Also, just to clarify, I never said that advertising was the sole problem or the sole solution. Only that it was one problem they currently have. After nearly 10 years, Windows Mobile has almost no name recognition. After less than 10 months, everyone has an i in front of their name. It is sexy and cool. That is all marketing, and for all of his faults, that is one of Jobs’ best qualities.

Doug

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/06/iphone-now-in-2nd-place-in-the-us-smartphone-race-3rd-globally/

Then there are the usage stats that demonstrate the iPhone is far more usable as an internet device with Google’s discovery of 50 times more searches on Apple‘s iPhone than any other mobile handset. Google “thought it was a mistake and made their engineers check the logs again,” said Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/667f13de-da60-11dc-9bb9-0000779fd2ac.html

In addition to this, Net Applications has found that the iPhone registered almost 1% of all web traffic which “when you consider that the iPhone has only been selling for 5 months and for most of that time was in one – albeit large – market (the U.S.), that share is amazing. Add another .01% for the iPod touch and Apple mobile platform is one out of every thousand pageviews across the Internet.” The iPhone has captured a 70% share of the mobile browsing market.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/iphone_browsing_marketshare_closes_in_on_1

Surely you don’t think the solution for MS is just better advertising? The product itself has to prove itself worthy of the ads as well.

The problem for Windows Mobile is it is hobbled with a rickety, resource-constrained 10 year old code base that is just not scaling well. We’re talking a flaky, cut-down OS of about 40MBs in size designed to run on devices with less than 128MBs of storage, compared to OS X on the iPhone which is half a gigabyte of desktop-class UNIX operating system with a proven track record of reliability, memory protection and great pre-emptive multitasking etc that also has a fresh, drop-dead simple and attractive multi-touch GUI and an interaction model that resonates with non-geeks as well as techies. And the hardware is kick-ass. 8-16GB of storage standard with a 600MHz CPU and accelerated graphics. In contrast, WM is stuck needing to be compatible with totally anaemic hardware in comparison.

I’ve had endless frustration with Windows Mobile on my $1000 HTC-made PDA Phone ( (O2 XDA IIs and my wife’s O2 XDA Mini)). Unexpected hard resets that lost all of my applications, data and preferences and then forced me to go thru a stupid click and drag tutorial every single time drove me absolutely bonkers.

It makes you feel like you are back using crash-prone Windows 95 all over again. Also, who in their right mind puts a tiny little Start Menu on a 3.5″ screen? It took me several days to work out how to send SMS messages the function was buried so deep. I kept losing the stylus and had to try and poke these tiny little onscreen buttons and scroll bars with a finger and I was forever restarting as the molasses set in.

Dropped calls, poor call quality, stupid chromed plastic buttons that all kept getting less and less sensitive until they stopped working totally, battery life up a creek, wifi implementation that required an unbelievable number of steps and stupidly non-intuitive screens to set up and which either never connected or never stayed connected for long. The hundreds of users of the fleet of varied corporate WinMobile PDA phones on our campus have all had to use expensive 3G connectivity instead of WiFi as it is just too broken in Win Mobile.

Apple has had the advantage of starting out with a clean slate on a much faster mobile CPU and with far more memory built-in than phones had even a year ago and has been able to establish a very solid foundation for the future.

I used to be a Windows Mobile power user – I bought thousands of dollars worth of software for my personal Windows Mobile PDA phone including Destinator Turn-by-Turn GPS software and a Bluetooth GPS unit, the SPB utilities package to try and make up for the many shortcomings of the Windows Mobile interface, I’ve bought dozens of SciFi eBooks and read them on Mobipocket Reader and use Avante Go to subscribe to dozens of newspapers and tech journals and purchased the full PocketBible theological library suite and also loaded up the 1GB SD card with videos and music.

However, I ended up giving up on all of that and went back to my old Symbian P900 smartphone as at least it got the basics right. Once the iPhone is released here in Australia with both the basics and such vast robust potential, I’ll be at the head of the line.

-Mart

Tariq and SPM, I agree with you guys. WM 7 will be huge. If Microsoft does it right, then that could really right the ship…but that is a big if.

One other point, take a look at any carrier’s print ads. Every phone is the Blackberry whatever, the Apple iPhone (or just iPhone) Palm Treo. But you never see a phone advertised as the Windows Mobile whatever. Microsoft needs to fix that. No wonder so many people have no idea that it exists.

Doug

Comments like “M$ doesn’t know how to move to the 25th century…” is just funny or sad.

Anyway, great stuff Doug, as always.

Right now, to say whether Windows Mobile is dead or not has to be part of Microsoft’s strategy. I mean, why else license the platform to Apple otherwise? There’s definitely money to be made there and if the iPhone meets it’s target of 10 million sets sold, imagine the profits it brings Microsoft. Maybe 10 million sets may not bring as much a profit as I imagined but if it continues to grow the way it has, it would only benefit Microsoft more. Then maybe, just maybe, Windows Mobile may no longer be needed.

At the moment, my only complaint with Windows Mobile is the web browsing aspect. Yes Microsoft is still stuck in the past while Apple has moved forward and the newer browsers coming out may just change that. Other than that, why else would I want the iPhone if I can do everything else on Windows Mobile?

And perhaps even Handango can play a role with it, with the slice they take from the developers income. If they take 50%, and Apple takes $99 each year + 30% of the revenues, the iPhone might be a more attractive platform to develop for.

Also, how long can Apple keep innovating? They did a great job on the iPod, the iPhone was the next big step, but what will they bring after this? The MacBook Air appears to get a few negative comments (“A notebook with this hardware inside could have been a lot cheaper”), so they’ll have to do better. What could be the next market they will try to address, and will it be good for them (iPod and iPhone) or not? I see people with iPods all over the place in the Netherlands, but I wouldn’t recognize a Zune if I saw one. And I mean that, if it wasn’t for blogs like JAMM, I wouldn’t even be aware of the Zune, I never see or read anything about it in the Netherlands. If something similar happens to Apple and they lose their magic “Wow” factor, what will be left?

But I think one thing is clear, after the media attention, money and other good things the iPod and iPhone brought them, a lot of people know the name “Apple”, and they’re in a much better position to attack WM and Microsoft in general.