Windows Phone 7 gets asked to the mobile dance by Nokia
Summary: A lot of "ifs" dominate Nokia/Windows Phone 7 discussion...but the end result could be relevant to the enterprise, blogs Ted Schadler.
Make no mistake about Nokia's global power. They are still the dominant handset maker globally. But Nokia somehow missed the shift to the handheld computers we call smartphones and tablets.
Make no mistake about Microsoft's tenacity. They will drop a cool billion to enter a market. But they have tried and tried and tried again to build an operating system that can work on the handheld computes we call smartphones and tablets.
Well, Windows Phone 7 (now where did the "7" come from?) is a good mobile OS, at least on smartphones. No idea whether it will work on tablets. (We know Windows 7 itself won't.)
And Nokia's smartphone platforms like the E7 are a decent piece of hardware.
And now that these two megaliths are partnering up, Microsoft's mobile OS has a chance for relevance. I and my colleagues have predicted and urged you, our enterprise customers, to focus on three mobile platforms: Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and RIM's QNX. Well, it's time to take a flier on Microsoft as well.
It's way too early to tell if this partnership will be successful or if anybody, particularly your US and European employees, will care about Nokia smartphones or tablets running Windows Phone 7. But if they nail the product experience. If they sign up the carriers. If they quickly roll out a good, competitively-priced tablet running the same Windows Phone OS. If they port Word and PowerPoint and OneNote and Excel and SharePoint Workspace to that tablet and phones. If they attract ISVs. If they attract independent developers. If they build a decent app store. If they sign up the mobile device management vendors. If they execute brilliantly. Then they could be relevant.
Yep, it's a lot of ifs. But there wasn't even a door to success visible for these two companies until now. And now there is a door and it's open. So nice decision, Mr. Elop and Mr. Ballmer. Now do the right thing for information workers and make these products great in the office, in the hand, and in the home. Because make no mistake. You're building a single product experience together. Hardware+Software+Applications+Distribution+Delivery+Content+++++.
Go get it.
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Talkback
RE: Windows Phone 7 gets asked to the mobile dance by Nokia
huh?
what 'excelent move' you are talking about?
This is another nail in M$ coffin and another foot deeper in Nokia's grave!
It's a bold move
Let's face it. Nokia choosing Android was the "safe" move. It would be like saying "We have nothing to offer so we'll just sign on with the team already picked to be in the Superbowl and hope we get a nice ring at the end." No risk, little reward, no real chance to distinguish themselves.
It's our farm
Given Nokia's volume, no one sane will want to compete with them in the WP7 space. Oh, maybe a couple of Chinese OEMs, but no one serious. So this is likely to be the last time Ballmer gets to dance on a stage with the CEO of a handset maker. If Nokia executes, Microsoft wins. Otherwise, Microsoft becomes an also-ran in the mobile space... which could cause a lot of people to sell their MSFT stock.
The decision makes more sense for Nokia. They need not worry that Microsoft will become bored with WP7 and decide to go do something else. This is Microsoft's core business. If they don't get a BIG presence in handsets, their future is not looking bright. It won't be too many years before handsets ARE the computers. So they will throw money, engineers, whatever it takes, to make WP7 succeed. All of that aids Nokia.
I think betting the farm on Android is nuts. While Google would have us believe that Android is the love of their life, we all know it isn't. Funding a mobile OS that they give away for free is not Google's core business. The day may come when some new CEO decides that it's all a waste of money. Sure, the hardware vendors can pick up the open source where Google left off, but that isn't the deal they made. Their pricing models do not include paying for a big staff of OS developers. But they'd better behave as though it could happen, because it might.
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