Why Windows Mobile 7 should be a fail (AGAIN)
There are companies, that will never learn. One of them is Microsoft.
I thought, I will never blog about companies and stuff, cause this blog is mainly intended to my writeups about AJAX geekiness, but the news and writeups spreading on the next “big thing” from Microsoft urges me to share some thoughts, about this “new” phone operating system.
What I see from the videos on Youtube is a far from complete phone operating system.
Rule No #1: Free Markets and the Killer Feature
Dear Microsoft, there are markets, which you don’t conquer being “fast”, but only having a killer feature. While Microsoft was not fast at all, since the iPhone is dominating the Market with it’s innovative design and features since 4 years, Windows Mobile 7 was anounced only last autumn. So while Microsoft’s decision was to launch Windows Mobile 7 in these months, it is still is to see if there is enough innovation in it.
Of course in pay markets also price plays a role, and Microsoft can surely be competitive, if they want to (by greatly reducing their profit). In fact Microsoft will not make any profit at all with Windows Mobile 7, cause there is already a cheap (cause free) OS in the market: namely ANDROID from Google!
I think, that from, what I see Windows Mobile 7, doesn’t offer any feature, that you won’t find on iPhone.
Rule No #2: Save costs by using a common codebase
Windows Mobile 7 seems to be built on Silverlight (Microsofts proprietary Flash software). This means, that developing Windows Mobile 7 and Windows are two completely different things. No common codebase (Silverlight) is bad for costs.
Rule No #3: Innovation in the UI
I do not see any innovation in the UI: Despite some “Widgets” which you can put on the start screen, and which will clutter up the Home screen even more, than Apple’s app centric approach, I don’t see anything new!
You must think, that this is the best Microsoft’s engineers seem to be able to come up with at the moment!
While with Windows the excuse has always been, that Microsoft can’t confront people with too radical changes in the UI (although windows made such changes, not for the better, by introducing even more substructures and even more complicated workflows), with Windows Mobile 7 they had the opportunity of a fresh relaunch.
Well, for me the conclusion is clear from what I can see this company completely lost its way to innovate.
Well, all this of course, doesn’t mean that Microsoft cannot improve, and that consumers won’t buy the phone anyways. People most often don’t even know, what is the operating system on their phone and Microsoft has good distribution and marketing channels, but I don’t believe they can do it with such a product.
Let’s see, what will be the consumers choice!
Anyways I am waiting for the big Web OS re-launch next year. I think, that HP is doing really good in waiting the whole buzz this year, and then coming up with something mind-blowing for the beginning of next year. I still believe that WebOS is going to be the real competitor of the iPhone!
