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Topic: Mobility

Cringely's right, Windows Mobile is dead

Summary: Cringely's right, unless Microsoft gets around to doing something really radical with Windows Mobile, the platform will be all but dead in a few years.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

By for Hardware 2.0 |

Cringely's right, unless Microsoft gets around to doing something really radical with Windows Mobile, the platform will be all but dead in a few years.

RIP Windows Mobile

So, why will Windows Mobile be dead in a few years? Like Cringely, I think that several factors are at work here:

  • Windows Mobile is an awful platform Not only is it an epic fail in terms on being a cut-down version of Windows, it can also be flaky and highly unreliable. I'm not saying that all WM smartphones are rubbish (some, such as Samsung's BlackJack were actually quite decent), but the experience between vendors was very variable. I think that developing a good WM device was expensive, hence roundabout announcement that they are exiting the high-end (read WM) phone game.
  • Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile Hello Microsoft .... was this supposed to be a joke applications or something?
  • There are too many competing platforms iPhone, Android, Symbian, RIM, Windows Mobile ... that a crowded market.
  • The high-end cellphone market is only so big 85% of folks out there are more than happy with a dumb handset.
  • Only so many developers to go around iPhone and Android platforms are attracting a lot of developer attention. With ready-made stores, Microsoft has nothing like this to offer developers. As much as I like the Symbian platform on my new Nokia, I have to admit that iPhone and Android have some cool apps.
  • Unless you're #1 or #2, what's the point Is Microsoft really going to pour the money and commitment that Windows Mobile really needs if there's no chance the platform can't be at the #1 or #2 spot? I don't think so.

Time for Windows Mobile to evolve or die ... and I'm not holding my breath expecting to see any evolving.

Topics: Mobility, Hardware, Mobile OS, Operating Systems, Software, Windows

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126 comments
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  • More evidence Adrians objectivity is gone

    Do you scour the net to copy and paste your articles?
    CrashPad
    Reply Vote

    • My objectivity ...

      ... in this regard is based on having handled countless WM devices, and found almost all of them lacking. I might not like the iPhone, or think that Android is all it can be just yet, but if you think that WM is safe, you've got your head stuck deep in the sand.

      So, anything to offer beyond an ad hominem response?
      Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
      Reply Vote

      • Adrian has no idea anymore and his judgement is clouded

        So, let's see we have heard from so called 'experts' such as Adrian for the past 6 years that Linux would be the death of Windows Server - last time I checked it's out growing Linux, we have heard for 2 years now that Google Docs and Open Office would be the death of Office, yet Office has seen record revenues for the past 2 years in the face of competition and like all these biased and ignorant commentators we are now hearing that Windows Mobile will be dead in a couple of years!

        Based on this track record Adrian (and others) I think you need to change careers. :)
        Martin_Australia
        Reply Vote

        • Who's buying WM devices today?

          Exactly.

          WM = dead.

          Windows Server is alive because MS invested so heavily in the "cross-platform" .Net and they made sure it only worked on correctly Windows. They also made sure that if anyone made it available on another platform MS would have a path to lay down lawsuits.

          Unfortunately for MS such strong arm tactics will not work for mobile device because people get new ones frequently and they never carry any software over.

          As for MS Office, that and Visual Studio are the only MS products that legitimately out class the competition. Those two not die until Windows does. Windows on the PC is not going anywhere for a long time.
          T1Oracle
          Reply Vote

          • Anyone who bought a Diamond, a Touch Pro...

            ...an Omnia, an HD, an Xperia, a...

            You get the point.
            Sleeper Service
            Reply Vote

          • That would be about the third place

            smart phone market COMBINED behind Apple and Blackberry. Not
            a good example to make your case.
            frgough
            Reply Vote

          • In America.

            It may come as a surprise to you but there are another 6 billion people or so out there.
            Sleeper Service
            Reply Vote

          • I finally checked up on some of these phones...

            ...since they're not very common here and the video reviews did not look so good. The Touch Diamond and Pro both worked rather crappy in the review. The Omnia looks ok so far but not all that great. I haven't seen anything on the Xperia yet. To be honest you have been selling alot of wolf tickets on these phones and they don't seem to be that wonderful.
            storm14k
            Reply Vote

          • I checked out...

            ...the iPhone, the Diamond and the Omnia in the shops. In the end I chose the Onmnia because it suited my needs better.

            They're all good phones though.
            Sleeper Service
            Reply Vote

          • I bought a Touch Diamond!

            Yes! I went through the phases after purchase: Excitement - realization - remorse - and finally grudging acceptance.

