I see that there’s speculation that Microsoft is to introduce two versions of Windows Mobile 7 – one for business and one for media.
I see that there’s speculation that Microsoft is to introduce two versions of Windows Mobile 7 – one for business and one for media.
Sometimes Microsoft just doesn’t know when to give up.
In the USA, Apple is the cock of the north and it seems like in the rest of the world Android is on the rise. Windows Mobile is an also-ran.
And isn’t this quite revealing? Both Intel and Microsoft have always had designs on the cellphone market. Big designs that neither of the two giants have ever abandoned. Is it because they can’t swallow their pride and have to feel that like a colossus, they straddle the world?
Yes, Intel and Microsoft are very similar but they’re also very different too. Intel knows when to give up. If it’s obvious an idea isn’t working, Intel cans it, puts the debris in the trash can and pretends it never existed. Pragmatic, Intel is. Microsoft doesn’t seem to be that pragmatic as far as Windows Mobile is concerned.
I’ve used Windows Mobile on one phone I had from a company called Sendo. The machine itself was very pretty but the phone couldn’t seem to cope with a version of Windows stuck on it. Some whizz marketing kid at Microsoft must have thought: “Hey, most people use Microsoft Windows on their PCs. Wouldn’t it be really great if we gave the consumers the fantastic Microsoft Windows experience on their phones!!” It wasn’t fantastic.
Now Intel is a paranoid company. It believes in convergence which is why it is going hell for leather to capture the mobile phone market. It’s worried about qualcomm, it’s worried about ARM. It’s worried, it’s fretting.
It keeps forgetting that its core strength is the X86 platform. That platform is not going to go away. Microsoft keeps forgetting that its core strength is Microsoft Windows and Office. They’re not going to go away either.
And there’s something that neither firms should forget. The industry players in the cellphone market – and it’s a large lake filled with minnows, piranhas and pikes – don’t want, just don’t want Microsoft and Intel to behave like sharks in their liquid space.
They don’t want Google in there either – but that’s a different kettle of fish, isn’t it?
