Sometime ago I conjectured that Microsoft made certain changes to IE8 to force web standards forward and drop backwards compatibility as default (a very un-Microsoft move) because of the need for the web to break out of the blinkered IE6 / Desktop-Browser view of content otherwise Microsoft would find itself unable to compete in the mobile space. It’s been over a year since that article and in such a short period of time it has become ever clearer that Microsoft’s mobile offerings, and their overall mobile platform strategy are failing against the dominant iPhone, the newcomer Android, and a re-invigorated Palm with WebOS.
Microsoft’s mobile platform has been fragmented by the decision to offer both Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Mobile 7 at the same time (when it’s released). Windows Mobile 6.5 will support limited touch capabilities, but it won’t be until the end of 2010 that Windows Mobile 7 will provide full touch capabilities to compete with the iPhone. To distance the product from its past Microsoft are even renaming it “Windows Phone”, a shallow effort to try bury a bad reputation for a bad UI model.
The lack of unification and clarity extends even as far as Microsoft’s rebuilt efforts to compete in the PMP space with the Zune HD. Whilst the Zune HD is a lovely, well built product, the lack of a single focus at Microsoft and a lack of tight integration and cooperation between departments has even clouded the Zune strategy
In an interview the Zune Marketing Manager Brien Seitz’s response was as vague as it was non-committal. In what way is keeping Zune app development close to the chest and hoping that “if there’s a way we can work with Windows Mobile or another group inside the company that’s building an app store and take advantage of that, that’s something we’ll look into” competing with the iPhone AppStore? Or even acknowledging it, for that matter. Hoping that the Windows Mobile team will get their act together so you can leverage their store for Zune is not exactly enthusing budding developers with the desire to develop for the Zune.
The problem is that there simply isn’t any^aEUR”brace yourself^aEUR”synergy.. happening at Microsoft. Each department is doing its own thing and not working together on a cohesive, integrated system. Why does the Zune require its own music player and not just leverage Windows Media Player? Why isn’t Windows Media Player being upgraded to support even basic features, like podcasting, that iTunes has had for years? Why is it that you have to use the Zune player to get these features? Are Microsoft really expecting people to install the Zune player and go buy a Zune just to get podcasting capabilities? Where on earth is the thinking in Microsoft coming from? Their strategies seem detached from reality.
The web-browser in the Zune is an afterthought, a port of IE6 for Windows Mobile that puts you through a tortured experience. The codebase is incapable of competing with Safari on the iPhone that supports the latest CSS and HTML5 features and lead the way in giving users a browser on a mobile phone that they would actually want to use.
I’m left imagining that Microsoft has a hundred separate departments all rushing to compete with Apple on their own.
How Microsoft Got Here
The boat that I alluded to in the title of this article is Firefox and the modern web-standards movement. Microsoft’s complete lack of movement with IE6 saw them totally blind-sided by a competitor that sprang out of the corpse of the enemy that thought they had fallen for good.
Before 2004 Microsoft were in the very comfortable position of having 95-odd-percent marketshare and no need to change anything with IE. Even if the concept of web apps and the cloud took off, Microsoft were safe in the knowledge that those web apps would be written only for IE, using such wonderful technologies like Active X.
Firefox changed absolutely everything. Microsoft simply didn’t feel threatened by a grass-roots movement to adopt an open-source browser based on the failed Netscape that Microsoft vanquished five years earlier.
And Firefox wasn’t a threat^aEUR”really. IE still came as default on Windows, businesses would still be using IE and that wouldn’t change anytime. Firefox hasn’t damaged Microsoft, their own inaction has.
The ability to sway the market has been pulled from underneath Microsoft. Web developers are coming up with exciting new apps using web technologies not available in IE. And the market is responding, they’re happy to switch browser if it gets them extra features and gives them access to the websites they want to use.
We’ve seen a complete crumbling to dust of that notion that you need IE. Nobody needs IE, except for businesses stuck with badly-coded Intranets.
And Microsoft have not been able to inject any compelling reason to use IE either. Both IE7 and 8 were lackluster upgrades that caused more headaches then providing people with things they’d actually want.
You just have to run Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome 3 or Opera 10 next to IE to realise that there simply is no comparison. IE is beat in every single aspect.
HTML5 adoption is progressing quite happily even without offical IE-support. Microsoft can no longer dictate what features the web will have and when, if Microsoft doesn’t provide it, then someone else will and that wasn’t the case in the IE6 days.
Y’see Microsoft’s lack of progress with IE has left them unable to adapt to new emerging markets and technologies. The iPhone completely reinvigorated the stagnant SmartPhone market where companies were practicing such bumbling incompetence with their software / handsets that Palm almost killed itself even without Apple to speak of. The competition that Apple injected into the market sharpened everybody’s minds, and the products accordingly.
