windowsmobile65, ;, a><br>

Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.

Dsmvwl Admin Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×

Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
New company slogan..

Microsoft: Caught with our pants down
Reply

istuptinosil
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
BTW Microsoft investors are really not happy about this situation. They have been clear to Microsoft that they were caught napping and being arrogant which is not a good mix. Why that doofus Ballmer still has his job is beyond me. This came up btw at the recent investor and financial analyst meeting with Microsoft where 3/4 of the attendees were using MacBooks. Yeah.
Reply

Kaiser-Machead promoted this comment istuptinosil was starred istuptinosil was unstarred

TheSonOfKrypton
12/15/09

@istuptinosil: HAHAHAHAH. SERIOUSLY? That's awesome. I can just imagine it: a Microsoft investor meeting where a room full of lit up Apple's are shining upon the keynote speakers face. Awesome.
Reply

TheSonOfKrypton was starred TheSonOfKrypton was unstarred

UnderLoK
12/15/09

@istuptinosil: You meant "3/4 of the press had MacBooks".

Regarding the conference, the investors were going nuts over Apple, not the fact that WM7 isn't out yet.

The investors aren't focused on WM7. What they care about is a better defense by going on offense. MS need to defend the desktop, the enterprise, and MS Office. Mobile is already lost and has been mediocre at best for years.

Mobile while a money maker, has never been a big money maker and you need to remember that the reason it is for companies like Apple is because they make the hardware. The only way for MS to truly compete is to release a Zune phone otherwise they make pennies on an OS.
Reply

Edited by UnderLoK at 12/15/09 3:38 PM UnderLoK was starred UnderLoK was unstarred

Rayonic
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
Microsoft is the "napping" king. As soon as they get ahead in an area, they pull the plug on future development. Then it takes a swift kick in the ass to wake them up again.

How long did they sit with IE6?
How long did we wait for a successor to WinXP?
Didn't they just *start* getting their search engine act together?

And all this time, Microsoft Research makes cool prototypes that never become real products (e.g. the Microsoft Courier).
Reply

Ninety-9 promoted this comment Rayonic was starred Rayonic was unstarred

Ninety-9
12/15/09

@Rayonic: "Microsoft is the "napping" king. As soon as they get ahead in an area, they pull the plug on future development. Then it takes a swift kick in the ass to wake them up again."

Um, That's pretty much the entire iSomething Business model for Apple.

Aside from them turning the classic iPod into an iPod touch, There's been very little progress in the iPhone and iPod development scheme since their first arrival. In fact, I could argue almost every other manufacturer has made bigger leaps in each successive generation than Apple.
Reply

Ninety-9 was starred Ninety-9 was unstarred

Jimmy1
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
Look, Microsoft is a huge, very successful multi-national, multi billion dollar, conglomerate software company specializing in enterprise software, inlcuding Office and Windows in most of the world's PCs.

But why do feel that they absolutely need a presence in every technological niche? They don't *need* to compete in mobile. Why even bother? In addition, why are they bothering with home entertainment (Zune, Xbox)? It's downright schizophrenic.

I mean, you don't see Oracle trying to build an iPhone type device or SAP opening an online music service to compete with iTunes.
Reply

ludwigk promoted this comment Jimmy1 was starred Jimmy1 was unstarred

COCOViper
12/15/09

@Jimmy1:
Do you feel the same way about Apple with say the AppleTV? All businesses take an expand or die mindset. That means simultaneously perfecting your existing markets while trying to establish new ones for your products.
Reply

NorwoodIsMyHero promoted this comment COCOViper was starred COCOViper was unstarred

NorwoodIsMyHero
12/15/09

@COCOViper: Microsoft could stay in the markets they are winning in and probably be okay, but why do that?

They have adequate capital to do a mobile OS alongside of everything. Currently thats a hot growth sector, and MS is not completely out of it by any stretch of the imagination. I don't understand all this "MS should just leave the mobile OS market".

They have the capital, they have good designers they could pull in from the Zune team, why not keep working in what is fast becoming a competitive and profitable market?
Reply

NorwoodIsMyHero was starred NorwoodIsMyHero was unstarred

Kaiser-Machead
12/15/09

@COCOViper: The AppleTV isn't a really good example of Apple's attempt to expand to a different business. It's just an extension of their long-established media store, attempting to augment iTunes and the iPod line (with apparently little to no real success). The XBox and Zune, however, are vastly different from Microsoft's other products and services.
Reply

Kaiser-Machead was starred Kaiser-Machead was unstarred

COCOViper
12/15/09

@NorwoodIsMyHero:
I agree - I think you should have probably addressed your questions @Jimmy1 :)
Reply

