What’s the Future of Windows Mobile?
By Harry McCracken | Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 9:08 am
DigiTimes–the Taiwan-based news site whose scoops are always right except when they’re very, very wrong–has a story up today about Microsoft’s plans for its Windows Mobile phone OS. It says that that the company will formally announce Windows Mobile 6.5 on October 1st (hey, didn’t that already happen?), will add a new version with a better touch interface in February of next year, and will keep version 6.5 on the market at a low price even after it releases Windows Mobile 7.0 in the fourth quarter of next year.
It sounds complicated, but it also sounds plausible given how much catch-up Microsoft has to play to get back in the phone OS game. (It’s kind of staggering that it doesn’t plan to have Windows Mobile 7, its first full-blown iPhone OS rival, ready until around three and a half years after the first iPhone appeared.)
Anyhow, as a follow-up to yesterday’s BlackBerry T-Poll, let’s do one about Windows Mobile:
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Microsoft Mobile Dual Platform Strategy: Its Going To Meet With Disaster | TechDusts Says:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:41 pm[…] Technologizer: What’s the Future of Windows Mobile? by Harry McCracken […]
August 19th, 2009 at 11:01 am
On one hand, it’s so far behind the competition that it’s hard to see anything other than a painful slide for WM- but Microsoft are nothing if not tenacious, especially when it comes to a key market like mobile. It may not do well over the next year or two, but it’s not going away, unless MS buys up a competitor like Palm or RIM.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I have to raise few basic questions to Microsoft… Why Microsoft has to keep two platforms alive at the same time to compete against two different players rather than to kill the previous one? Why can’t they put their resources at one place rather than to channel it in different platforms? Why they are always behind the time and make their product look antiquated before release? This is happening with Zune which is competing against iPod and now the new victim which will suffer from it is Windows Mobile.
August 19th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
“Why Microsoft has to keep two platforms alive ”
Because they are a bunch of separate, uncoordinated divisions laying ad hoc plans as they go along.
August 19th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Everyone assumes that the battle for handheld supremacy has already been one by Apple. It hasn’t even begun.
Apple released the first iPhone just over two years ago. Seeing how much of the market has shifted to Apple in just two years, why do people automatically assume that, over the next two, five, or ten years there won’t be another massive shift to some other, better platform?
Windows Mobile isn’t starting from zero. Despite the lack of consumer mind-share, they have decent market-share in the business world. Microsoft could do something amazing with Mobile 7, continuing in the direction of the Zune HD, and have a really credible consumer platform in the next year or two. That means that, in just 3-5 years, they COULD be totally dominant in the consumer and business markets.
I’m not saying it WILL happen, just that it could. The consumer smartphone market is still young enough that there’s plenty of time for Microsoft (and Palm, Google, and RIM) to catch up.
August 19th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
“Windows Mobile isn’t starting from zero. ”
Well, they actually ARE starting from zero. Windows, WM and Zune are all different OS’s, with different SDK’s. Even if MSFT COULD put out a good SDK (for once), there bigger problem is lack of any sense of how to do a GUI.
August 20th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Read this: 5 reasons why Microsoft would not drop windows mobile:
http://yampblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/5-reasons-why-microsoft-will-not-drop.html