That is, except for Microsoft which simply has nothing to show for itself. Microsoft has no single platform strategy. Windows 7 only fixes the problems Vista introduced, it doesn’t bring anything truly new to the table other than a big sigh of relief from users worldwide. It’s still a hulking great disaster (hello, registry, didn’t know you were still there) of a user-space that can’t adapt quickly enough.
Gone On Without You
I strongly believe that Microsoft are three years behind everybody else when it comes to technology and the ability to compete. Microsoft cannot just throw more money and programmers at the problem. This is an organisational / managerial problem that requires them to get the talent they already have working together toward a single platform strategy that can rapidly adapt and apply to new devices and markets.
Trying to catch up simply isn’t good enough. Telling your clients that proper touch-controls won’t be coming to Windows Mobile Phone until the end of 2010 is no good. Why not just use Android or WebOS now. Or buy a freakin’ iPhone.
Nothing short of replacing the rendering engine of IE with Webkit is going to stop the massive hemorrhaging of market-share that IE is experiencing. IE is pas~A(c) now and once you’re out of the loop it’s going to take more than the odd feature and improvement to bring users back. The exodus is well underway and the IE brand has fallen foul of consumers.
To win me back IE would have to be faster than Chrome, have the extensibility of Firefox and support bleeding edge CSS3 and HTML5 features like Webkit. Oh, and not suck UI and security wise. Does anybody seriously believe that that’s going to happen?
By sitting around idly with IE6, Microsoft have let the web overtake them. Innovation is happening faster than Microsoft can keep up. Microsoft are trying to catch up with competitors and social movements that are traveling faster than they are.
I’m not saying that Microsoft are going to collapse and die and all that rubbish, instead I can see from the past that the future is going to be a place where Microsoft are no longer the ones leading the way. Their desktop market-share won’t drastically change, but innovation will move to the web. A place larger, more diverse and faster than Microsoft and a place where Apple have positioned themselves riding right on top of the crest.
Well said.
You’re right: Webkit replacing Trident is really the ONLY option going forward. That, or conceding the browser wars.
Microsoft often runs like small divisions unaware of each other. If they pooled resources wisely, who knows what they’d come up with?
Webkit replacing Trident isn’t the “only” option. For example, microsoft could just buy out Opera and then they get the new opera mini 5 AND opera will shut up about having IE bundeled into windows.
joking aside, win mobile 6 is not as impressive as it could be. I am really looking forward to 7 (and CE 7), which should be a masive improvement. Who knows how the next year will play out, but MS has some serious catching up to do…
What I really meant, but said too specifically because I was being dramatic, is “dumping Trident for any of the next-generation rendering engines,” all of which have far eclipsed IE by a generation or two.
The won’t have what they want if they keep doing that – control of web application development. They still believe that will miraculously happen. They will just merely be keeping pace and not actually leading. That’s why Microsoft are so slow to act.
Except it can’t really.
Take a look at the article Kroc was talking about. It was all about how MS was ditching compatibility in its web rendering for IE 8 by default. Its large enterprise customers that had written everything to ie 6 bitched and got them to reverse that decision. The crazy features it thought were going to keep it at the top of the web browser race forever are really just going to act as an anchor, keeping it from keeping pace with innovations and standards.
Sure it can. It just needs to not push IE9 as a Windows update. Or call it something new and say it’s their new browser.
That’s the same logic that the article is talking about.
Windows Media Player & Zune Player.
Then ignore the big customers – what are they going to do? move to Linux? throw away Microsoft Office and their whole work flow that they’ve spent millions setting up and maintaining? please. Microsoft needs to locate that wonderful thing called a backbone and use it to stand upright because right now they’re look like a pack of pussy whipped house trained husbands.
If Microsoft made IE 8 conform to all the standards tomorrow, removed backwards compatibility from that said browser – can you see these big customers move to Linux? if they did, they would have to re-write their whole stack anyway! it isn’t as though if Microsoft did something that their customer base has a viable drop in solution that provides everything they need.
Edited 2009-09-17 11:07 UTC
No they didn^aEURTMt, Microsoft *was* going to support those large enterprises by making IE8 default to IE7 and below rendering, but then they reversed that decision. The article I wrote last year was about that decision to dump backwards-compatibility for the IE6-Intranets in IE8 and default to ACID2 compliance.
I laughed at the title before a read the whole thing
Has Microsoft missed the boat with (fill in the blank)?
“Dominant iPhone”?
WTF?
Last I checked, about 50 % of the mobile systems ran Symbian. (Which is a terrible platform, but it does not make it any less widespread.) RIM/BlackBerry and iPhone both have a market share near 20 %. The market share of Android is comparable to the market share of Linux desktops.
And as for the article: mindless anti-MS ranting and opinions without any factual support, just what we desperately need here at OSAlert.
The smartphone market has been around for some time (I remember the GEOS-based Nokia Communicator 9110), the mobile phone market longer than that.
Apple, neither a handset manufacturer, nor phone software vendor previously decide to enter the market and within three years have absolutely every competitor literally crapping their pants trying to innovate and look new.
