Microsoft's Mobile Misfortune

Companies avoid competition if they can and as much as they can. Publicly, they might praise the virtues of “the market”, but none of them wants to be in a fiercely competitive market. It makes for a tough life. Markets with few competitors are far easier to navigate and generally more rewarding. And it’s plain sailing, if you’re a monopoly.

Or is it?

The Perils of the Monopoly

The great advantage of the monopoly is also its fundamental weakness: It has no competition to impose discipline upon it or to measure itself against. The monopolist’s business model quickly becomes subverted to the overriding goal of preserving the monopoly. Many of the activities that serve to keep a company healthy are not pursued at all.

Costs and rewards are only marginally controlled by external market forces. The price of the product (or service) is not gauged in any way against perceptions of value. Innovation becomes unimportant. Marketing and sales skills atrophy. Arrogance becomes endemic; the belief is that “because we dominate the market we’re are supremely talented in everything we do.” All the weaknesses are viewed as strengths. And thus a monopoly contains the seed of its own destruction.

Microsoft’s (MSFT) major problems are due to astonishing success. The company did not just overshadow the competition, it stomped it into the ground. It forged a huge economic ecosystem which had considerable momentum, but now Microsoft is in difficulties in almost every area of its operation.

Microsoft’s Mobile Muddle

Put yourself in Microsoft’s position in 2000. It is at the pinnacle of its power. George W Bush has just been elected president and one of his first acts as president is to drop any further antitrust action against Microsoft. Netscape has been smashed, PC revenues are flowing, Microsoft is making gains in the server market, etc., etc.

Where are the opportunities for the new millennium? One is surely the mobile market, where mobile phones need to gains functionality, mobile phones and PDA are gradually converging and hundreds of millions of handsets are being sold every year. The mobile market was one of Microsoft’s primary targets.

Microsoft came to market in April 2000 with the Pocket PC 2000 environment, which grew up to become Windows Mobile. It was a stunted version of Windows CE 3.0 for PDAs and high end mobile phones. Microsoft immediately gained traction in the market on the basis of Windows familiarity.

So fast forward to 2009. Windows Mobile (currently in release 6.1) runs on Pocket PCs, smartphones, portable media devices and embedded computers in some cars. Microsoft sold about 18 million licenses in 2008 which looks like a very respectable figure, given that it’s greater than the number of iPhones that Apple (AAPL) sold last year.

That seems impressive until you realize that you are comparing apples with mozzarella cheese. As a smartphone OS, Windows Mobile is in decline. Its share of the smartphone market (worldwide) is down from 23% in 2004 to 12% last year. Microsoft licenses Windows Mobile to many of the major mobile phone manufacturers, but its mindshare is in decline. It has been jilted recently, with both Samsung and Sony Ericsson (SNE) dropping Windows Mobile for the Symbian OS in their flagship phones. Consequently, Microsoft’s main licensees are HTC, which makes 80% of Windows Mobile smartphones, and LG. But both of these companies also plan to sell Android phones.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, if it wanted to maintain its Windows monopoly, the mobile market was a “must win.”

Apples are Apples, But Mozzarella Is Only Part of the Pizza

In the PC market it was possible for decades to charge a high price for the OS, irrespective of the fact that maintaining and enhancing the OS was not a high cost activity. It was “money for nothing and the chicks for free.” The mobile phone market is entirely different. The OS is only one component of many and the manufacturers won’t pay an extra cent for any components, unless they have to. You can divide the smartphone OSes into 3 groups:

1. Proprietary OS used only by the owner: the iPhone OS, RIM’s (RIMM) Blackberry OS, Palm WebOS
2. OSes available at no charge to handset vendors: Symbian OS (owned by Nokia (NOK) but available for free), Linux and Google’s (GOOG) Android.
3. OSes available at a price: Windows Mobile.

What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing at all, unless you happen to be Microsoft. If you convert Microsoft’s market numbers into revenue, it is small beer. Microsoft charges somewhere between $8 to $15 per phone, according to Strategy Analytics, which means that Microsoft is probably earning no more than about $180 million from the mobile market. Compare that with the billions of dollars or revenue that Apple harvests and you have to wonder why Microsoft is even in this business. As Microsoft’s market share declines the costs of maintaining Windows Mobile may become unsustainable. Microsoft isn’t even in a position to compete with Apple at this point (see How and Why the iPhone Changes The Game.)