COCOViper was starred COCOViper was unstarred

ludwigk
12/15/09

@Jimmy1: You might not remember the early 2000's when Ellison was convinced that the future of consumer electronics was net-top type PC thin clients and on-demand networked televisions. Oracle took their shot at consumer electronics, missed the mark, or possibly was just too progressive, and have since shrunk away to concentrate on their core industry. Of course, having purchased Sun, they could certainly pursue another market, or cut away all the hardware portions and let them die, which is more their style.
Reply

ludwigk was starred ludwigk was unstarred

Kantaris
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
I liked back in the day, when Windows Mobile was basically your only option for something "really spiffy". Now I make fun of my friend who spends $500 every few months to upgrade to the newest Winmo phone
Reply

TheSonOfKrypton promoted this comment B3ND3R approved this comment Kantaris was starred Kantaris was unstarred

Curves
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
Good thing I pay attention to Apple, because I just found 2 charges in my credit card to the Apple store, that I did not make.

OK, who is buying apps with my credit card? C'mon. Fess up. (Please let it be the Battleship App at least, because that one looks cool.)
Reply

Curves was starred Curves was unstarred

fintach
12/15/09

@Curves: Did you get an e-mail receipt for them or did the charges just show up on your statement?
Reply

Curves promoted this comment fintach was starred fintach was unstarred

loriensleafs
12/15/09

@Curves: a company as big as Apple randomly charging you sounds completely erroneous
Reply

Curves promoted this comment loriensleafs was starred loriensleafs was unstarred

Curves
12/15/09

@fintach: I was logged onto the bank site when I saw them (both less than 48 hrs old) and I called and killed the card and the charges are already reversed.
Reply

Curves was starred Curves was unstarred

Curves
12/15/09

@loriensleafs: It was at the Apple store, I am sure not Apple themselves, since if they wanted to steal they would pick someone with more money to steal from. Just some 'tard who got my card number and is using it. Correction: WAS using it.
Reply

Curves was starred Curves was unstarred

karelj
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
Ahhh yes.. more WinMo bashing.
"I hate WinMo because..well..uhhh.. er.... because I'm supposed to"
Reply

karelj was starred karelj was unstarred

kevinl
12/15/09

@karelj: or because it sucks. i mean, there's always that.
Reply

TheSonOfKrypton promoted this comment kevinl was starred kevinl was unstarred

bendis79
12/15/09

@karelj: The core issue is usability. I got a touch pro last year and i wanted to flush it. I had been a Treo user for years, but I wanted a cool touchscreen, anti iPhone (don't want to switch to ATT) Unfortunatly the HTC was so unresponsive that it bacame clear it was built on crap. No matter how much makeup HTC piled on, it was still an outdated OS underneath it all.

I had this coversation the other day with my boss, about why the everyone will be playing catchup with the iPhone. It was all about the target audience. Smartphones were only for business people, plain and simple. Some Blackberries, the centro and maybe a few other were for consumers, but the core OS was built for being a way to sync your exchange data to a mobile device.

There were games and silly apps, but no one saw a market for them to be truly comsumer oriented. Apple made a brilliant move, seeing that the iPod crowd could benefit from a converged device, and the iPhone was built from it's core to be user friendly.

Instead of closing up shop for a while and re-tooling the other OSes, they just layered skins on top of what has been there for years to make it "look" competative. Eventually Palm was able to make a good shot of it (I got the Pre a few weeks ago during a great Black Friday sale at Best Buy) but others are still re-tooling.

I happen to think Palm won't be able to compete with Android and Apple, which is unfortunate. WinMo will survive because they have to capital to survive a period of failure if need be. I am looking forward to seeing where they go with version 7, but regarledss, we are just at the begining. 3 years into this concept of a consumer smartphone and the competition has grown in leaps and bounds. Give it another year or two and I think the gap will close (as far as quality, not neccarily market share) And in the end the real winner will be the consumer.

All in all I think besides marketing Apple's biggest strength is timing. They weren't the first mp3 player on the market, first touchscreen phone, or (if this happens) first tablet maker, but when they lauch a product there is a want for it, and that is how they create such a mindshare. That being said, I want the courier!
Reply

TheSonOfKrypton promoted this comment bendis79 was starred bendis79 was unstarred

archercc
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
WinMo is dying. They had a chance before android to compete but now the only platform that can take on the mighty iphone is Android.

And with Android since you arent paying a licensing fee the user can invest more in the hardware.
Reply

archercc was starred archercc was unstarred

Mikestan
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
They need to heavily redesign the OS and MAKE a piece of hardware that is meant to run that OS.
Reply

Mikestan was starred Mikestan was unstarred

slater
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
I say give up on Windows Mobile and just focus on making Windows better. They already have such a huge market, they should focus on keeping the customers they already have.
Reply

NorwoodIsMyHero promoted this comment slater was starred slater was unstarred

NorwoodIsMyHero
12/15/09

@slater: I don't think Microsoft's capital is so restricted that they can't do both to the best of their abilities. They have a very sizeable Windows team already, adding more programmers to it won't necessarily make it improve any faster.