That^aEURTMs what dominate is. There are a lot of elephants in the room, but Apple is the one they^aEURTMre all scared of. Apple have totally dominated mindshare. The iPhone is the benchmark by what the competitors (with larger market share) are measured by. Again, domination in design.
Markestshare dominance will come, just wait. iTunes is the #1 source of legal music now. If Apple want something they will just keep climbing steadily ^aEURTMtil they get there and the bumbling incompetence of their competitors will help them all the way.
I don^aEURTMt like the iPhone one bit, that doesn^aEURTMt mean that I don^aEURTMt see why it is successful and why even RIM will take a beating.
No disagreements here. iPhone scares a lot of phone companies, the biggest one, Nokia, included.
And as a disclaimer: I’ve never personally owned any kind of smartphone, so I have no idea if iPhone is good or bad or as cool as they say.
As for the general Microsoft-ranting, I have just this to say: man, you really can do better than this.
Yes, I can do better; however I am not used to writing articles regularly. I have set myself the goal this week to publish at least one piece of news each day this week to help me contribute more to OSAlert and get into a more productive routine. As I have said, I am not used to this, and expect quality to improve as I continue–I have to start somewhere.
This is only in the US and to a smaller extend the UK, which get a lot of influence from the US. The iPhone hasn’t really taken off elsewhere. It isn’t even sold in Korea, which is one of the biggest mobile markets.
The US is a good market for the iPhone, because the price is not so much a problem as elsewhere and the ‘buy amerian’ thing. Also the service providers kind of suck there, so the relative closeness of the iPhone doesn’t show as much.
Edited 2009-09-17 09:33 UTC
Apple is getting > 50% of the profits available in the Smartphone market segment. That’s a dominant position financially.
http://www.osnews.com/user/strcpy
Date Joined: 2009-05-20
Status: Active
Bio: One of my hobbies is to troll here and make fun at the expense of Linux fanboys.
…..
Probably true, but ask yourself a couple of questions:
How many new iPhone applications do you think are being developed versus Symbian based ones?
Do you believe it would be worth more to manufacturers using Symbian if they could support iPhone applications, or the iPhone if it could support Symbian applications?
There you have the dominance of the iPhone, certainly strategically, in a nutshell.
I myself do not believe it is worth to touch Symbian with a stick. But big companies are still committed to the platform, Nokia included.
I kind of missed the logic of your argument here.
http://www.osnews.com/user/strcpy
Date Joined: 2009-05-20
Status: Active
Bio: One of my hobbies is to troll here and make fun at the expense of Linux fanboys.
…..
I myself do not believe it is worth to touch Symbian with a stick. But big companies are still committed to the platform, Nokia included.
No they’re not. Nokia owns Symbian, and even they’re dumping it for Android.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE57P1SG20090826…
The iPhone owns the high end smartphone market in terms of income.
Palm Pre is still an unknown quantity. They will try to emulate iPhone features but there’s no telling how well that will work out.
Windows on smartphones is becoming obsolete. They have very few manufacturers still working with it (again, on the high end), LG being the only prominent one left. And their future moves look less than promising:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/08/20/why-microsoft-will-slaught…
And RIM is going strong, because the Blackberry has lots of corporate features that no other platform has, whereas the other vendors are aiming mainly at the consumer market.
I believe it is safe to say that most mobile application developed today are actually J2ME apps. This is a no brainer for developers. Every mobile phone supports it… except the iPhone, of course! This is why you get many apps developed for the iPhone, because it can’t run J2ME. Developers who want to support it have to develop for it, whereas developers who want to support symbian just have to use J2ME just like on any other mobile OS.
That doesn’t make sense at all.
It does. Please re-read slowly.
It really doesn’t. You’re missing the word “native”. Without that, it doesn’t make sense, since J2ME apps are also apps, and saying you get apps because you can’t run apps doesn’t make sense.
“This is why you get many apps developed for the iPhone, because it can’t run J2ME.”
Should be:
“This is why you get many native apps developed for the iPhone, because it can’t run J2ME.”
It doesn’t make sense at all and I’d advise you to read it slowly and comprehend what the implications of it are.
The premise is that because the iPhone can’t run J2ME applications then that’s why it has a lot more (certainly diverse) applications than Symbian and J2ME compatible platforms. That’s rubbish. There is no logical link between the two.
The only couple of reasons why the iPhone can have more applications is if it’s a far more attractive and easier platform to develop for or Apple has made the iPhone far more desirable for developers to get motivated to develop for for. Developers don’t look at the iPhone, think “Oh, it won’t support J2ME” and as a result go on some all-night hackathon that results in a ton of applications.
Well, I missed the word ‘native’ then, as the previous poster noted. There are far more apps for J2ME than for the iPhone. Also, native symbian apps are being ported to the iPhone, like officeSuite because the iPhone had nothing.
I don’t see why native applications matter. Applications are applications that help your platform achieve acceptance.
