Mobile industry needs Windows, handset vendors warn Senior mobile hardware executives have largely agreed that the mobile operating system market needs a strong offering from Windows Phone 7 to keep the market competitive. Speaking during a forum at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco, executives said that Microsoft may be coming late to the sector with a serious operating …
Slow down everybody and let the retard catch up.
That's the only way MS is every going to be competitive in this space.
It is a bullshit argument. You only need iOS and Android for there to be competition.
The quality of international cricket does not get helped by having teams like Afghanistan playing. Likewise mediocre has-beens like MS don't improve the quality of mobile. Unfortunately MS has enough marketing muscle to play the FUD game and piss in the soup.
Firstly, the 'problem' isn't innovation. It's that the carriers are scared that with only two players they will have terms dictated to them. This has been an issue since the first iPhone when there was a shift in who 'owned' the customer relationship. The question became "Is it an iPhone?" not "Is it a Vodafone?". Less players means more chance the carriers get dictated to.
Secondly, more players do mean more innovation. Think of the crazy ideas Nokia came up with pre-iPhone, screens with insane hinges and swivels and all sorts. What we need is someone to think of new things, stuff we haven't thought of. Like a simple touch screen UI.
Thirdly, how is international cricket helped by England regularly getting a hiding from the Aussies? More importantly, the fact that the All Blacks took 24 years too win the rugby world cup a second time is probably the single best thing to happen to the international popularity of rugby. One, or two, dominant players make things boring for the mass public. Australia always wins the Rugby League World cup and nobody cares.
By the way, I'm a Kiwi who rolls with a Motorola Defy. No Apple fanboi here.
The problem with the reverberating beat that one often gets on a thread covering this kind of topic of "do you wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang, do wanna be in my gang..." is that the issue of what serves us *all* as customers regardless of which os we prefer tends to get drowned out by the tribal choruses from various points of the compass. If we actually consider *analytically* what serves our interests as consumers we realise immediately that our *objective* economic interests are *not* coincident with the interests of the manufacturer of our favourite kit. It is first and foremost in *their* interest to b** f**k the competition by any means they can get away with and, if they succeed, proceed to b** f**k us some customers. This point is so obvious that it is a wonder that it needs repeating regularly. We need as many players as this (very rapidly) growing market can support. For that reason I hope (says through gritted teeth) that Apple continue to do at least reasonably well, that Android does the same, that RIM succeed in getting their act together again and, yes, that Nokia have decent success with their "Nokiasoft" phones. That would be in the interests of *all* of us.
BTW I run a Desire Z :)
Like bullies the carriers can dish it out (dictate terms to customers) but can't take it (have terms dictated to them). The person who owns the customer relationship should be... wait for it.... the customer! Only then will the carriers and handset makers have to really work to provide products and services which will attract and retain loyal customers who are happy to pay for the service they receive.
I do not disagree. However that problem is primarily driven by the lack of *genuine* competition amongst the carriers in the US market which, because of that markets importance to the producers, means that the carrier's behaviour in the US has a very big effect on the world-wide phone market. That problem has to be tackled by the US competition authorities (well we can always hope), it will not be in any way ameliorated by insufficient competition in the world-wide phone *producer* market.
Being an ACTUAL mobile developer, I happen to love Windows Phone 7. It's easy to develop for (which might also be a bad thing), You have superior (and free) development tools and the interface does everything the other 2.5 mobile OS'es are capable of.
I also like working on Android, but the other two (iOS and whatever the Blackberry one is called), ca suck it.
To use Desktop OS's as an analogy:
Apple is being Apple. Gated community model. Very safe and all trust is placed in them to give you what they think you need. Step outside that and if the fanboys don't get you, the lawyers will. Fortunately they invest in form over function which is a lotter better than most tech companies do for their customers who want things to 'just work' and look good.
Android is a more mainstream Linux. Wild west/middle east model. Nail 2 bits of code together and you are a developer. Releatively open market using the "lets throw lots at the wall and see what sticks model". Good if you are the like your freedom and like being part of the pioneer crowd, but not the sort of thing that is sustainable for corporate types etc that want certainty and COTS solutions.
RIM used to have the potential to take the Corporate/Government market and keep it, but they have pissed off their users and those that make the purchasing decisions at the big end of town. They no longer hold superior Form or Function status to be considered and reliability is starting to slip. News this week is that they are dominating the yoof prepaid market, but as witnessed in the UK riots, they don't usually pay for their gear. They are the former Gold Rush town, complete with tumble weeds.
Enter Microsoft. Windows for the mobile set. Safe, the promise of portability between desktop and mobile OS's and large corporate backing that already has home and business user bases. DEV environments on tap, but priced to stop the rif-raf poluting the offering. They have the ability to define or redefine the App market particularly as in the past their model was100% of the sale price doing to the DEV.
I May be confused a bit here, but while RIM has taken a bit of a beating they are not dead yet. Did I miss a memo or something?
on a personal note. To me the new win phone interface reeks of romper room style layouts. We are in the 21st century, as we have no rocket cars our phones should not be filled with huge swatches of primary colours and look akin to the phone pad my grandma uses to dial with.
some MS market share might not be bad. It's not my cup of tea but if they implement it properly and try to avoid gratuitous patent-trolling, then there is room for competition. and maybe manufacturers will go back to one OS each<per segment?>. There's just more mature choice now (hopefully)
A manufacturer benefits from focussing on one OS, they only have to test the hardware on one OS. This is the reason for the increase in support calls, the multi-os manufacturers. Maybe Google and MS saw that coming, thus their capitalisation of Motorola/Nokia was not so short-sighted. you gotta compete with aPple somehow, and that may just be the way.
Personally, I just wish that HTC would give their whole attention to Android.
nK
More competition is always welcome. No single product or product family should ever achieve a market share above 30-35%. Competition is also often a force in favour of standardisation, which in turn opens the market for yet more competition. At the moment I'm more concerned about the lack of competition in the market for workstation operating systems than the market for mobiles.
Ubuntu will be coming as well. They may be a year or 2 behind (eons in this world) but it will be truly open and as such will be a great alternative for those that may be suffering from Android legal fallout by that time.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/242853/canonical_to_expand_ubuntu_for_smartphones_tablets.html
Apple and Blackberry have their devotees, Nokia lost the plot with smarphones (although they were very good indeed, in their day, until they were overtaken.) I like "generic" hardware because competition drives value for money. Android is doing a good job for smartphones (and tablets) but an alternative will be healthy. Microsoft are far from nimble, but they have learned. They will get it right, or near enough, and then improve. To me, that is healthy. Decent SatNav cost an arm and a leg once. It still would if there were only a couple of flavours. Pint, because it is Friday.
Exec:"a very good relationship with Microsoft"
Translation:"we signed a patent deal with Microsoft that obliges us to launch WP7 phones while not admitting that"
I'd love to see the patent deals they signed, I suspect Microsoft extorted less additional WP7 support than they imagine. Let's face it, most of them were going to build a few WP7 phones if Microsoft made it easy enough, it's a market of unknown future size and better to quit if it fails than climb aboard late if it succeeds.
With Microsoft's continuing negative sales growth I don't see it mattering if they stay or leave the market. But hey, WP 7 is the "just wait" OS. The supporters keep chanting just wait for _______ (the next upgrade, Nokia, pigs to learn how to fly) and then it will take off.
I do highly value the opinions of two companies that have invested in the WP 7 and have nothing to lose if the platform fails.. Yea right.
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