I think their shareholders want to stay in the mobile OS market because its only going to get larger and this notion on the tech blogs that MS can't ever catch up is a silly refusal acknowledge that MS has competent design teams that can compete on a value basis, if not a quality basis.

They may never have the best mobile OS but they'll always have a market share that makes it worthwhile to stay in the game.
Reply

NorwoodIsMyHero was starred NorwoodIsMyHero was unstarred

madog
12/15/09

@NorwoodIsMyHero: I was just thinking about that same thing after reading the article. They are a huge company and have (or had, at least) a phone OS that only really competed with with RIM at the time (I think, I'm not too familiar with other smart phone OS's), and if a relatively smaller company like HTC can upgrade the WinMo platform the way it has recently then what the hell is taking MS so long?

It's never good to rush an OS, but Apple did in a way. They also made it easy to update and have improved their software exponentially with each one.

Taking too long will only hurt their chances to jump back into the market just as well.
Reply

madog was starred madog was unstarred

pwheeler
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
As much as I like to rip on Apple the truth is that the iPhone is an amazing product. I have doubts that Microsoft will ever come up with any phone that works as well unless they choose one phone model to really show off what they can do. That is assuming Win Mo 7 is any good of course.

I also like the idea that both they and Google should allow free reign on apps but also maintain an app store that only tested and approved apps get into that way you can get the best of both worlds.
Reply

TheSonOfKrypton promoted this comment pwheeler was starred pwheeler was unstarred

OCEntertainment
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
Generally, I have this mental image that corporations have an insight into what their competitors are up to. Google buys Gizmo5, so Apple sees the move coming and thinks about buying iCall. And it's like this fantastic, large-scale game of chess. And our money are the pawns. Ready and willing to be sacrificed for the cause. (Stupid pawns.)

....So how, exactly, Microsoft managed to go 2-3 years with the Queen blitzing through every one of their pieces, with a third and fourth army fighting them back, only to end up with a rook jammed up the king's ass before they realize "Shoot...I think something's going on outside!"

....That's just plain inexplicable.

As an aside: anyone ever played 4-way chess? Game friggin' rules.
Reply

OCEntertainment was starred OCEntertainment was unstarred

The Dude
12/15/09

@OCEntertainment: "Game friggin' rules." Understatement!!
Reply

OCEntertainment promoted this comment The Dude was starred The Dude was unstarred

TheSonOfKrypton
12/15/09

@OCEntertainment: Oh wow. Dude, just looking at that board scares me. Considering the exponentially huge possibilities in a regular 2 way game of chess, I'd have to consider every move for like 10 minutes in a 4-way game of chess. Insane.

Also, OC, do you have an iPhone? If so, do you have 'ChessWithFriends'? Best game ever on iPhone. If you do, start up a game with me. My handle is 'SonOfKrypton"
Reply

TheSonOfKrypton was starred TheSonOfKrypton was unstarred

OCEntertainment
12/15/09

@TheSonOfKrypton: The craziest part of it is the social aspect. Now, instead of playing one strategy game against another person, you're actually playing other people. I won a game once, mostly by holding back a bit and letting the other three players duke it out. In the end, two went down and I was left with one, pretty weak opponent. Crazy!

As for ChessWithFriends, no I don't have an iPhone, sorry. I have a G1. I did some checking and it looks like the company that makes it is interested in developing other versions, so if they get it, I'll look you up.
Reply

OCEntertainment was starred OCEntertainment was unstarred

Aetius
12/15/09

In reply to Microsoft: Maybe We Should've Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob
It's good of them to admit there is an issue so that they can fix it (even though I think Windows Mobile is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be and Android is far superior to iPhone, IMHO ofcourse).

Now, any Apple execs willing to step-up and admit to any misgivings over why Windows 7 outsold the OSX release within a month? (or was it a week?).
Reply

Gaucho85 promoted this comment Aetius was starred Aetius was unstarred

Gaucho85
12/15/09

@Aetius: well... yeah... apple owns 10% of the U.S. market and 3% of the international market, no one expected them to outsell windows 7. They probably outsold OSX in a day.
Reply

Edited by Gaucho85 at 12/15/09 12:04 PM Gaucho85 was starred Gaucho85 was unstarred

Kaiser-Machead
12/15/09

@Aetius: But the reasons why Windows 7 outsells OS X in any given time is pretty obvious. Mac OS X is tied virtually inextricably to its own proprietary brand of hardware, which comes at a relatively premium price. This narrows its potential buyers down considerably compared to an OS that runs on just about everything else from every other brand, which also comes in a far wider range of prices. Apple execs would simply be preaching to the choir, but at the same time, they probably never expected to be the majority. How could they? Their model makes that notion completely unrealistic.
Reply

