllers and security gateways and AirWalk Communications and Ubiquisys’ CDMA and UMTS femtocells as well as Tatara System’s IMS convergence server. Their aim is to prove that next-generation session initiation protocol (SIP)-based femto solutions aren’t platforms for the far off future, but can be implemented today. (more…)