            I got the Touch Diamond because I did NOT want a slide out keyboard. Previous phones with slide out keyboards get stuck while pulling them out of your pocket.
            I turned off ALL of the pretty "TouchFlo" interface and went back to Standard Windows Mobile. It comes with Opera and IE. IE mobile is abysmal. I'd never used Opera before. It turns out to be quite good.

            The only application I have purchased for this phone is Sudoku.

            Windows Mobile seems very pedestrian to me. When this contract is finished, I will be looking at ALL possibilities.
            I am Gorby
            Reply Vote

          • ??? Huh nt

            nt
            TheBottomLineIsAllThatMatters
            Reply Vote

          • re: Who's buying WM devices today?

            Please. you can run .Net on *nux platforms with no issues. I am sure you can do it on a Mac if you really wanted to as well (not sure why you would). I do agree though, that .Net is crap. Even after the dotcom crash and there were tons of .Net and ASP jobs out there and ColdFusion jobs were hard to find, I still had nothing to do with .Net. I bought a book on it and the first chapter was "This is what ASP does not do..." That was all I had to read to know that it was an inferior language and that I was correct in sticking with CF....which is now also available as Open Source via New Atlanta's Blue Dragon. They also have a .Net version available. There are also a few other OS versions of the application server out there. I think i backed the right horse on that one *grin*.

            WM is hardly dead. Most of the high end smart phones run it. Even the venerable Palm uses it (as well as their own OS...but they recognize the value of WM). Many people, especially in the business sector will want it because of the tight integration of Mobile office with Windows on the desktop as well as direct connectivity with Exchange servers. Even version 5 is ok. Version 6 is greatly improved.

            To make statements like Windows Mobile is dead is just plain ignorant.
            owner@...
            Reply Vote

          • What is the difference between WM 6 and WM 6.1?

            I used Palms for years. Loved them. They had (maybe still do) better integration with Office documents than did Windows Mobile with the bundled application "Documents to Go".

            I finally wanted a PDA and phone together, so I purchased a WM phone. WM OS is OK, but its interface is not as good as the Palm interface. Pity the Palm is dying.

            I don't see any advantage in the new WM 6.1. It seems slower than the older 6.0.
            I am Gorby
            Reply Vote

          • WM 6 vs 6.1 - 6.1 Works

            Got a new HTC with 6.0 installed. I found that the bluetooth to my speaker phone (I use my Garmin GPS) in the car would not stay connected and I had difficulty with the voice dial. Installed 6.1 and like magic, the problems went away and it seemed that the speed improved also. The voice command is great and the connectivity is even better. Yes, I know that my son had a very similar voice-dial on his crackleberry two years ago but I like the automatice sync up with my Outlook contacts and being able to carry Excel spreadsheets with data and calculation abilities. Some of the other platforms look glitzier but they contain less of what I use on a daily basis.
            oterrya
            Reply Vote

        • Credit crunch, and trucking $100,000 dollars of CD's about for no reason?

          Yeah, I see you know wtf you're talking about angry Martin ;-)

          This one's quite easy. Who in their right mind would build their business on a platform from a psychopathic megalomaniac company that would have absolutely no qualms about abusing their position to kill you off to take over your successful business further up the road?

          Martin I know that it is wasted on you, because unless it says Microsoft on the CD, you are unable to actually think.
          fr0thy2
          Reply Vote

        • naw

          its hard to objectively guess the future. The fact that these people are posting expecting more accuracy in visionizing the future have NO idea what they are talking about. If it was so easy to be right then why wouldn't a company just do that and become the future and makes lots of money... but then if it was so easy then they all would... and so they would be competing for the obvious top spot in the future... so then it wouldn't be the big cash cow that everybody would expect it to be... but since in THEIR world the future is SO EASY to see every company would ALREADY know that and so not as many companies would pursue it... my point is... it's OBVIOUSLY a VERY difficult thing to do and get right.

          SO! I think it is likely that Windows Mobile will be cut, but if it does I PERSONALLY think windows will evolve another platform to take it's place. Something on another device.

          BUT! since windows mobile is a derivative of CE and other derivatives exist on MANY devices other than mobile phones, I find it unlikely that it will be canceled completely.

          ALSO! (I don't know what is up with the caps "!") It won't be that many years (or posibily even months) before a handheld devices commonly have enough power to run last gen OSs (some of them already can). In which case they may just use an old code base and update it. Idk. Just some thoughts.
          shadfurman
          Reply Vote

        • Apple sold 2,600,000 Macs last quarter...

          ... all running Linux, according to their SEC financial report. According to IDC, VMWare is something like 85% of the server virtualization market on x86. Both use Linux as their core.