The Rearguard Action

Credible rumors have been circulating that Microsoft will introduce a phone-of-its-own this spring. It would surely collapse much of the Windows Mobile market, but there is also upside potential. Microsoft is looking enviously at Apple’s App Store and could build a similar capability to accompany its me-too-phone. Microsoft is unlikely to be successful with this (see The “Bootleg Apple” Strategy and Why It Will Fail) but it has little option but to pursue this course.

Here’s why:

Microsoft would not be fighting to preserve Windows Mobile, it would be fighting to preserve Windows on the PC. Unfortunately, ASUS is expected to introduce a Google Android netbook later this year. Nokia has been threatening to enter the PC market and if it does, most likely it will be a Symbian netbook device. Such devices will most likely run on ARM (ARMH) chips and may lower the netbook price points even further.

You can look at a netbook in two ways; as a shrunken PC or as an expanded smart phone. From where I’m sitting, it looks very much like an expanded smart phone. As soon as all these other OSes (Symbian, Google Android and OS X) join Linux and Windows in the netbook market, the Windows monopoly is broken. Just as Windows migrated onto the server, so will these OSes migrate up the food chain and onto the desktop.

Microsoft is now fighting a rearguard action.

Disclosure: No positions

Comments

[Surur:]

Hey Bloor,
Am I reading Seeking Alpha or Raging Fireball?

Your whole article is so filled with half-truths and supposition I am glad you hold no position, as you would likely have lost it all by now.

Mar 29 06:10 AM

[abatis:]

Surur, I think Bloor is on track here. Doesn't it seem like Microsoft lost track on a number of fronts (eg., windows mobile, vista). I have been a Windows Mobile fan and supporter from the beginning, but now you pick up a phone even as simple as the Samsung Instinct from Sprint and it will connect with MS Exchange update email and calendar etc. But like the iPhone it is has a great interface. Recently I testes a Verizon Omnia - nothing special at all just another clunky WM interface. Anyway, I think the market says it all with concerning Windows Mobile in the US flagship phone market.

Source: comScore Wireless E-Commerce Report

Wireless Carrier Site
Phone
Ranking by Sales Revenue
Ranking by Unit Sales

AT&T
Apple iPhone
Number 1 for revenue
Number 9 for units sold

Sprint
Samsung Instinct
#7 for revenue
#15 for units sold

T-Mobile
HTC G1
#1 for revenue
#8 for units sold

Verizon
Blackberry Storm
#1 for revenue
#8 for units sold

Where is Windows Mobile on the top producer list ? The WM development team has to get that interface fixed or truly WM is history.

Mar 29 09:22 AM

[Jeffrey Yang:]

All anlaysis concluding that Microsoft can only success as a monopoly, or Microsoft can not innovate, are incorrect. The real cause of Microsoft's decline is unmotivated employees. Many teams behave more like a union than "Mini Microsoft". When (if) Microsoft teams are energized again, as they did in the early 90', then Microsoft will become a dominant player again.

Mar 29 09:47 AM

[Surur:]

Is US really a flagship market? In Germany for example the Samsung Omnia outsells the iPhone.

Mar 29 09:48 AM

[abatis:]

Germany's total population is 82 million people. I think the US market is far larger and probably explains why Vodaphone and T-Mobile have stakes in US carriers. The real market growth is in the Asia market.

The Apple iPhone proves that even in a mature market innovation can generate terrific revenue. By the way I am trying to sell a Verizon Omnia over on my site classifieds. I went back to my i760 - better phone.

Mar 29 11:53 AM

[NetworkKing76:]

It is the perfect time for MSFT to show the fruits of their Danger acquisition. I'm thinking about a consumer smartphone (xPhone) device that merges their Zune and Live networks. Community eco-systems is what really makes the iPhone successful.

Music will be an added benefit on this device since the world owns iPods already. The real killer app is connected mobile gaming (Live network) over 3G/Wi-Fi & future 4G. They should make it so that you can play against friends in your local vicinity as well. The Live Network can be used to truly make money on the mobile platform like Apple makes 99 cents for each song. Let's not forget movies/sitcoms/etc.

Let the floodgates open...

Mar 29 12:40 PM

[User 385225:]

Microsoft's success in the early years was driven by the masses wanting to be "IBM compatible", not because it could produce anything user friendly or reliable. People are smarter than that now.

