Microsoft: iPhone Envy Is Starting to Show 11 comments
Larry Dignan
From ZDNet:
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
Microsoft (MSFT) said it will sell nearly 20 million Windows Mobile licenses in a letter designed to rally its smartphone partners. It’s no coincidence that the pep talk comes just a few days before these the likely launch of Apple’s (AAPL) 3G iPhone.
Todd Bishop has the Windows Mobile pep talk, which is designed to steal a little iPhone thunder. Charles Cooper says it’s quite a salute from Microsoft – perhaps the one-finger variety.
Who can blame Microsoft? Apple will have all the buzz come Monday when CEO Steve Jobs delivers his latest sermon at WWDC (previews). And Windows Mobile developers will feel uncool–almost like the Vista guy in the Apple commercials.
Among the key excerpts from Andy Lees, senior vice president of Microsoft’s mobile business:
This fiscal year we will sell nearly 20 million Windows Mobile smartphone licenses, making Windows Mobile one of the most widely used smartphone software platforms in the world. We also sold more in the previous four quarters than RIM, and in the last quarter our year-over-year unit growth alone was greater than sales of Apple’s iPhone.
Translation: Windows Mobile has traction. Don’t go chasing the shiny new object. And oh by the way we thought we’d top 20 million licenses.
To our 50 handset makers building phones with our software, thank you. With your help, we give Windows Mobile customers nearly 150 different phone choices — from phones with full keyboards to brilliant touch screens to convenient flip phones — with rich email, picture and music experiences. You’ve delivered Windows Mobile phones with features like GPS, 3+ megapixel cameras, and voice activation — features that other operating systems have been slow to deliver.
Translation: Boy it irks us that Apple generates all this iPhone buzz.
To all our developer partners who continue to innovate and bring new experiences to people and businesses every day, thank you. It is because of you that our Windows Mobile customers have the richest application catalog to choose from — over 18,000 applications to help pursue their hobbies, navigate life and work more efficiently. We’re happy to offer some of these applications through the Windows Mobile Owners Circle and provide you the flexibility to deliver them to your customers in whatever way makes sense. Today, more and more competitors are jumping into the smartphone market or announcing upgrades, with features we delivered to customers years ago…
Translation: We interrupt Apple’s App Store announcement to thump our chests about our own apps.
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largestSee all
increase in followers
in the last 7 days
Fastest Climbers » -
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most active
Instabloggers.-
1
TraderMark
-
2
Don Dion
-
3
Cliff Wachtel
-
4
Mike Havrilla
-
5
James Quinn
Top Instabloggers » -
1
-
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
This article has 11 comments:
It always amazes me when I hear ANYBODY telling me how great MS and its products are - after over 20 years in computing, and having dealt with MS from 3.0 forward in every capacity from end-user to sys admin, I can state with complete confidence that MS is not even in Apple's league - and never was, but especially since the advent of OS X.
As MS loses market share to Apple AND Linux, I am sure their attempts to regain their former status will continue - but unless they change their entire model, they will continue to be unsuccessful...
Apple and Microsoft will have varied strategies but should iPhone gain dominance it will actually be good for Microsoft, as counter-intuitive as that may sound.
Ultimately, I believe the market will be reduced to Google, Microsoft and Apple. The reason is--as Bill Gates himself put it--these are the only three companies that share the core software DNA. I am also slightly skeptical of Google's Android platform but given that it is Google and they are using a powerful Linux core the ingredients seem favorable though the overall recipe may not seem be compelling.
If the iPhone can make a sizable dent in the Smart Phone market, the current phone makers will look to competitive offerings and the next best choice is Windows Mobile, and that is why the iPhone is good for Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile just like the OS X for the iPhone is an actual Operating System intertwined with the roadmap of it's Desktop counter part (Windows XP/Vista) and that is a moat Apple and Microsoft enjoy exclusively. Also, Windows Mobile in the face of renewed competition from Apple will dedicate more resources and minds to this segment.
In the long run Microsoft will have to overcome some big obstacles which it could not with the Zune. Namely, the lack of vertical integration will mean the end product will not be as harmonious as the iPhone (services cloud, hardware, software, applications, desktop integration and interoperability) and that is something they will soon need to remedy. They really need to look beyond Windows Media Player and Outlook and actually come out with an iTunes like software that provides a centralized management interface for the end consumer (the corporate sphere would be better off using Outlook).
Microsoft's weakness, I believe, comes from it's greatest strength. They are a platforms company and want Windows Mobile to have the same dominance in the mobile phone market as Windows XP enjoys in the desktop market. The platform strategy is brilliant if you can succeed at it. Not only are margins on software unparalleled but if your platform is the driver for all mobile markets, you can corner the entire market.
The problem (and Microsoft's weakness) is that when your platform has to run on dozens of different manufacturers' phones each having different configurations (screen sizes, resolutions, touch screen vs roller ball, skins and themes etc) each change requires testing across hundreds of combinations and that makes the problem a lot more complex and the speed of execution much slower. Apple on the other hand can push updates every week if they wanted through iTunes and each update it makes need only be tested on a single device. The ease of development, management and deployment is something that few can appreciate but it is one of Apple's biggest strength.
But if you are Nokia or Motorola looking to compete with OS X for the iPhone, your next best option is Windows Mobile. Symbian will not sustain this competition.
Veering a bit off topic, I also feel the application store for the iPhone will be huge. It will be to the iPhone what the iTunes music store was to the iPod. You need only look at the native GMail application on the iPhone/iTouch to realize how much more powerful the User eXperience (UX) is compared to the web based version. Further, if your competition is pushing out apps on the iPhone, you will probably have to react and all that bodes well for Apple.
So while I would strongly recommend the Apple for someone who has little need for professional use outside of graphics, they aren't there yet for most of us in corporate America.
What MS needs is something on the order of a major prize to be given to anyone who brings it a world shaking innovation. Something like $10 billion for something truly new and exciting.
Ballmer is the classic car salesman: overweight, sweaty, loud. There is some kind of disconnect at Redmond on what works and what people want. They just don't get it.
Finally did what I should have done, and bought a Garmin Nuvi which works fine.
Microsoft sucks in every way possible, and if you like their products, it does not say much for you my friend.