Not for Windows Mobile 7. It is late in the day, but it isn’t too late for Microsoft to gain traction. That is my view. One leg of Microsoft’s problem is momentum and another leg is competition. But the third leg of the problem, innovation, is clearly no longer a problem for Microsoft. At last, repeated failure in the market has forced Microsoft to do what it should have been doing all along – innovating. The bubble of Microsoft’s arrogance has been burst.

Consequences of Arrogance

First come I, my name is Jowett,
There’s no knowledge, but I know it.
I am the master of this college,
And what I don’t know is not knowledge

This critical little four-liner was a celebration of the arrogance of Benjamin Jowett, once the Master of Balliol College, Oxford. A similar arrogance used to pervade Microsoft. If you attempted to discuss the failings of, for example, the terrible Windows GUI, almost no matter who you talked to in Microsoft, you’d see a supercilious expression cross their face and they’d explain to you how “you didn’t understand”.

It was Microsoft that didn’t understand. Eventually of course, the ship sailed, and since then the Windows GUI has been hopelessly imitating the Mac in a monumental GUI fail that owes everything to arrogance.

You simply cannot accuse Windows Mobile 7 of being derivative. It’s based on a really good idea, that people are both data centric and process centric, and it reflects that in its interface. It is impressive innovation and it’s a welcome contribution to the mobile phone industy, which has been slavishly copying the iPhone since its launch. So the real question is whether Windows Mobile 7 will get any play.

It’s hard to say.

There were two reasons why Microsoft previously got such poor traction in the Mobile phone market. First was its belief that it could simply embrace and extend with Windows. Previous version of Windows Mobile were goofy and quite obviously wrong for the mobile world. Microsoft with all its monopoly momentum thought it could just keep hammering away with that. The market was ripe for innovation and it got some, from RIM (let’s not forget RIM) and from Apple.

The second reason for poor traction was simple distrust. The mobile handset manufacturers were never going to give their businesses to Microsoft, like the PC manufacturers did. And that will not happen now, even if Windows Mobile proves to be a success. OSes like Android and Windows will forever be a component, just as the PC OS should have been just a component. It’s the apps, stupid!

Momentum and Competition

It’s a simple truth, proven time and again, that the best technology does not necessarily win. But it’s also true that really poor technology usually loses. Having good technology is an advantage, but not a winning hand. With Windows Mobile 7, it has a hand in the game. Microsoft is now a “new entrant” in a rapidly maturing market. Forget all previous version sof Windows Mobile. For the consumer, they count for nothing except a bad memory.

« 1 2 or View All »