Microsoft today is an overloaded pickup truck, high-centered on a rock, spinning it's wheels and going nowhere.

Good article Robin!

Mar 29 02:22 PM

[mollytjm:]

About energizing microsoft employees...my guess is that when Apple was forced (because of a bad financial situation) to sell code to microsoft, which became the basis of Windows (though done badly), it did energize the employees. what do they have innovative to get all excited about now? ... boring commercials, Vista...a huge, bloated, trouble prone program and a leader who won't let his kids have an iPhone/iPod...they have to use a Zune...poor things:).
Microsoft never invented Windows...Apple did. Apple invented 'point and click' and 'right out of the box'. they're more porfitable than just about anyone and certainly more than any retail spcae and they're cash rich.
But most importantly, innovation and customer satisfaction are # 1 for them. They stand alone in this.
And all of this is even without the iPhone...with a user interface, screen and app store that's incredible.
long APPL

Mar 29 02:23 PM

[JamesApple:]

Correction: Asia suppresses individualism. Smartphones would not fare well in countries that puts down demonstrators in Tibet, attack and burn the Golden Temple. God I hate to bring technologies together with politics but they do affect each other. America the free is the only logical market for smartphones. Smartphones will become individual kingdoms capable of local intelligence and governance at the individual level. In fact, ' I am the smartphone' will be the reason of being for smartphones.

Mar 29 05:43 PM

[LongAAPL:]

I think of MSFT and I think of Steve Ballmer....
.
.
OK, anyone out there think "innovation" or "excitement" right after you read his name?

I Didn't think so.

Mar 29 05:57 PM

[JamesApple:]

Apple computers started with Apple DOS in 1978. The Apple Lisa came out in 1983 and her GUI was based on the Zerox Alto Parc effort. IBM PC started with PC DOS 1.1 in 1984, iBM gave the PC with a GUI called Topview but eventually Miceosoft Windows won the GUI war and IBM joined force with Miceosoft to develop the OS/2 which looks like Windows. OS/2 was a far superior than Wimdows but did't sell because IBM goofed their marketing. Microsoft stole OS/2 and came up with Windows 3.0, selling foe $50 a pop Windows went on and captured 95% of the desktop market and IBM fired the CEO John Akers. Since then the computer world plunged into a dark age with Microsoft making trillions of dollars thru marketing instead of technological prowess. I was saddened back then, and I am even sadder now seeing how America plunged from a technology Titan in 1984 into such a marketing and hype driven herd of idiots today. People don't even know nor care about computer power, therefore cannot see the usage and future paths of computing power, allowing marketing driven forces like the outsourcing foreign companies to erode America into technical poverty dying from starvation of knowledge and foresight into mindless marketplace followers. Orson Wells was perhaps saying 1984 was the end of the world.
I hope people can learn that the most powerful computer in the world today is the IBM Roadrunner. And the computers running all the advanced civilizations are running and depending on IBM mainframe computers. I pray that North Americans retake the vital importance of the mainframes, and harness the powers of the American mainframe computers to cure American business problems instead allowing America rot into demise remaining disillusioned by marketing fanatics and foreign oursourcing scams who don't have hearts in the best of interests of North Americans all cloaked in the name of short term coats and benefits which have brought our civilization to the brink of total destruction.

Mar 29 07:07 PM

[brewer:]

It's amazing to me that MS has any credibility whatsoever. People think Apple has loyal fans, and they do because they make great, truely innovative products, but IYAM, MS has a lock on irrational fanboys such as Surur and Yang.

Mar 29 07:32 PM

[winindthedust:]

HP can't be happy with M$'s new commercial. PC manufactures make very little on the low end, and here M$ goes and promotes their low end profitless loss leaders, and then presents themselves as the savior to the economy.

Truth be told, Windows is the most expensive component on a PC. Vista Ultimate compared to Leopard on price? Then publish the minimum specs to run the OS and other useful software.... now we're getting somewhere!

Netbooks have forced M$'s hand. All the manufacturers were selling Linux on netbooks to keep the price down.... M$ had to bring it's XP price down to almost nothing, to get the OEM's to play ball. With Windows 7, M$ is between a rock and hard place... they can't continue to give it away, like XP in the case of netbooks, yet, if it's all about price, how can they compete & make a profit in this market?

