wmobile

Steve Balmer the CEO of Microsoft announced earlier this week that Windows Mobile 7 will be released next year.  This does not come as a surprise to anyone that pays attention to the Windows Mobile news but when you step back and look at the economy and mobile market is this a wise thing to do?

Microsoft delayed Windows Vista for an abnormally long time and I am sure they learned their lesson that it is foolish to delay a major OS update for such a long time.  But at the other side of things is it a good idea to rush out another version too quickly?  I am actually not talking about Windows Mobile 7 here but actually version 6.5 which is set to release in the last half of this year.

Currently Microsoft spends $900 million a year on Windows Mobile and under normal conditions that might be acceptable.  By “normal conditions” I am not talking about the economy but the state of the cell phone market.  So many different companies are introducing high-end phones that are impressive and Microsoft keeps bringing the same OS with a different skin on it.  Microsoft really needs to take their mobile OS more seriously and stop re-skinning it.  $900 million a year just to release a new skin for it seems excessively high and I am sure they could get it done for $1 million if they gave the guys over at Deviant Art a shot at it.

The only way that Microsoft will be able to maintain relevance is to follow in Palm’s footsteps and dump the old OS and start from the ground up…. with Linux.

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