Given that we are seeing many J2ME applications, as well as touted .Net ones, being ported to the iPhone then that should tell your something about where gravity is heading.
Seriously, the iphone will never dominate the phone market. If it reaches 10% of the market, that will be an enormous achievement. Are you seriously saying that the iPhone will dominate the phone market? I don’t think so. It’s a cool phone that some people like, but be serious for one second. It’s not the second coming of jesus christ and it’s not going to outsell every other phones put together.
Replace iPhone with iPod, Mobile with Media Player and go back a few years in the past. Same exercise with iTunes / Music.
I don’t say the iPhone will dominate the mobile market someday: I don’t know and nobody knows. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it does.
But something which is quite sure: the iPhone will dominate the mobile market from a profit point of view… it already dominates the smartphone market and smart phones are going to quickly replace dumb phones. And for a company, this is quite an interesting position.
MS could always buy someone who’s doing it right. Not unheard of.
If this situation had been about desktops and servers I would have agreed with you … that is if Microsoft had dropped the ball and fell behind and lost the the battle to other companies.
Not so in the Mobile World. For starters, the time span in the Mobile World is aboyt 2-4 years. People sign new contarcts and are looking for new devices. So, Yes Microsoft may have dropped the ball now, but they have an opportunity to fix it the next time someone goes out to buy. I am not saying they will do that – just that they have the opportunity.
Given that Mobile device/OS sales are tied to customer penetration and also that it is tied to a communications service/network (unlike PCs and servers), there are other factors that come into play.
You said it yourself. Apple was not a phone manufacturer 3 years ago but here we are. What gave Apple the opportunity is that people were looking for the next great device and they gave it to them. Microsoft CAN do the same. Especially if they have a decent device and the apps for it.
They may have missed the boat, but there is always the next one … who knows that maybe a faster one.
Edited 2009-09-16 22:10 UTC
So, Yes Microsoft may have dropped the ball now, but they have an opportunity to fix it the next time someone goes out to buy.
It doesn’t work that way.
Microsoft doesn’t own the hardware. It has to work out deals with the device manufacturers. The manufacturers are looking for software platforms that they can (a) control and/or (b) rely on and/or (c) use to build cool stuff. If Windows Mobile is neither reliable, nor attractive to developers, nor likely to relinquish any amount of control to the manufacturers, why use it?
The smartphone business is very tough and competitive. No way is a manufacturer gonna wait for a year on Microsoft to maybe deliver the goods. It would be suicide. They neer reassurance and they need it now.
That’s why lots of manufacturers develop their own software platform in-house, or use Linux because it provides the building blocks for essentially the same (their own platform) but with much less R&D necessary.
The manufacturers are all about the hardware first and foremost. Yes, the software is important to complete the user experience and it can even become a lucrative niche itself (like Apple is doing with the App Store). But they’ve all seen what being a slave to someone else’s software is like (via the PC market and Windows) and I’m betting they don’t want that ever again.
(For the same reasons, expect some changes in the PC market as well.)
What can Microsoft do about it? One thing, really: innovate (for real) and offer a Windows Mobile that can truly compete, on merit, with the other platforms.
There’s another path they might take, the one they took in the gaming industry or in the music player industry: start building their own devices. But this has a major disadvantage: suddenly all their clients become direct competitors. The Zune and the Xbox aren’t doing very well, despite the spin Microsoft tries to put on them.
The Zune has not been able to create the kind of lucrative ecosystem that the iPods have (a self-sustaining combination of devices, rich content for them and developers/providers for that content). And the Xbox is being sold at a loss, it always had, so no matter how successful it is it’s doing nothing for Microsoft, other than bragging rights.
Will Microsoft try to turn on their remaining Mobile clients and develop their own phones? Will they do the same with the PC? For their sake, I think not, since without the core thing (a good software platform) they’re dead anyway. And if they had a good software platform they wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.
It is just a very big zombie that will walk for quite a while longer.
MSFT _cannot_ compete against FOSS where competitors work together and ship their products with.
So Android/Maemo/etc will win the majority of the market for mobile phones (Apple will still make a lot of money from their fans)
That will be the first step in MSFT downfall.
Next will be Smartbooks/Netbooks. Linux (Ubuntu/ChromeOS/whatever) will make those devices with ARM CPUs shine at ZERO cost.
Once ODF is standard everywhere the Office monopoly will start to crumble.
In the long run MSFT will still earn a lot of money from legacy support, dev tools, games/consoles and special business software (sharepoint in peticular).
BUT it won’t dictate our lifes any longer (think IBM).
The Linux Foundation welcomes ARM
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/145342
The most interesting point in that article is this one:
That is not a number to be sneezed at.
You should be doing economic forecasts.
Because you sound so calm, objective, and convincing.
http://www.osnews.com/user/strcpy
Date Joined: 2009-05-20
Status: Active
Bio: One of my hobbies is to troll here and make fun at the expense of Linux fanboys.