Indeed, Mobile phone manufacturers will enter the netbook market with their OS's; there is NO WAY M$ can compete with either Windows Mobile or Windows 7 in this area, unless they give it away, which they can't do.

Further, as is seen by their latest marketing, M$ has conceded the desk top OS battle to Apple. They aren't even attempting to compare OS's or software anymore... they are comparing the price of hardware, that they don't even make, to that of Apple, when everyone knows Apple doesn't make low end junk. By making the OS irrelevant to the purchase, they just further made their whole Windows business irrelevant to the consumer... very dangerous tactics that I think will backfire profoundly.

Last, what does the average person use a computer for today? Really....

Email & web browsing. Why do you need Windows?

Next in line would be:
Photos, Music, Movies... Everyone concedes, the cheapest, easiest way to to handle these items, is to buy a Mac. Easy, all in one, trouble free, no hidden costs. Apple competes on value here, not price.

After that, people do occasionally use a word processor & maybe spread sheet... Again, why do you need Windows? The Office monopoly is broken. Office runs on a Mac, but ironically, if M$ is competing on price, why in the world, do they sell THE most expensive productivity software available? Google Docs is free. Symphony is free. iWork isn't free, but it is dirt cheap and Apple is trying to tie additional must have services into the suite. Software as a Service and open source has killed the Office monopoly forever. iLife on a Mac has cornered the lifestyle applications, Internet Explorer is simply irrelevant, and come to think of it, so is Outlook. What do you have left? Businesses that have Windows only software. However, as alternatives become available, and businesses upgrade, M$ will no longer be able to survive on Windows alone. They NEED a new vehicle, and they know it. That's why they've been trying so hard to get into search, SAS, as well as hardware with Zune & Xbox. They have very little time to get it done, and they know it. The tight competition on the low end with Linux & new OS's, the monetizing of software service on the web & open source, and Apple owning the high end as well as a complete ecosystem of useful products- all combine to put Microsoft in a tight squeeze, indeed.

There is ONE way that I see that they can come out of this with a nice piece of the pie... but unless Balmer is reading this, and wants to get out his check book, I wouldn't share it for anything less then a million bucks.

Mar 29 07:50 PM

[JamesApple:]

There is really nothing new after all. Problem is our economy needs to find new ways to bring it back up before the bailout money runs out.

Mar 29 08:14 PM

[JamesApple:]

Mainframe is one genuine contender in saving the financial world. Start by evaluating and fixing the mountains of problem logs now, before the people who can fix them are gone, and yes, these people are Americans or Canadians only.

Mar 29 08:21 PM

[Murphy Mac:]

MS is easily distracted. They've been late for three parties:

Browsers.
Search n' Cloud.
Mobile

I think their late arrival in mobile will underscore their inability to innovate and mark the beginning of a steady decline.

NT was an incomplete copy of UNIX, (read Show Stopper) Zune is an uninspired copy of the iPod.

Nobody has ever used a significant percentage of the features MS forced us to buy in overpriced Office. Office isn't a must-have anymore - alternatives are aplenty. Windows is far less important than it was ten years ago.

If someone developed serious competition for Exchange MS would really be up against the ropes.

Mar 29 08:21 PM

[JamesApple:]

IBM is not necessary good in doing it's own mainframe work. And plus IBM outsourced too much without the necessary knowledge of it's own mainframe products and application platforms. The people who have these knowledge and skills are not numerous and they exist mainly in North America only, not offshore.

Mar 29 08:26 PM

[JamesApple:]

NT was really the Microsoft side of the OS/2 product after Microsoft and IBM separated. IBM kept the OS/2 label calling it OS/2 2.0 and Microsoft called their product NT starting with version 3.0.
Both products have the same root but Microsoft lured a lot of IBM programmers over to Microsoft when OS/2 failed in the marketplace. It was mainly the OS/2 programmers who made NT worked in multitasking etc.

Mar 29 08:38 PM

[Tom B:]

Help me with my math: zero (Zune) + zero (Danger) + zero (Live networks) = duh, I don't know?


On Mar 29 12:40 PM NetworkKing76 wrote:

> It is the perfect time for MSFT to show the fruits of their Danger
> acquisition. I'm thinking about a consumer smartphone (xPhone) device
> that merges their Zune and Live networks. Community eco-systems
> is what really makes the iPhone successful.
>
> Music will be an added benefit on this device since the world owns
> iPods already. The real killer app is connected mobile gaming (Live
> network) over 3G/Wi-Fi & future 4G. They should make it so that
> you can play against friends in your local vicinity as well. The
> Live Network can be used to truly make money on the mobile platform
> like Apple makes 99 cents for each song. Let's not forget movies/sitcoms/etc.
>
>
> Let the floodgates open...

