With all of the coverage of Palm Pre, Android, iPhone, Black Berry one thing is clear: Windows Mobile has terminal cancer.
There is no way that Microsoft will be able to have even the most remotely attractive device for consumers compared to it’s competitors. Microsoft is releasing the details of the next version of Windows Mobile next month (due to a mysterious delay) at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.
Microsoft is in way over their head against the competition. They have only one foothold left and that’s in the enterprise market. Their strength is in large companies wanting employees to have devices to communicate and Windows Mobile is an easy choice for many companies. The question is “For how long?” as the competition is more than stiff right now in the mobile market and will only get tougher.
ZDNet’s Larry Dignan even has an article right now about Windows Mobile and how it has a “Windows 98″ feel to it. And the saddest part is that this is so accurate! In a previous post Sascha Pallenberg asked the question of “Why would you use a desktop operating system on a Netbook?”. So to take this even further, why would you use a desktop operating system on a phone?
Yes I understand that it has been “designed” (I use that word loosely) for smartphones but realistically it is simply an OS that has been trimmed down a little. Windows 98 and Windows Mobile have very similar system requirements and even worse, similar performance. With the 2 operating systems compared side by side they look like twins but one has nicer clothes because the parents favor it more.
Next month when the details are released concerning the next version of Windows Mobile Microsoft will be ridiculed to the level that Windows Vista is. The real question is who is going to be the first to make parody videos making fun of it?
Links:: Windows Mobile 6.1 Screenshots, Palm Pre, iPhone, Android Screenshots
What I’m hoping for – is something that actually functions well. Features like CoverFlo 3D on the HTC devices are nice, but until the device itself can actually keep up with my typing speed, gestures, and screen clicks, there is no reason for me to stick with Windows Mobile. Even with Enterprise support, which Microsoft is slowly losing exclusivity on as well.
If they could make Windows Mobile perform as well as other mobile OSes (granted, I know that could possibly be a huge undertaking considering the other OSes have an exclusive hardware base to code for [read: Apple iPhone and the it's two hardware revisions... :P] while Windows Mobile is coded for many different devices). Without the performance however, I would expect to see Microsoft’s market share in mobile devices drop significantly more than it already has over the next year.