……..
Thanks. You discovered my tongue-in-cheeck bio in a completely public profile. Spam it a little more. Please.
EDIT: typos.
Edited 2009-09-17 06:51 UTC
HTML5 and CSS3 are still draft standards. I wouldn’t demand that any browser vendor implement a not-yet-complete standard, and I won’t use any HTML5 or CSS3 features on sites I work on until they become Recommendations.
Also, I have yet to see any evidence suggesting that Trident itself actually needs to be replaced to be competitive in the future. The existence of better rendering engines doesn’t mean that Trident can’t be improved.
They don’t want to improve Trident, that’s the point, so web application technology is moving along in spite of it. The process was supposed to be this:
1. Develop IE and the IE engine (Trident) as a stop-gap measure to get these cool new web applications that run on Netscape and other browsers to run on a Microsoft controlled one.
So far so good.
2. Immediately stop development of any new web standards and technologies and ensure that current and new web applications are frozen in time. This can be done because point 1 has been satisifed regarding IE market share.
Check.
3. Move web developers from using older web technologies to cool new, Microsoft controlled ones using Microsoft controlled APIs.
Microsoft seemingly has no idea how to get from point 2 to 3. They tried it with ActiveX and they’re still trying to make it happen with things like Silverlight. In the meantime other browsers, platforms and developers are moving on in spite of IE (with backwards compatibility in their favour), but Microsoft are still steadfast in their belief that point 3 will be satisfied because it has been decreed somewhere by someone.
Eventually, this will destroy the company. Not for quite a while, but it will.
Microsoft wanting (or not wanting) to take action to improve IE has nothing to do with the feasibility of them improving Trident. Some claim that Trident must be replaced to make IE better, and I have yet to encounter any evidence suggesting that Trident can’t be improved.
Microsoft doesn’t want web UI to ever get anywhere near as good as desktop UI.
They will hold back IE and water down standards to make sure of it.
The main issue is that worked out half successful in desktop space where they literally had a monopoly and now they have problems of convincing people to get away from XP, so in the end they lost more money on this than they gained (IE6 is one of the main reasons why corporations do not switch to newer windows versions)
In the mobile arena they never had the stranglehold and now everyone moves on I can see the market share of WindowsCE going down the gutter. Android already is there, then PALM has got its act together, only Nokia is still fighting while their main CE customers are slowly but surely moving towards Android!
The feasibility of improving Trident is irrelevant. Anything can be improved, so that’s a rather non-sensical point. It’s a question of whether it is likely to happen. The past few years suggest not, unless Microsoft has had it’s hand twisted. Even then, the ‘improvements’ have been largely non-existant.
Edited 2009-09-17 10:20 UTC
This is strategic. They have only interest in being good enough, to keep their dominant install base with the uninitiated – watch how they _say_ they want to support emerging standards like html5, but then don’t every support them.
It’s the same trick the republicans in the US use to ward off healthcare reform. They _say_ they want healthcare reform, then they obstruct every place they can. It’s an extremely old trick, and I just wonder why so many people fall for it.
All you have to do is watch what they DO, and not what they say.
They have never liked the internet the way it is, and will be happy to wall it off inside of the Zune, X-Box 360 and Office Suite (and servers). They have no interest in improving the internet of today.
This is really idiotic.
#1 – republicans hold a small minority to the point they can’t obsstruct anything
#2 – republican introduced three bills of their own for full health care reform and all of them never saw the light of day (see point #1).
#3 – republicans also introduced 2 bills – one forcing all government employees into sharing this plan, the other allowing all citizens to buy into the government employees’ health care plan. Both were shot down (see point #1).
#4 – current health care socialization is a turd and those pushing it don’t want to “own it”.
Now that’s cleared up (and has nothing to do with this subject).
It is truly in Microsoft’s interest for everthing to “stand still” if possible. As long as nothing changes, inertia is in their favor.
Mobile is much more competitive and you have to be able to move fast and produce a good product to win. Lumbering Microsoft isn’t exactly built to excel in that type of environment. Their only edge is (effectively) unlimited funding and manpower.
Edited 2009-09-17 03:49 UTC
Your Mom! now that we got name calling out of the way:
1. There is nothing the republicans are better at than obstructing, well maybe framing the debate, then winning that- which is how they are affective at obstructing when they are the (by no means small) minority party).
2. No they didn’t. They held up empty paper at press releases, and showed nothing. Maybe I missed it? Link?
3. Link? That sounds like the public option they have worked so hard against.
4. Healthcare socialization would mean a great deal more than offering a “public option”, including better regulation of the medical industry – as task left up to private insurance companies now. I’d take the government any day over that- but there’s no one talking about that. I wish they would though. The UK system is better in almost every metric. Or did you skip ready just about any reasonable analysis comparing our system to almost anyone else’s? You can tell, btw, if it isn’t reasonable, if they don’t have any reason in the text you are reading, and not just hyperbole. Your post included much hyperbole. Not much else – especially point #4.