Mar 29 11:18 PM

[Tom B:]

Just recently China launched a pdf-based malware bomb to spy on Tibet. The Tibetans are the most peaceful people on Earth and they have suffered under brutal Chinese occupation for 50 years, ignored by the world, because our fat-cat executives want to buy lead-tainted, toxic Chinese trinkets a few percent cheaper than they could get them if they used American labor, and gave jobs to Americans! The world is broken. So-called "free trade" screws Americans and oppresses people in poor countries.


On Mar 29 05:43 PM User 380765 wrote:

> Correction: Asia suppresses individualism. Smartphones would not
> fare well in countries that puts down demonstrators in Tibet, attack
> and burn the Golden Temple. God I hate to bring technologies together
> with politics but they do affect each other. America the free is
> the only logical market for smartphones. Smartphones will become
> individual kingdoms capable of local intelligence and governance
> at the individual level. In fact, ' I am the smartphone' will be
> the reason of being for smartphones.

Mar 29 11:24 PM

[Josh B Thom...:]

This is all good news for Microsoft. It will shake the culture that allowed the company to miss a few boats.

Mar 30 02:21 AM

[Tom B:]

Surely, if MSFT's BoD were smart enough to toss Ballmer on his keester, they'd have done so already. If they were smart enough to stop farming programming to the third world to save money, they'd have done so. If they knew how to put Windows on top of UNIX without breaking thousands of legacy DOS programs in Enterprise, their core market, they'd have done so. Heck, if they knew how to make a competitive MP3 player or a game console that didn't catch fire, they'd have done so.


On Mar 30 02:21 AM Josh B Thompson wrote:

> This is all good news for Microsoft. It will shake the culture that
> allowed the company to miss a few boats.

Mar 30 10:17 AM

[stefn:]

Not only can Apple harvest money off its hardware/software symbosis, it can attack the netbook market using its professional Mac OS or its consumer iPhone OS. Yes, I know they are versions of OS X; it's the user interface that distinguishes the market sectors. Or Apple can deploy (don't think for a moment it isn't already developed) an intermediate version of OS X, making the most of both their OSes.

Game over: Jobs 2; Balmer 0.

Mar 30 11:54 AM

[Klaus:]

Micorsoft just messed up everything good it had.
too many product lines and each and everyone incompatible with the other (Win32 and WinCE, for example, have less in common than the same 'Windows' name suggests). As a senior software developer, it is increasingly difficult to explain why picking a microsoft technology over an apple/bsd/linux/google... should be a better option. Yet I think it will take another decade to finally bury that ugly monster microsoft has become.

bye,
Klaus

Mar 30 11:55 AM

[Synthmeister:]

You hit the nail on the head. Apple has figured out, in less than two years, how to make money on every aspect of the cell phone business. The hardware, the apps, the subscriptions and the peripherals and even a retail cut from their network of Apple stores! Not to mention iTunes movies, music and TV shows available directly on the iPhone. Second, the iPod touch effectively almost doubles their iPhone user base (13 million iPod touches plus 17 million iPhones so far) with little or no added development costs.

Apple may or may not have the best cellphone out there but it doesn't matter because no other cell phone player can make money off of every aspect of the business like Apple can.

Meanwhile MS is stuck selling $8 to $15 licenses per cell phone.

That's why Apple made around $4 billion last year on the iPhone while MS made less than $300 million.

Mar 30 12:04 PM

[TEEM:]

A baised article from MSFT hater! To this write it appears that MSFT is in similar position as AIG!

Crapola!

