Will Windows Mobile ever catch up?

With the iPhone's 3.0 software release in June, Apple will make a major stride towards filling the business user experience and manageability gap, especially when it comes to Exchange ActiveSync. With the economic downturn in full force, companies are cutting perks like smartphones. This means that more and more employees are bringing their own to work. They are usually purchasing the iPhone for the mixed consumer and business functionality. They want access to corporate email. IT departments have tried to stem the flow of iPhones into their organization, claiming lack of business functionality and security. This is a losing battle and CIOs are starting to admit it.

At a question-and-answer session at Microsoft's Public Sector CIO Summit in Redmond, Chris Kemp, the CIO at NASA's Ames Research Center asked Steve Ballmer; "With platforms like the Google phone and iPhone coming out, it's really tough to continue to stand behind Windows Mobile when our employees are bringing these consumer devices into our environments. And in your presentation you put Windows Mobile right in the center there, but it was a phone that doesn't work in America and an operating system that you haven't released. I'm wondering what your commitment is to continuing to get newer versions of the operating system in our hands so that we don't have to fight this battle on the ground."

Ballmer's answer; "We have a significant release coming this year. Not the full release we wanted to have this year but we have a significant release coming this year with Windows Mobile 6.5. I think that would look a lot like the phone that I showed that was in the slide, but very good catch, very impressed. (Laughter.) He was right on both scores, very good. But I think with Windows Mobile 6.5, there will be phones in market this year. We still don't get some of the things that people want on the highest-end phones. Those will come on Windows Mobile 7 next year. Certainly I'm not, um -- there's opportunities for us to accelerate our execution in this area, and we've done a lot of work to really make sure we have a team that's going to be able to accelerate. With that said, we did sell more Windows Mobile devices last year than Apple did iPhones -- just an important factoid to have. Blackberry was a little bit ahead, and Google was nowhere to be seen, except in Silicon Valley, I'm sure. But we'll do our best to help you with that challenge."

His comment regarding how Microsoft does not get the things that people want on the highest end phones, is pretty sad but true. Apple seems to get it and as every iPhone software release closes in on the email and business functionality provided by Windows Mobile, where does that leave Windows Mobile? Not in a very good position, all I can say is that Microsoft better hit it out of the ballpark with Windows Mobile 7 to stay competitive with the iPhone.

Quote source TechFlash.

Comments

[Surur]

So, according to you, which OS is more popular? Because as far as I know Windows Mobile outsold iPhone handedly in 2008, especially around Christmas time when iPhone only shipped 4.4 million and Windows Mobile did 5 million, on the back of great consumer devices like the HTC Touch Diamond.

I dont know why the iPhone is held up as such a great example of what makes a great smartphone. Symbian outsells them by a long shot, as does RIM and even Windows Mobile.

Get back to me when the iPhone gets great consumer features like video recording, MMS messaging and turn by turn GPS navigation. Or how about the basic ability to forward a text message?

[sskarlatos]

It would relevant for you to quote your source. My source, The Gartner Group shows that in 3Q08 4.720 millions iPhones were sold, while only 4.053 million Windows Mobile devices were sold. They also show that Windows Mobile lost 3% market share compared 3Q07. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=827912 .Gartner should be announcing 4Q08 numbers shortly and I will post them.

Yes, the Symbian OS has the largest worldwide share of the market, the problem is that not all Symbian devices can be considered smartphones because Nokia dumbs them down, unfortunately nobody seems to publish a breakdown by model. It would be interesting to know how many N95s were sold. Yes, businesses still love their Blackberries, but as I mentioned Apple will continue to close the functionality gap, and we will see what the numbers look like at the end of 2009.

On the application front, I found 4 MMS applications, 1 turn by turn Navigation application http://www.xroadgps.com, there are several video recording and SMS forwarding applications (just search the App Store or the new Cydia Store).

Now, as I said the iPhone has a ways to go, but you can't deny that it has shaken up the smartphone world with everyone trying to copy Apple's lead. Also, everytime there is a major update I am not forced to buy a new device and I don't loose my configuration during the upgrade.

[Chris Carlin]

Surur, it's funny that you talk about a dearth of consumer features on a device that consistently ranks top in customer satisfaction. This is a theory versus reality thing: in theory your missing features are a huge failing, but we have the empirical evidence that they're not.

Anyway, Ballmer answered that MS sold more Windows Mobile phones than Apple sold iPhones last year... but such statements have always been misleading, especially from Microsoft who has a history of (for example) strategically stuffing retail channels to improve its image.

But what does it really mean? That the platform is healthy? Well, it's lost many of its major vendors, so it doesn't sound that healthy... That most of the business's employees will be using it? Well no, those numbers are averaged over the entire world and not just the business's corner.

So take what he said with a grain of salt. Whether Windows Mobile is being a success or not, his statement is far from the whole story.