Here’s an example: Maybe republicans only want choice for those with money, and not for government employees. Maybe that’s why they want to “force all government employees …” – nm, I’m sure they didn’t offer that bill. Limiting choice that way would be too hypocritical for them, unless their all socialists. I’m confused. Do they want freedom or not?
http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200906090005
Please do some research from more sources than just Fox News.
I actually agree with your MS points mostly.
heard of the Whole Foods plan? and some idiots actually boycotted that store because the CEO dared to propose an alternative that made sense.
I do recall something about it, but can’t remember the specifics. As I recall, he was just offering an opinion, and I think a boycott was not called for over that.
Honestly, only a single payer (medicare for all) makes any sense, and would lead to any real reform. The democrats took that off the table so early though, there was never any hope of reform. I guess we just have to wait until more people are denied coverage from their inability to pay their increasing insurance premiums.
Americans are downright embarrassing sometimes.
I’ve been a ‘windows mobile’ or whatever user since 2002 with the Tmobile MDA thing. Since then I’ve had a BUNCH of windows mobile phones and you know what?
I’ll be DAMMED if I can tell what’s changed.
This is the year that I decided to screw it. I dropped my Motorola Q, and got a Palm Pre. And I’ve been LOVING it since.
I cannot tell you what a NIGHTMARE it was with internet explorer 4 up until 1 month ago. NOTHING works right, and the exchange integration is… pathetic. When I had them in parallel the PRE got the exchange notifications hands down faster then the CE.
I’ve tried. I really did, but the bottom line is the experence on the Microsoft phones hasn’t changed since CE 1.0 where it was painfull… You want to update the os with a patch? dock. You want to add something? dock. You want to do a proper reset? dock. You need to reconnect to exchange? dock.
Windows CE needs to be put out of OUR missery. They would be better off with Windows XP running on these phones.
At least it beats IE 4!!!!!!!
Really? You didn’t have to use PIE, which, admittedly, sucks. You can install apps without docking. You can download the .cab files and install via that from most sites that provide WM software. You can do a “proper reset” with the little reset hole some phones have or use a free 3rd party app.
Anyways, overall, it does suck
I’ll agree. I’m thinking about getting a Pre to replace my Treo800w.
But claiming it hasn’t changed since 1.0 is a really retarded claim.
it hasn’t changed. Go ahead and name SOMETHING earth shatteringly different from 1.0 to 6.0?
Go on, search your phone.
Oh crap you can’t actually search on the phone.
exctract the cabs on the phone? well gee that sounds terribly easy, esp when there is no ‘setup.exe’ just some demand you dock.
Windows CE is a DUD. It hasn’t had a fundamental change ever.
Calling Windows CE usable in this day & age, next to any ‘modern’ phone OS is retarded.
Wow. Don’t get an aneurysm hating on Windows Mobile.
You don’t have to “extract cabs on the phone”. It really is easy. Since it’s a direct download to an uncompressed cab half the time and, if you are using PIE, it asks if you wish to run after the download finishes… and it installs. oooo. Difficult. Granted, that is nowhere near as awesome as a centralized app repository.
I also never said it was “usable next to any ‘modern’ phone OS”. Don’t put words in my mouth. I freaking agreed with you that it, overall, sucks.
Jeez, ass.
Actually from a usability point of view windows ce always was one of the worst solutions. I am one of the view who still has a sharp zaurus PDA and from the usability the zaurus literally wiped the floor with WinCE. There were two factors why WinCE got a stronghold at all in the mobile phone world. First the windows name, back then people would by everything which had windows plastered on top of it even if it was the worst trash. Secondly, the competition was equally lousy usabilitywise. The usability issues of most phones was the main reason why Apple wiped the floor of the competition literally. They did it extremly well. While most phone manufacturers tried to push 2 models per month and never really cared about the usability Apple single handedly released a phone which did things right in almost every aspect. This especially has hit Nokia who simply do not get it that it is the software “stupid”. Apple has gotten that years ago and they did it extremely right in this regard.
CE is just the underlying OS core which is actually very flexible and well engineered from what I’ve heard. Windows Mobile is the UI and application-level stuff on top of CE.
IE is so tightly integrated with Windows that it cannot be removed. Some people have jokingly suggested that MS replace Trident with Webkit or even buy a competitor like Opera. I don’t think that is even feasible with the way IE is tied into the OS.
For all we know the tight integration is the reason why IE7 and 8 have been lackluster upgrades.
I still don’t see how MS’s poor browser management ties into the iPhone domination. I think the iPhone has been a very obvious product in the years before it’s appearance. Microsoft, Nokia, Creative and the rest of the cellphone/mp3 player competition should have seen this coming and should have come out with products we (the consumer) wanted.
That’s widely held mythology. You can even get IE6 to run in standalone mode along IE7 or 8, without having any access to the source.
They probably would need to keep around older APIs and compatibility, but any OS has to do that. They all do it all the time, while upgrading other technology, or completely replacing it – just look at DirectX.
Shenanigans!!
I have to hand it to Joel Spolsky. Whenever I see what’s going on today and then read his article on what’s ended up happening at Microsoft this seems more and more accurate:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
It’s about something more fundamental and Thom touches on it with his comments on Firefox. Microsoft has lost the API war. Developers are developing neat little web applications, and they’re developing those off the back of advances in web technology that are primarily available in non-IE browsers because they have moved on. IE is that annoying thing you have to write exceptions for. Yer, people still write rich Windows applications, but they still all seem to be written with Visual C++. Microsoft just don’t seem to have any answer to that. Maybe Microsoft’s answer is Silverlight or something, but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Hell, they can’t even get their new cool stuff running on their existing platforms.
It was me who wrote the article, but I^aEURTMll forgive you since it^aEURTMs usually wall-to-wall Thom stories
Bugger, sorry. I never read those ‘Linked by’ and ‘Written by’ things properly.
http://news.cnet.com/wireless/?keyword=mobile+operating+systems&tag…
http://www.mobileisgood.com/statistics.php#current
Someone else on this thread said it well: The average lifespan of a mobile phone is about 2 years. I’ve never seen a phone survive (intact) for much longer than that. They’re simply brittle pieces of technology. This isn’t much different than the laptop market. Laptops typically don’t last more than 2-3 years, either. Not true with desktops, which tend to higher-powered, more solidly built, not carried around (and hence subjected to the same degree of wear), and thus last 5 years or more.
Given the short product life spans of these devices, nobody is completely out of the game unless they run out of cash, stop innovating, or give up. I don’t see any sign that Microsoft is doing any of these things. Yeah, we can all probably agree that MS isn’t innovating as nimbly as Apple; however, to their credit, everything that I’m reading about WM7 looks like they’ve gotten the message that “business as usual” isn’t going to cut it any longer.
For anybody who doubts that a competitor can come back from the brink, look at Palm. Just a few short years ago, they were producing WinMo Palm Treo phones that were just dreadful. They spent time going back to basics, and it looks like the Palm Pre is going to be a reasonably successful device. Microsoft has significantly deeper pockets than Palm, and they’re not going anywhere. I wouldn’t count them out anytime soon. Not by a long shot.
Now, they are. But they didn’t use to be this way.
My first cell phone was a Panasonic TX220 purchased in September 2001. The phone still works today … except that there are no more TDMA towers up and running. The only reason I replaced that phone after almost 5 years of continuous use is that Rogers completed their transition to GSM and powered off the TDMA towers.
That phone fell off my belt while riding my bike, was dropped off a third floor balcony, was dropped down multiple flights of cement stairs, was kicked across the kitchen, and survived (all multiple times). The worst that ever happened was the battery popping out.
In fact, the only part of the phone that showed any kind of damage was the battery, which (by the end) no longer held a charge for more than a couple of hours, or about 15 minutes of talk time.
It’s sad to see how far we’ve come technologically (Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, GPS, GHz CPU spees, 16+ GB storage, touch screens, etc) … and yet how poorly constructed and flimsy phones have become. You’d think that a phone that retails at over $400 CDN (any Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, etc) would be able to withstand more than a simple 3′ drop onto a carpeted floor.
My BlackBerry 8700c is probably at least 3 years old and still working fine. It’s been dropped many times. Its uptime is 11.2 months, too (11 months without being powered off or rebooted) and it is running fine.
Cheap laptops might not last more than 2-3 years, but the business models (ThinkPad/Latitude/HP Compaq business) frequently do. (They often come with standard 3 year warranties to match.) Since these models typically aren’t sold in retail stores, some assume that all laptops don’t last very long.
I thought the article made some good points. I took it as an opinion piece, rather than Googling every assertion made, but I largely agree with it.
Microsoft can ride out their back-of-pack position on cash inertia, as IBM did a few years back when Windows rose and eclipsed OS/2. I’m not counting them out, either.
But I’ve owned 2 Windows Mobile phones, and all I can say is, what a waste of good hardware. If Android or WebOS ran on any CDMA chipsets I’d be all over them. I don’t like iPhones (or, more precisely, Apple’s policies) either, but they are definitely have a more usable UI to my eye (AT&T is the iPhone’s uranium anchor, though). About the only WinMo advantage is that it is pretty hackable (which, ironically, makes it easier to circumvent the draconian policies and greed of some of the carriers that apparently love WinMo so much).
Microsoft has the technical talent to overcome their moribund mobile OS history; let’s hope their management acquires some vision to do so.
As it stands, I’m running hacked firmware based on beta builds of WM 6.5, with third-party apps filling in the holes WinMo leaves even in their latest offering. At least the buttons are starting to grow to finger size.
