Brand recognition goes out the door with all these different manufacturers, each producing numerous WinMo phones. Software updates? We remain at the mercy of the carriers & manufacturers. Is Windows mobile 6.5 enough? Hell no! Any advances made on the UI are nullified by the fact that MS refuses to manufacture their own hardware. Well, I guess it’s more xda-developers for my upgrades.

Because of some prescient decisions Apple made early on with iPhone and WebKit, the edge of the Web is now in position to define the future of the entire Web platform. It seems to me that Apple made three very important decisions early on in the iPhone design, that are now driving forces:

….. iPhone browser based on an open source WebKit community.

….. Development of the WebKit layout/rendering engine to support a rapidly advancing Web document model based on HTML5, CSS3, SVG/Canvas, and JavaScript+

….. The open standards based Webkit document model is also the basis of a standards based Web application framework (Sproutcore).

The Web is a document centric platform that has long suffered because browser wars effectively crippled the advance of the HTML document model. Incompatibilities between browsers provided vendors like Microsoft with the opportunity to devise their own Web formats, protocols and interfaces. Today, Microsoft applications offer a “Web duality” where users can basically choose between low end “crippled” but open standard HTML technologies, or, high end “feature rich” but proprietary .NET-WPF technologies.

This Hobbsian choice works well for Microsoft because of the volumes of Microsoft business users bound to the MSOffice-Outlook-Access desktop productivity environment through years of client/server systems and business process development. Rather than lose critically important information or break a business process on conversion to Open Web standard but low end technologies, business users will likely choose the feature rich and “integrated-interoperable” but proprietary solution. Even if it is beyond expensive.

Microsoft knows this and indeed has built out their entire WebStack-Cloud-RiA initiative holding all the business aces. Where they missed it though is the incredible surge in edge of the Web computational devices. MS fought hard to protect their monopoly base while getting the proprietary pieces in place to leverage that monopoly across the Web. They are believed to have paid over $14 Billion in penalties and settlements in their zeal to block competition. Yet here we are; the future of the Open Web is being defined at the edge, and Microsoft is not to be found. They have been caught uncharacteristically out of position, without a play.

There’s something else happening at the edge. The iPhone has blasted through the barrier of legacy user interface and interaction with an incredible multi-dimensional, multi-media, highly visual model. On the one hand we have Jen-Hsun Huang, clutching the Nvidia ION in his palm, waxing eloquent about the graphical processing power demanded by the Age of Visual Computing. And on the other, we have the WebKit-iPhone community sinking graphical transformations and visual transitions into the Open Web document model (CSS – Canvas) instead of into some platform specific API!

At last year’s Web 2.0 Conference, Microsoft was selling hard their VML-XAML-Silverlight-Mesh proprietary technologies. Adobe developers were there in force, pushing Flex-Flash-AiR proprietary RiA. The forces of Ajax and the Open Web were almost nowhere to be seen. Very surprising given that previous years had been all Ajax, all the time. Yet, here we are, a year later, and the Open Web is running away with RiA, with Cloud Computing, and WebStacks. All because of those devices on the edge of the Web, sweeping into the communications and connectivity plans of near everyone who needs to be connected.

Defining the document model of the future Web is beyond important. Sure, it’s true that there are no desktop editors of consequence capable of producing Open Web documents rich in complexity, compound with services, data, and media bindings, and vital to business processes through workflow and application routing logic. Since these shortcomings were not enough to stop the WebKit guys on the edge, i’m beginning to think it won’t be enough to stop WebKit, FireFox, Opera and anyone else pushing this highly interactive and visual document model across the Web.

We shall see. My guess? Finally, the walls of the great monopolist have been breached.

~ge~

-No matter what shell we cower behind – SPB, Vito, etc – raw WM is lurking 2 or 3 clicks down.

-They must make WM’s UI sweeter. Currently it’s as fun to decipher as a ventilation schematic for a Motel6.
T
(ps to James…I was supposed to be in Space City right now, actually – but things arose. I’ll see you over some brewed beverage in a month or two if you’re game)

For the life of me I just don’t understand how Microsoft could have let the WM team be so uncreative and uncaring for so long. I understand WM is still a strong business seller, but they are just getting trounced in the media market by the iphone, android, and soon the palm pre. Does it really take a genius to figure out that WM7 needs to come out yesterday? Hell scrap WM7 and just let HTC redesign the entire OS, and fire the WM team.

You also ignore the fact that Windows Mobile sales are still strong and that iPhone sales are actually falling (if only slightly). Windows Mobile outsold the iPhone last year and there’s no reason to think that it can’t carry on successfully.

I agree that Microsoft need to make changes, especially in terms of updating the OS on the fly. I also think they could do with bringing the browser up to date and improving the PIM functionality. However, you shouldn’t discount the value of the OS as a platform that allows developers to easily write apps that target the familiar .NET framework. You’re also ignoring the fact that Microsoft actually want OEMs to develop their own interfaces – this isn’t just done to hide the default interfaces “flaws” – and they said as much at MWC.

Finally, you’re ignoring the fact that it caters largely to a corporate market because it offers integration that other phones can only dream of. This should definitely not be discounted.

Apple, Android and Palm are what’s “next” and I think WM and RIM (to some extent if they don’t improve their OS) are becoming what “was”.

Sorry for my poor english.

T

At no point in the sales or marketing process is Microsoft or Windows mentioned.

It’s probably unfortunate that by the time users have drilled through a third-party interface and reach a layer that looks like MS Windows, it’s instantly recognisable as the worst-looking part of the experience. So the moment it might dawn on people that they’re using a Windows phone is the moment they realise the experience sucks, and they’re bound to associate the two.

I think Microsoft is suffering from a similar problem to the one they face in the PC market. They have little control (compared to, say, Apple) over the hardware their OS runs on, and little control over how the package is presented. As such, people might not know that Windows is powering their phone, or they might dislike the OS because of bad hardware, or they might dislike the phone because of a bad OS.

Microsoft has no control over that experience or any way or preventing any of those situations from occurring.

Until Windows Mobile supports capacative touch, has a unified interface and control scheme and is upgradable directly from Microsoft on the day and date that an update is released, they are going to be relegated as the smartphone that you get when someone else is buying it for you.

Unfortunately, you are right in that this does fragment the platform in terms of the user experience, and I am sure that MS recognizes this. Their new requirement for 6.5 after all is that all phones must have a Windows button, replacing the current home button on HTC devices, and serving as a constant reminder to anyone with that phone that they are using a Windows phone, regardless of the interface.

6.5 was a decent point upgrade, but the reality is that most users will see very little of the new skin since most Windows phones now have their own manufacturer based UI. The trouble is how to keep that UI consistency when it comes to 3rd party software, especially the back catalogue of apps. I heard rumblings that MS was going to lock down the UI, but think that this would be very bad for developers and the platform as a whole.

Agreed at 100% -

Another major point the article fails to mention is the fact that the consumer is also drawn to the feature the Network Operators offers. How useful is a smartphone if GPRS and/or 3G is not available? It might not make much difference in the U.S. but it is certainly the differentiator in other parts of the world where Nokia dominates by a wide margin…