Microsoft 'screwed up' Windows Mobile

Nothing new here, Microsoft has totally screwed up every version of Windoze since 1.0.

Once again, blowmer shows his ignorance with the fundamental issue behind yet another piece of MS bloatware. The issue isn't that they "should have WM7 out" by now, the issue is they failed to capture the developers mindshare that WM7 is worth writing apps for. Forget it, MS, game over - Apple & Google will continue to erode your market share with better UI, more developers, and open sauce programmming...

This is what really happened ...

You sat on your backsides and did no innovation, no research and precious little bug fixing because you thought you had the market wrapped up and your customers were tied to your products.

Then someone else came along with some real inspiration, so now you are going to steal their ideas and hope that your existing market share will carry you through until your competitors go bust competing with the new products you copied from them.

Scott, developers simply go where the customers are. Windows Mobile had the bulk of smart phone developers on their ship for YEARS. There were hardly any smartphones sold however. Then a little thing called the iPhone came out. The problem with Windows Mobile is several: all the successful platforms have been integrated phone/os systems but WM is an OS only. This is not allowing for tight enough feature integration and a seamless enough experience. Third party OEMS just haven't been producing high enough quality products. The OS has been too much like a mini version of windows and not enough like a PHONE! Maybe MS needs to make a complete phone system to get a compelling system out there.

Gee, could it be those royalties the phone mfgs don't want to pay, the extra hardware expense for more memory and a faster processor to handle the bloat, or perhaps was it general stability issue with all LoseDoze O/S product?

Or maybe it was simply a matter of the availability real competition - Micr0$ucks has no concept of competing in an environment where there are viable alternatives. The business model of "Screw the Customer" doesn't work so well when the customer can dump you for someone else all too easy...

HB

all you can do is bitch. noone here can say that he worked on anything remotely as complicated.
we are all human after all and make mistakes. even the best QA and best project management can't solve this. looking at the complexity of widows i see tremendous effort of analysts, dev, qa and surrounding teams and i take my head of before these people. yeah, their product is not without flaw but so we all as human are.

Rich Wargo, until you can show that you made anything better feel free to shut it.

I truly respect the tremendous effort of Microsoft's analysts, devs, etc., because many of them do a great job and produce some marvelous stuff. That doesn't prevent me from despising company's nasty bussines practices. The world of computing would have been much more enjoyble had Gates/Balmer not poluted it badly with their evil.

Some examples ? These are two of them that came into my mind:

1, Visual Studio 2005 had a bug preventing me from utilizing ClickOnce technology. MS's answer : "we'll fix it in the next version" (which was to be bought for quite a lot of money and which introduced quite a lot of extra bugs)

2, MS's attitude of ignoring and subverting standards : XHTML, DOM, SVG, ODF, ... Hampering the interoperation for the nasty sake of monopolizing the market is the name of the game.

The part that I really don't understand is that Palm, with almost no engineering resources, build from the ground up an absolutely awesome mobile operating system in two years.

Precisely what are Microsoft doing when Palm can beat them to market?

Aside from the "questionable" business practices - and I phrase it this way because ethics is a long gone business concept - Micr0$ucks puts out crap quality products, plain and simple. They expect you to pay for the bug fixes with the following release of said product.

Notice Ballmer's point of view of the alleged screw-up was timing of release, not product features, not bug fixes, not quality of product. They were only concerned with perception and sales.

Most companies can't get away with the "Screw the Customer" business model, but when you have a monopoly it sure makes it easier to carry out.

HB

I work for Nokia. Take your pick.

"and i take my head of before these people."

