A little strategy, a long way off.
Msmobiles.com posted this information regarding a delay to the oft-delayed Windows 7, in addition they plan to launch a dual-platform strategy utilising Windows 6.5 against Android and Windows 7 against the iPhone. Too complicated, too little, too late.
Nowadays, whenever any journalists or broadcasters talk or write about 3 major smartphone platforms, they mean: Apple iPhone, Google Android and Palm Pre/WebOS. No mention of Windows Mobile or Microsoft at all! Windows Mobile is losing mind share rapidly and market share (not so quickly but constantly)… so times are bad for Microsoft to delay next major upgrade of Windows Mobile…
… but apparently, as guys from Taiwan, who keep monitoring Chinese press (note: most if not all Windows Mobile phones are made in China and Taiwan) … are claiming: instead of releasing Windows Mobile 7 early next year, Microsoft will release then an upgraded Windows Mobile 6.5 (probably with capacitive display support and multitouch support) and Windows Mobile 7 is coming in fourth quarter of 2010 (Q4 2010).
Over 400 Microsoft employees, partly former Danger employees (makers of Sidekick phone), are working now under leadership of Roz Ho on non-Windows Mobile project Pink aka "Microsoft hardware phone" (or some other non-Windows Mobile project), but we have a feeling that once again Windows Mobile proper (now renamed to Windows Phone) is being neglected.
It looks like Windows Mobile 7 is one of the most delayed Microsoft products ever… and in meantime competition is not waiting and progressing ahead with full power (multitouch in OS and in apps, digital compass for augmented reality, in-phone video editing, common API for sensors, in-app purchases, etc.)…
[Thanks to Kieran McElhinney for the heads up.]
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Umm….. the three major smartphone platforms? What about the one that leads the world, with 50% market share? i.e. Symbian?
It may lead the world in Market share but that is all, and only because most consumers don’t know any better. Most Nokia phones are free on contract and it has been that way since day dot. This is why they have this Market share, and most symbian users never use their phone as a smartphone, well from my experience anyway.
Let’s be honest compared to the iPhone, Android and the Palm Webos, Symbian looks ancient and is in desperate need of a makeover, even though in the right hands it can do some pretty good things.
I agree with Chris’ assessment of Symbian’s current state and status. Actually, I’d add to the “Decrepit” pile BlackBerry’s OS. Fortunately for RIM, the brand has transformed itself into a consumer brand. That buys it a year or so (I think) to fix its shortcomings.
Windows Phone has no such similar cachet. It’s going the way of the buffalo.
Symbian, how boring is that… The only competitors to iPhone on advanced smartphones are Android and WebOS. Windows Mobile is so already forgotten…
I would not rule out Symbian yet. I had a nokia e61 a few years back and it was a great device. The software catalog for Symbian is even bigger than windows mobile. It owns the dumb phone market largely because it has not changed. Still the same icons in the menu etc. Clearly this has not worked in the smartphone market yet do not rule them out just yet. It looks like Nokia are going to shift their smartphones to Maemo which is a nice linux based OS which will be capable of running the Android virtual machine.
We can only talk about current OS’s what the next version of Symbian may or may not bring is unknown. As it stands now it is the equivalent of black and white versus colour tv when compared with the iPhone and the other two.
I have to raise few basic questions to Microsoft… Why Microsoft has to keep two platforms alive at the same time to compete against two different players rather than to kill the previous one? Why can’t they put their resources at one place rather than to channel it in different platforms?
Maemo is a current OS already available on the Nokia N800. Of course currently it does not support telephony fully but Nokia and Intel have launched the oFono project fill the gaps. This is clearly Nokias strategy for the future Symbian for dumb and low end smartphones with Maemo for top end devcies.
As for the iphone and comparing it to other devices I think its more to do with what you use it for. If you just want a media phone device sure the iphone is great. Though for me I use skype and another IM client. I also use it for sat nav. These things just do not work well on the iphone when you wish to runn them all at the same time. At the minute I prefer Android simply because of hits custimisation and simplicity. Its application management is superior to iphones or WM. The barcode scanning features are widely supported, cryket the online market place provides QR code marketplace download links. Just point your android device at your computer screen and it downloads an application. (no reason why WM or iphone devices with autofocus camera cannot do this) .
Though as far as Android goes avoid the HTC devices especially the Hero. Touch Sense is poorly implemented. I have the Samsung Galaxy and AMOLED is the way forward. I can use my phone outside, how mobile is that?