fbpx

LG backs away from Windows Phone and LG Cloud

Over the past year, LG Mobile seemed to have struggled a bit in competing with other big names in the mobile phone industry. In comparison to the other South Korean company Samsung, we can’t help but notice that LG seemed to be a bit left behind in terms of global market share. In an attempt to regain market strength, LG recently announced two major decisions that will hopefully shape things up for the better in the future.

The first of these decisions was to forgo Windows Phone operated LG devices for now. The company seemed to have shied away from pursuing their 2009 plans of releasing 26 WP handsets this year. Even with all the recent talks about Lumia devices around the world, LG thinks that Microsoft still has a long way to go to break the duopoly of Android and iOS in the market. Based from many market analysts, even with all the hype going for Lumia phones, the OS still wasn’t able to reach 5% of total global market share. Thus rather than gambling their fortune on another Windows Phone device that will most likely not give them substantial profits, the company instead just wants to focus on what worked for them in the past, and that is manufacturing Android devices. But LG is not totally closing its doors to Microsoft and their mobile OS. Depending on how much improvement the Windows Phone 8 can bring to the table and how much it can improve in terms of market shares, LG might still reconsider their decision.

With the recent release of Google drive and improvements on its 25GB competitor SkyDrive, LG wants to jump in the cloud service wagon with their very own LG Cloud. Just days before the launch of their neighboring competitor’s Samsung S-Cloud, LG launched the beta version of LG Cloud that offers free 5GB storage and a whopping 50GB for LG Smart TV and Smartphone users for the first six months. LG mentioned that they will eventually formulate a pay scheme for future paid upgrades. But for now, LG users can take advantage of huge cloud space without any fee. Another great feature of this beta version is that it already has folder sync right from the get go and support for Windows Client. This cloud storage is accessible on LG Smart TVs with NetCast 2.0 and higher and LG Smartphones with Android Froyo and higher. The LG Cloud beta is only currently available in South Korea and US. We’ll keep you posted once it is locally available.

LG has certainly made some hard rethinking about their products and these recent decisions surely looks promising. Not wanting to repeat their mistakes with the previous WP devices that they’ve manufactured, we think that their decision to step away from the whole Windows Phone craze for now and center their attention to Android is really a good decision, especially now that Android Jellybean is just around the corner. Only time will tell if LG will still manufacture another handset with WP OS, but what is certain for now is bringing their A-game with their LG Cloud. There is no doubt that this is one of the largest, if not the largest free cloud service in the market today. We hope that LG wouldn’t just stop here and that they’d come up with a competitive pricing plan for users to avail. We’re eager to see how these decisions will benefit LG as a company in the future as they go up against other smartphone manufacturers.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 985 other subscribers
Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

19 Responses

  1. Avatar for Rich Rich says:

    LG’s phone designs are just plain ugly, that’s why they don’t wanna challenge Nokia.

    Windows Phone OS is just too elegant-looking to just be running on an LG ugly-phone.

  2. Avatar for showbiz showbiz says:

    Thanks for the info. Perhaps LG cannot cope if focusing on both android and Windows platform. That is why as of the moment they focus on the former.

  3. Avatar for unggoy unggoy says:

    Di na naman updated entries dito. -_-

    “…Update, May 1: LG has officially denied all speculations of dropping the Windows Phone OS. The company may be focusing on Android OS right now, but it is still doing R&D on WP. Also “Regardless of which OS, LG is committed to offering consumers as wide a choice as possible”, as the official statement goes…”

    -gsmarena

  4. Avatar for Techgazine Techgazine says:

    Well, business is still a company’s first priority.

  5. Avatar for blaze blaze says:

    good move lg.. i still do not think wp got what it takes. if only nokia has android they might not have lost their 14 year reign.

  6. Avatar for kikokix kikokix says:

    Most of their handset designs are ugly.

  7. Avatar for Benchmark Benchmark says:

    well i don’t know if my understanding is right but is it really viable, I mean is it really good to have a cloud thingy here in PH if our internet connection and data connects are crap? Well yeah, there are few good connections out there but overall, is it really good? Is it not having a cloud storage, still needs an internet access…? What’s the use of these storage if our net is soooooo slow? I find it not practical (for now).

    IMHO :)

    • Avatar for Louie Louie says:

      I feel you on this one. This is probably useful for long term safe keeping. But if you’re constantly accessing these contents (save for smaller files), it’ll surely demand high speed internet.

  8. Avatar for Kevin Kevin says:

    Can’t blame LG. It’s purely a business decision they have to stop hemorrhaging or else. And they saw the numbers in the sales charts wherein Windows Phones aren’t doing great. If you were in LG’s shoes, I think you’d do the same thing.

  9. Avatar for Carl Bytes Carl Bytes says:

    May be they will change their mind when Apollo comes.

  10. Avatar for purity purity says:

    Feeling the pressure from the mighty Nokia. They know they can’t compete with the Finnish behemoth.

    • Avatar for Jim Jim says:

      Really? Mighty Nokia? You must not have been updated with the news. Nokia is losing a lot now. Samsung is already the largest mobile phone manufacturer today, thanks to Android. It’s a move from LG because they think Windows phones are not profitable, unlike what Nokia did.

    • Avatar for waku waku says:

      @Jim
      Samsung may be largest phone manufacturer in the world now, but take a look on the build quality of their devices — plasticky and cheap. Even their flagship phone feels cheap because it’s usually made of plastic. That’s the reason why they’re the largest phone manufacturer now because the more they produce phones, the cheaper the material they use on it.

    • Avatar for cnet cnet says:

      @waku
      And how do you want their phones built?
      Wood? Glass? Jelly? Gold?
      And their flagship phone is not the Galaxy Y.
      Windows Phone sucks by the way.

    • Avatar for iHATE iHATE says:

      @cnet

      android sucks even more!

    • Avatar for troy troy says:

      Huwag niyo pansinin yang si cnet. Resident android fantard yan dito.

    • Avatar for cnet cnet says:

      @troy
      Tell me exactly who are you talking at?
      Ikaw ang hindi napapansin, hindi ako.
      @iHate
      Pardon, I dont have time for you.

  11. Avatar for tangina this tangina this says:

    LG didnt give them a chance, and now they are backing away from WP7s platform. Well i hope LG android platform dies.

Leave a Reply
JOIN OUR TELEGRAM DISCUSSION

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *