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Microsoft's Windows Mobile moves: Too little, too late

Feb. 16, 2009 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

So. I'm on vacation this week with spotty connectivity, so it's hard to keep up with the outside world, let along blog about it. (I'll be home Friday.) That said, I feel like I should comment on this week's Windows Mobile news. Here's the word from Microsoft:

Today at Mobile World Congress, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made significant announcements regarding the company’s mobile software plus services strategy. Some major milestones announced include the next generation of Windows phones, running Windows Mobile 6.5 that combine the power of the platform with rich integrated services, namely My Phone and Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Additionally, LG and Microsoft also announced an expanded alliance making Windows the primary mobile platform for LG to dramatically increase the number of LG phones running Windows.

Understanding that people need phones to span all areas of their life, the new Windows phones will have the same security, manageability, and enterprise features that you come to expect, but are also coupled with exciting items such as a new UI and widgets. 

My Phone is a next generation mobile Web service focused on the movement of content between your phone, the Web and your PC. Our other new service, Windows Marketplace for Mobile, makes it easier than ever to purchase and download enterprise and LOB applications so employees can do more while on the go.

I've also written up a news story for WinInfo.

Long story short, this is too little too late.

Here's why:

  • The iPhone will be in its third generation by the time Microsoft's partners get around to shipping Windows Mobile 6.5-based phones.
  • Windows Mobile 6.5, itself, is an interim solution created on the fly as a response to the iPhone.
  • My Phone looks interesting and useful.
  • Microsoft can talk up 20,000 apps all it wants. Virtually none of them are any good. Plus the disparity of Windows Mobile hardware types means that these things won't work consistently across devices. That's the dark side of choice, I guess.

I just can't get excited about this though I will of course check it all out as soon as I can. I'm ready and willing to have my mind changed here, but I have this nagging feeling that it ain't happening. Why can't they move quicker than this?

Discuss this Article 58

shark47
on Feb 17, 2009
"Now Microsoft and others are falling over themselves to copy it." Oh, yes. My Phone sounds similar to iPhone. Otherwise, Windows Mobile 6.5 is a lot different from the iPhone OS. It's just an extension of WM 6.1. Microsoft has some really good software, but the links between them are missing. If they figure that out, they'll have a very impressive solution. Apple has a lot fewer solutions, but they work well together usually.
Waethorn
on Feb 17, 2009
"But the audio enclosures in RSS are podcasts" Sorry, but they aren't. They are just RSS XML feeds with audio file (usually MP3) links. Get a clue. "While Microsoft tried to squeeze a desktop OS in a mobile device, it took Apple to show them how to do it" How? By not doing it? If you really believe you can run OS X software on an iPhone, I'd really like to see your documentation on the matter. It has a custom Mach kernel, and it doesn't have Aqua. It isn't OS X. Get another clue.
DRWAM
on Feb 17, 2009
IPhone's calendar has a monthly view as well, but no text. However, there are a few 3rd party apps for WinMo and Palm OS with monthly view text. There is only one that I have found for the iPhone. Just like most, the monthly view has bars for appointments, which doesn't show me where I need to be. Still there are many more useful apps for WinMo. It hard to find anything good at the iTMS, or you find a good app and multiple others that do the same thing. Pull my finger.
robertsjoe
on Feb 17, 2009
@waethorn: ""But the audio enclosures in RSS are podcasts" Sorry, but they aren't. They are just RSS XML feeds with audio file (usually MP3) links. Get a clue." The link in an RSS feed (which is XML) to an audio file (MP3 or some other audio file format) is called an "enclosure". From Wiki: "In December 2000, Winer released RSS 0.92[14] a minor set of changes aside from the introduction of the enclosure element, which permitted audio files to be carried in RSS feeds and helped spark podcasting. He also released drafts of RSS 0.93 and RSS 0.94 that were subsequently withdrawn.[15]" As you can see, the term is "enclosure". See, I am right. Get a clue before you comment.
robertsjoe
on Feb 17, 2009
@waethorn: ""While Microsoft tried to squeeze a desktop OS in a mobile device, it took Apple to show them how to do it" How? By not doing it? If you really believe you can run OS X software on an iPhone, I'd really like to see your documentation on the matter. It has a custom Mach kernel, and it doesn't have Aqua. It isn't OS X. Get another clue." You don't comprehend things very well, do you? Is English your second language, maybe third? "By not doing it? If you really believe you can run OS X software on an iPhone" I never said OS X was in the iPhone. I was saying that Apple's approach, that of tackling a mobile OS and the software that runs on that OS, from a different angle, is far superior. Far superior to Microsoft that basically tried to take the concepts seen in desktop OSes and squeezing it in to mobile devices. They made the wrong bet there. And it took Apple to show them (and others) how to do things differently (and much better). And now Microsoft are copying and catching up.
Master3
on Feb 17, 2009
@weedmonk "How about a run through? Use the product, detail it and then critique it like with every other MS product you comment on. Or is WinMo the sacrificial lamb so that people can point out "He's no Shill, he hates WinMo!". There are millions of us who use this platform or another and not the iPhone which you've seem to have chalked up as the benchmark for smartphones w/o ever truly detailing why. How about the #1 reason people prefer WinMo/BB/S60 is that the iPhone tied to arguably the worst carrier in the US and usually 1 carrier in overseas markets. I'd rather enjoy my WinMo touch on Sprint with full coverage/tethering/push/ etc etc than succumb to iPhone and its little AT&T and Apple Sandbox. I guess I don't need to appear hip or impartial to my i Friends or do cutsy fartsy consumer apps on my smartphone. " Well said. And to top it off, Paul then , without ever actually using all if even a few of these 20,000 apps, just waves them all off as being awful? Care to point us to your detailed reviews of these apps that are so bad? That's just plain lazy journalism, and if you are going to call out other onthat type of thing, dont engage in it yourself. And that whole "Too little, too late" is just as dumb now as when tech journalist use terms like "late to the party" or "rip off" or "me too device" or "I dont know anyone that uses (x)". Like you blog, but dont get lazy on WinMobile because you think it's an easy target. Many people use it, more than the iPhone, and unless you want to call us dumb, then you should clue into the platform more to see why we use it.
robertsjoe
on Feb 17, 2009
Microsoft in bed with the RIAA, with DRM riddled Windows 6.1: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/16/2259257&from=rss
john87
on Feb 17, 2009
@waethorn Yes, I am an Epocrates fan, although it's not quite optimal in the UK where some drugs are prescribed differently.

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