          Where are the numbers you're using from? Microsoft?

          I think Adrian is doing his job far better than some of you obviously would...
          914four
          Reply Vote

      • OK Adrian, let's do this bit by bit then...

        [i]* Windows Mobile is an awful platform. Not only is it an epic fail in terms on being a cut-down version of Windows, it can also be flaky and highly unreliable.[/i]

        So because it [b]can[/b] be flaky and unreliable - as, indeed, all mobile operating systems are - this makes it an epic fai? Well, no, not really. It just makes it the same as any other mobile OS.

        [i]I?m not saying that all WM smartphones are rubbish but the experience between vendors was very variable.[/i]

        So what you seem to be saying here is that some manufacturers make better products than others. My word! Who'd have thought it?

        [i]I think that developing a good WM device was expensive, hence roundabout announcement that they are exiting the high-end (read WM) phone game.[/i]

        I think you really need to read what Samsung actually said here rather than take Cringely's view as gospel because that's not their strategy at all. I'm actually struggling to see where Cringely got that particular statement from - it certainly isn't in Samsung's press release on their Q3 results. What they [i]did[/i] say was that they were still aiming to hit their target of 200 million units sold in 2008 but that the focus would be on cheaper units to achieve this target rather than high end units because of intense competition. This is not the same as saying they're exiting the higher end game which they most certainly aren't.

        [i]Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile. Hello Microsoft ?. was this supposed to be a joke applications or something?[/i]

        Hello Opera 9.5 which runs on every recent WinMo commercial device and in pre-installed as the default browser on Samsung and HTC WinMo devices. No further argument necessary.

        [i]There are too many competing platforms - iPhone, Android, Symbian, RIM, Windows Mobile ? that a crowded market.[/i]

        By this logic Apple should never have bothered with the iPhone because it should have had no chance. In fact no-one should have bothered [i]at all[/i] because Symbian has 60% of the market.

        [i]The high-end cellphone market is only so big 85% of folks out there are more than happy with a dumb handset.[/i]

        For now. About 10 years ago 85% people were happy with no mobile phone at all. Since the driver here is price, the cheaper they become the more peopel will buy them.

        [i]Only so many developers to go around - iPhone and Android platforms are attracting a lot of developer attention. With ready-made stores, Microsoft has nothing like this to offer developers.[/i]

        Of course they are - they're new platforms and there's money to be made writing sofwtare for them. The point you miss - and it's a big one - is that these applications already exist for WinMo and Symbian and have been on sale for years in some cases. As for stores, Handango has been supplying WinMo software as a centralised store for years too so whilst WinMo doesn't have a nice app to link straight to a software market - yet - this isn't really an issue either.

        [i]As much as I like the Symbian platform on my new Nokia, I have to admit that iPhone and Android have some cool apps.[/i]

        As does WinMo and S60. What's more users of these systems have had them for months if not years before Mobile OSX and Android users.

        [i]Unless you?re #1 or #2, what?s the point - Is Microsoft really going to pour the money and commitment that Windows Mobile really needs if there?s no chance the platform can?t be at the #1 or #2 spot? I don?t think so.[/i]

        WinMo are currently number 3 behind Symbian and RIM. MS will most certainly develop the platform because they believe they can displace RIM if not Symbian. Again, by your argument, why are Apple in the market? They're never going to be #1 and unlikely to be #2 either.

        [i]Time for Windows Mobile to evolve or die ? and I?m not holding my breath expecting to see any evolving.[/i]

        So WinMo 7 is just a figment of our imaginations then?

        Honestly, Adrian, would a little research have hurt that much to do?
        Sleeper Service
        Reply Vote

        • The simple fact is...

          MSFT is a monopoly with monopoly thinking: he has no
          alternative. From this flows the second or third rate
          attitude: if he does not like it, so what?

          MSFT, as a consequence has a complete lack of
          innovative thinking.

          I used 11 WinMo devices. All were obtuse, clunky and
          a complete pain to use. Only an idiot or a top MSFT
          manager would want to use one. They were poorly
          organized and a constant irritation; want a battery
          indicator? Drill down through menus. Want to shut
          down an app? Drill down... Want to... Drill down.

          Everything was presented with a complete lack of
          concern for aesthetics or user friendliness because THE
          USER HAS NO CHOICE.

          Memo to Bloatfarm: those days are over; your days of
          smartphone domination are over. Get ready to play
          Zune again.
          Jeremy W
          Reply Vote

          • Whatever.

            When you actually want to answer any of the points above feel free.
            Sleeper Service
            Reply Vote
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