i think it's for the best

Marketting, Windows Mobile, and Hysteria in blog land

First, WinMo demands more resources to function properly, and the more powerful processors coming out will bear this out. What we have to this point are small-screen quasi-electronic toys. Second, it is a product with a history of development and design for implementations and use on multiple portable devices. The modern cell phone just happens to be one of these devices. So, you cannot expect it to behave like the stripped down phone interfaces coming out now. The trend is to make these interfaces dumb-proof for the average consumer and most importantly, for bloggers, to connect them to “the beehive,” i.e. social networks, quickly. Apple and the Iphone are to be commended for this. The Iphone’s interface is not really an OS, by definition, because all it does is allow you to launch tinny programs from a list of icons and nothing else. Android is a bit more sophisticated than the Iphone’s interface, but it is still a basic interface made to address the most popular functions of today’s cell phones usage. It allows you to do much more than the Iphone, though. Cell phone makers learned from Apple that you can take from Open Source, claim its benefits and power and not put anything back. Besides the fact that Android allows you to do these basics well, this is the main attraction for these phone makers right now. This no doubt is where W.M. has faltered in a major way because it does not as of yet provide these services out of the box and it does not permit cute things such as “the pinch,” “the slide,” etc. Windows Mobile, though, is on a different league. It is a complete micro operating system. In a lot of ways, it has a foot in the future already and it is the hardware that has to catch up.
Now, You are hearing a lot of horrible things about the Windows Mobile OS, and the hysteria out there in blog land is quite palpable. You might think that you’ll go blind or lose a limb if you so much as look or touch a work-centric cell phone with the Windows Mobile OS in it. Heck, a couple of pseudo-technical (blogging sites such as gizmodo.com and engadget.com) have done a fantastic job of destroying its reputation. By the way, these same bloggers will blow WM7 away just the same when it arrives no matter in what form it arrives. You are going to hear a gush of ‘verbal diarrhea’ from reviewers posing as knowledgeable technical people when in fact all they are, are cheer leaders for one camp or the other. It is kind of laughable because they don’t get any kind of stipend from the companies that they so fervently fight for. These types of reviewers don’t seem to understand two things-that you create something when you critique something and that objectivity is as obvious as bias. In forum after forum, you are going to get a lot of idiotic comments from people that do not know what Windows Mobile is, but feel that it is their duty to trash it. Hey, it is fashionable to trash anything Microsoft, especially now. I have to admit that one of my joy as a Windows Mobile user is seeing how these poor tortured souls actually create their own artificial reality in order to lie about something that they have never seen or tried. It is the internet age and the dissemination of misinformation rules. It is the internet age and the culture of the “Reality Distortion Field” is so much in vogue. “So many, willing to drink the Kool-Aid.” How interesting that the market responds to this, but a thing is what it is. Windows Mobile is more complex than what is coming out to the market. And this Microsoft guy (Ballmer) is totally clueless as to how to respond. You have the users who thinks that the Windows Mobile OS is no good because it does not allow them to shift visual gunk back and forth all day long easily, and pretty-ly. You have those (most non-technical ,cheer leading bloggers) who think that fashion and eye candy is more important than function and have created a culture of “Newness is the New Novelty.” You have those that understand that it is a micro operating system not a mere phone interface. I can say this because I have used and worked with all of them.
I am going to make it simple for you: If you want to use your modern so called smart cell phone as a mini computer that mimics just about everything that you can do with your desktop, and that allows you to interface and sync efficiently (I mean efficiently like work/play) with such desktop, then don’t break your head looking for something other than Windows Mobile because you won’t find it. If you want to use your modern cell phone to get great joy with the shifting of visual elements around in order to mainly make phone calls, text, pics and get to your beehive, etc. you have the other interfaces with easier finger usage and input. Why torture yourselves hating one or the other method of working with a modern cell phone. For example, I don’t find it a chore to have to lift a small stylus out of my pocket so that I can do precise computing. I mean, there are oranges and then there are apples, and then there are… And this hate thing is such a spiritual albatross. Besides, soon Windows Mobile will allow you to do the same things. It will decouple its complexities into consumers (bloggers, average users) and knowledgeable users functions. So, you will have a gadgety-widgety-shifty visual interface for the general consumer and an OS centric interface for IT or more knowledgeable users. If you are a regular Joe-six-pack user maybe Windows Mobile is not for you. If you are allergic to the culture of chaperoned, dictated, one-size-fits-all computing or smart phone usage maybe Windows Mobile is for you. You will never know until you stop finding joy in talking gaga and actually learn the differences between the ways these platforms function. The world is not a monochromatic experience, you know. So, even if the WM market share drops to ( .5% ), it is still a very powerful and useful platform. So why the hysteria?

fuzzlogue:

Incisive post, nice to see a balanced view of horses for courses from a clearly informed user.