Tag: Windows Phone

Android remains the only mobile OS still patterned after Microsoft's 2002 vision of the mobile value chain

Belfiore wasn’t shy about criticizing Google’s Android OS. Even though Google currently dominates the mobile OS market, its strategy of licensing the Android OS to manufacturers is similar to Microsoft’s previous approach with Windows Mobile: It’s open-ended, and there are few restrictions on how manufacturers can use or modify the OS.

As a result, Android is suffering from some of the same issues as Windows Mobile did: Android works better on some phones than others, manufacturers are shipping different versions of the OS on different phones, some Android phones are shipping with bloatware made by carriers, and some app developers complain that it’s difficult to make software because of the hardware and OS fragmentation.

via How Microsoft Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on Windows Phone | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

Continue reading “Android remains the only mobile OS still patterned after Microsoft's 2002 vision of the mobile value chain”

Taiwan phone makers balking at Windows Phone 7

Digitimes reports:

only a handful of companies may get into WP7 when it arrives, they added. HTC may end up controlling 70 to 80 percent of the market simply by being one of the initial partners

via Taiwan phone makers balking at Windows Phone 7? | Electronista.

Confirming my assumption that “Android is clearly the darling of “Others” who are being shunned by Microsoft”.

Escape from license-land: Measuring phone vendor commitment to licensed mobile platforms

Windows Phone had its day in the sun yesterday. After discarding its previous seven-year effort with Windows Mobile, Microsoft started with a clean sheet of paper. However, whereas the software has been re-built, the business model has not. WP is still a licensed operating system whose primary customers are mobile phone vendors. With Symbian mostly out of the picture, WP becomes only the second viable commercially licensed mobile OS, after Android.

So with two licensed platforms in the running, how do we measure success in the licensing business? Units sold to end users is one metric. But that data will have to include the performance of vendors and operators and other distributors. And it will take a year to do valid comparisons. The only indicative metric we have available today is how many devices have been committed by vendors.

As WP is out of the gate with device announcements, we can actually measure this. We can plot each vendor’s commitment to various platforms as an early indicator of strategic success. To that end, here’s the methodology: I took all smartphone vendors and tallied how many SKUs they have announced or leaked for either the WP or Android platforms (source: pdadb.net). I then plotted each vendor on two “commitment axes” (see notes below). Continue reading “Escape from license-land: Measuring phone vendor commitment to licensed mobile platforms”

Will Nokia build Windows phones?

Will Nokia build Windows phones? | VentureBeat.

The chances are extremely small. There are three scenarios where this would make sense:

  1. If there was a specific market that required it. It would also need to be a large opportunity since developing a new platform and diluting existing platforms need significant upside. The only such market is the US, but there are better options available, namely Android that have better potential and Android is treated as a toxin by Nokia (see metaphor).
  2. Specific users. Windows Mobile used to be justified for business users, but Windows Phone is not targeting business users.
  3. The last option would be “strategic” i.e. Microsoft paying Nokia for using the OS (directly or indirectly through marketing co-spend or other symbolisms). I don’t think Nokia is desperate enough yet.

Although it’s never prudent to say never, I just don’t see any logic for Nokia to add to its bill of materials for phones while facing price pressure.

Windows Phone Thoughts: AT&T set to release multiple Windows Phones

That makes a total of six devices for [AT&T] who is looking more and more like the premier Windows Phone 7 partner.

via Windows Phone Thoughts: AT&T Set to Release Multiple WP7 Devices.

With Verizon shaping Android into its image, you can read AT&T’s embrace of Microsoft as the deeply-held belief by operators that they need multi-platform balance in their portfolio.

The idea that operators will tolerate “dominance” of a platform is looking less and less tenable.

IDC: I Dream of Claim Chowder

A few eyebrows were raised when Microsoft presented a slide at a French event where they made the claim that 30 Million Windows Phone devices would be sold by the end of 2011.  Given that the first Windows Phone won’t ship until October 2010 at the earliest, or, according to Mr. Ballmer, “by Christmas,” count me among the skeptics.

However, the claim was later retracted by Microsoft stating that they mis-quoted IDC, the original source for the forecast.  The correction was perhaps meant to put an end to the credibility crisis.

However, the actual forecast from IDC was even more preposterous. Continue reading “IDC: I Dream of Claim Chowder”

Microsoft Taketh Away

Summarizing the new Windows Phone 7 Series:

  1. No Multi-tasking — However, there are going to be notifications.
  2. No App Sideloading
  3. No App store other than the Microsoft App Store
  4. No Cut/Copy/Paste
  5. No Expandable Storage
  6. No Exposed File System
  7. No Shell Customization / Skinning
  8. No native applications (managed code only)

Funny how when iPhone came out and Ballmer laughed his head off, these were the “power” features that most pointed to in WinMo that made the iPhone a “toy”.

Maybe if people want an iPhone copy, they will get an iPhone.

UPDATE:  (via Gruber)

Catching up is hard. And based on what I’m hearing about iPhone OS 4.0, it seems likely that Windows Phone 7 is going to fall further behind before it even gets a chance to ship.

Microsoft Leaks Details of WP7 Platform

Charlie Kindel on Windows Phone Development : Different Means Better with the new Windows Phone Developer Experience

  • There’s zero backwards compatibility with Windows Phone 6.5 applications.
  • It’s still based on Windows CE underneath (version 6 in this case)
  • Developers are going to need to re-code their apps.
  • So what will they code it in? So far, we’ve been told Silverlight and XNA.
  • Kindel’s post also mentions Web 2.0 Standards and Microsoft developer tools, along with .Net.
  • Nothing about C++ or native code versus managed code, but expect managed code to be de rigeur.

Check out some of the comments in the link above.