Apr 01 08:01 PM

[JamesApple:]

Computers work on bits. Operating systems work on machine insturction sets that are based in binary combinations, namely 4-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024.... machine instructions that forms the computer's software and hardware platform.
Apple II was a 8-bit machine, IBM PC was a 16 then 32-bit machine. Mac is a 32-bit machine. What does all these n-bit mean to us? well, it means two things: machine instructions, and size of the memory of the machine. Apple II could only have a maximum of 64 meg of RAM, PC and Mac can only have a maximum of 2 gig of RAM, all the RAM over these limits are useless to the machine. The reason why we are so frurstrated is we are still limited to 2 gig of RAM in whatever machine we are using, whether it is a Windows or Mac machine, they are both 32-bit machines. If we have 128-bit or 512-bit machines, our machines can regularly perform machine instructions that can calculate 100% accurate weather forecasts, and perfect stock market conditions, and use RAM in the petabytes. The reason why we do not have these genuinely powerful machines is ......... marketing, either Windows or Mac. Can the iPhone be a 128-bit machine please? the day the iPhone is a 512-bit machine I will start writing my 100% accurate Dow Jones prediction program. Unfortunately, Linux is in the same boat. I wonder if some enterprising people are going to start designing mass machines of 512-bit architecture. Samsung, perhaps? I hope it would be Apple.

Apr 05 06:08 PM

[Ender:]

You seem to be a little confused between processor and operating system, you are blurring the line between them. Even an 8bit CPU is capable of performing 128bit calculations.

The physical limitation on a 32bit Windows operating system when it comes to RAM is about 3.2GB as they reserve some of the space for their own use when technically a 32bit OS can access4GB of RAM.

The latest OS's are coming out with 64bit capabilities which is beyond what a processor is technically capable of in most cases. The basic general registers in the CPU's are still 32bit but this does not limit them to 32bit operations. 64bit operations can be carried out in a very efficient manner.

There have been 128but Intel machines for many years but you just don't see them in the home market yet. They are very powerful but ultimately not suited for work in the home arena.

A 128bit iPhone is probably not even possible at this point, the form factor of the CPU and the overall power consumption would not allow it. The holy grail of mobile technology is the battery, once we have a cell that doesn't die in a few hours we can very easily add a 128bit processor to a BlackBerrry or iPhone. until then, it isn't going to happen.


On Apr 05 06:08 PM JamesApple wrote:

> Computers work on bits. Operating systems work on machine insturction
> sets that are based in binary combinations, namely 4-bit, 8-bit,
> 16-bit, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024.... machine instructions that
> forms the computer's software and hardware platform.
> Apple II was a 8-bit machine, IBM PC was a 16 then 32-bit machine.
> Mac is a 32-bit machine. What does all these n-bit mean to us? well,
> it means two things: machine instructions, and size of the memory
> of the machine. Apple II could only have a maximum of 64 meg of RAM,
> PC and Mac can only have a maximum of 2 gig of RAM, all the RAM over
> these limits are useless to the machine. The reason why we are so
> frurstrated is we are still limited to 2 gig of RAM in whatever machine
> we are using, whether it is a Windows or Mac machine, they are both
> 32-bit machines. If we have 128-bit or 512-bit machines, our machines
> can regularly perform machine instructions that can calculate 100%
> accurate weather forecasts, and perfect stock market conditions,
> and use RAM in the petabytes. The reason why we do not have these
> genuinely powerful machines is ......... marketing, either Windows
> or Mac. Can the iPhone be a 128-bit machine please? the day the iPhone
> is a 512-bit machine I will start writing my 100% accurate Dow Jones
> prediction program. Unfortunately, Linux is in the same boat. I wonder
> if some enterprising people are going to start designing mass machines
> of 512-bit architecture. Samsung, perhaps? I hope it would be Apple.

Apr 06 04:04 PM

[JamesApple:]

Processors are meant to be powerful. For smartphones to be truly smart they have to have the local smarts built into the device itself with sufficient local memory storing analytical data that can be sliced and diced which require astronomical processing power. Apple is the only one forging in this right direction. Being mobile does not necessarily mean being totally battery dependent, like cars that can refill at gas stations, there is no apparent reason why the iPhone cannot shorten it's recharging time to 1 minute or less. Servers will always be built and sold for crunching numbers, the age of using client devices for the user interface is over. iPhone proves that it is no longer just another pretty face, but a fully capable work and play station built on a 4-tier architecture (user interface, logic, data, collaboration) capable of anything independently, and as part of the groups. Smartphones are not cellphones the way the Europeans and Asians think, Smartphones are not UI-savvy eMail, contact, addresses, to do list, or PC replacements, Smartphone is the first step into the realm of a thinking machine, with very high powered processor, huge local memory, ability to work by itself, and to collaborate as part of a community.

Apr 11 11:00 AM