Kaiser-Machead was starred Kaiser-Machead was unstarred

Aetius
12/15/09

@Gaucho85: But wouldn't that be considered almost the same in terms of Apple being asleep and continuing to allow their competitor to dominate the market, if anything, improve upon it?
Reply

Aetius was starred Aetius was unstarred

Aetius
12/15/09

@Kaiser-Machead: Gotchya. But is Apple content to simply sit on that model and be a niche player?
Reply

Aetius was starred Aetius was unstarred

Kaiser-Machead
12/15/09

@Aetius: Not really. Microsoft's business model for Windows Mobile is fairly similar to their model for the full desktop version. They have their software spread throughout lots of different phones, and they've done so for years prior to the iPhone's release, yet the iPhone caught right up with them, on just a single type of phone, locked into a single carrier.

Regarding Mac sales, consider the fact that Apple's been making money hand over fist, even if the sheer volume of units sold isn't equal to their competition.
Reply

Kaiser-Machead was starred Kaiser-Machead was unstarred

Joshua Pacada
12/15/09

@Kaiser-Machead: The Cell Phone market isn't the OS market.
Reply

Kaiser-Machead promoted this comment Joshua Pacada was starred Joshua Pacada was unstarred

Aetius
12/15/09

@Kaiser-Machead: Hmm..I'm not sure I'm convinced entirely but you do make good points though.
Reply

Aetius was starred Aetius was unstarred

Kaiser-Machead
12/15/09

@Joshua Pacada: Yeah........I know that, but I was responding to a point referring to the OS market.
Reply

Kaiser-Machead was starred Kaiser-Machead was unstarred

doctorSpoc
12/15/09

@Aetius: common mistake.. market share is irrelevant if you can't make money with that market share.. evidence: GM had the biggest market share in cars world wide up to a few months before they went broke.

Companies are in business to make PROFIT not market share.. Apple is the most profitable computer manufacture on the planet right now and for the last few years. They don't enter the budget computer markets where the margins are super thin. Apple is interested in markets that have larger margins and keeping it's market share such that they can make piles of money.

Basically comes down to would you rather sell 10 things with $100 profit or 100 things with $5 profit?

people seem to think a company is winning if they sell the most stuff... NO.. they are winning if the make the most money or return on investment selling the stuff they are selling.. Apple is currently doing that better than anyone in the business.
Reply

TheSonOfKrypton promoted this comment doctorSpoc was starred doctorSpoc was unstarred

Aetius
12/15/09

@doctorSpoc: Thanks for the business refresher. But inspite of your logic, ANY company would like to be the dominant player in the market. Even Porsche, with it's great profit margins, attempted to grow sales and get VW in the process. Do you know how that panned out?
Reply

Aetius was starred Aetius was unstarred

TheSonOfKrypton
12/15/09

@doctorSpoc: Wow. You, dear sir, are a genius. Thank you for articulating that which is apparent to some, but oblivious to most.
Reply

Edited by TheSonOfKrypton at 12/15/09 2:01 PM TheSonOfKrypton was starred TheSonOfKrypton was unstarred

BeyondtheTech
12/03/09

In reply to Samsung Omnia II Review
Speaking from a neutral standpoint, I totally get it when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone in 2007. He was doing that 'business chart' that showed how complicated dumbphones were and how even more asinine some smartphone developers, ending up with even more inconsistent and convoluted interfaces.

Some manufacturers really (and I mean REALLY) need to go back to the paper napkins to draw and map out user interfaces that are simple, effective, contagious, and universal.
Reply

BeyondtheTech was starred BeyondtheTech was unstarred

Blackberry Bold
12/03/09

In reply to Samsung Omnia II Review
I disagree with this review. Samsung is the number second manufacturer in the cell phone business. No matter what, this device will sell pretty well. What is wrong with Window OS?
Yes, it is not perfect, but it will be fine.
Reply

BeyondtheTech promoted this comment Blackberry Bold was starred Blackberry Bold was unstarred

BeyondtheTech
12/03/09

@Blackberry Bold: Try "...is the number two..." or hell, even "...is the second number one..."
Reply

BeyondtheTech was starred BeyondtheTech was unstarred

Earlier discussions Other discussions Show all discussions Show featured discussions only Start a new discussion

#windowsmobile65 ##agtltbrgt

Gizmodo

Gizmodo Team

#windowsmobile65##agtltbrgt

Gizmodo

Gizmodo Team

SUBSCRIBE TO Gizmodo

Login

Reset Password

Register

Submit Your Comment

#windowsmobile65 ##agtltbrgt