I was going to leave this off topic alone, but as a prolific taxpayer I can’t resist…I can’t believe people fall for a guy who says he is going to fix all our health care problems in less than a year, and it isn’t going to cost us or our grandchildren anything. There is one thing more important about politics than any party affiliation: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Edited 2009-09-17 05:20 UTC
Palm Pre and Palm Pixi are currently CDMA-only. So what are you waiting for?
I had a PDA back when it was called Pocket PC. It was cool THEN, although quite clunky. (This was 5-6 years ago.)
One and a half year ago I got a Windows Mobile device, and I was extremely disappointed with the interface. Basically, it seemed like they just put a Vista-skin on it, and otherwise it was the same old Pocket PC. Seriously.
I’m know there’s must of been some changes on their mobile OS, but I could not notice them.
I was gonna write long response but why bother, this is typical Kroc “HTML5 tool of OSAlert” Kramen with yet another article about how HTML5 is so superior with totally confusing heading. Don’t bother reading it’s just HTML5 yargon he been doing for last 10 articles, get a new topic for while!
On tonight^aEURTMs news: Kroc is a web developer, writes about his subject of interest. Shock and awe.
I mention little of HTML5 anyway, only to make the point that it demonstrates how the lack of Microsoft participation is not outright preventing progress, where as that wasn^aEURTMt the case in the IE6 days where there was no chance of a new spec because the No.1 browser in the world wouldn^aEURTMt implement it.
It’s interesting to see just how far behind Windows Mobile got.
Back in 2007, I had a Windows Mobile smart phone. It ran Mobile 5.0, and I liked it. Web browsing was a bit painful (between T-Mobile’s edge network and IE mobile, it was kid of aweful) but it still came in handy to be able to pull up a Google search every now and then. I made use the spreadsheet app as well as the built-in games. It was certainly handier than the awful user interface Motorola had for my RAZR (beautiful, innovative hardware, awful software).
Then, the iPhone came out. And it was like they were in two different worlds. Even if you despise the iPhone, there’s no comparing the two. The phone was so far ahead of Windows Mobile, it made me both feel both anger and pity towards Microsoft. What in the hell were they doing? They had years on Apple, McDuck-like vaults of money, plenty of brainpower. And Apple came a long, total n00b to the market, and blew them away. In terms of hardware, in terms of user interface, in terms of graphics, everything. It was as if your science project was a volcano, and then someone showed up with a working nuclear reactor an entry. There’s just no comparison.
If you took an iPhone and a Windows Mobile phone in 2007 and compared them, you’d think the Windows Mobile phone was developed 6 years earlier. It was like comparing Windows 95 to Windows XP.
I like Mac OS X better than Windows, but the feature/usability/awesomeness gap between them is a small ditch compared to the grand canyon between Windows Mobile and the iPhone in 2007.
Like the iPhone or not, or like Apple or not (and there are plenty of reasons not to), that day in 2007 phones changed forever. For the better. Had they not released the iPhone, it’s difficult to imagine phones from all companies being as good as they are today.
Everyone worked from a different set of rules when the iPhone came out. Palm got their act together with the Pre (by pillaging Apple). RIM probably was the least affected, as they had a dedicated business user base, and generally they were quite happy with the experience they got with a Blackberry.
But all of a sudden, phones started looking more like the iPhone.
Edited 2009-09-17 09:46 UTC
What would they have to use Webkit? To make Apple web developers happy? What would be the point for Microsoft? To place higher on some javascript benchmarks that make no difference to the vast majority? Why not improve Trident or create something else? Switching to Webkit would be an interesting move but they have other options.
I’m also not convinced that switching to Webkit would bring users back from Firefox. Google chrome adoption has been pretty slow given the amount of press it has received. I think MS would be better off creating something entirely new so their offering isn’t just another Webkit browser.
Oh and since Microsoft is a single organization you should use the singular form of the auxiliary verb. Hate to be a grammar nazi but I see that one all the time.
Edited 2009-09-17 17:19 UTC
What would they have to use Webkit? To make Apple web developers happy? What would be the point for Microsoft?
Webkit isn’t an Apple-only engine. It is being developed by lots and lots of different parties, independent and paid-for ones.
But well, Webkit is being developed by lots of people and it is already very fast, stable and standards-compliant so if Microsoft did switch to Webkit they could allocate far fewer developers to the engine itself and allocate more resources to the actual UI. That doesn’t seem such a bad idea. Though, there are other engines to choose from, too, Webkit is just one of those, and I don’t know if there are any negative sides to switching to such an engine. There could possibly be those, too.
I personally don’t really care either way.
Microsoft would probably want to go in a different direction from the bulk of WebKit developers, so it’s not likely that the code produced would be upstreamed very well… it would just be an increasingly divergent fork that would have to be maintained just as intensively as Trident currently is.
Adopting webkit makes sense if you literally have no existing engine. IE8 already contains big changes to Trident in the ‘standards-mode’ codepath, and IE9 will continue on this path.