Microsoft’s Mobile Strategy: Irrelevance

Om Malik:

Microsoft is apparently going to counter the Android and iPhone offensives on the mobile market with a new strategy: confusion. The company will allegedly continue to sell its increasingly less relevant Windows Mobile 6.5 for a lower price when it launches version 7 in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The fourth quarter of 2010? I mean, does Redmond expect Google and Apple to go on a yearlong vacation? No wonder Microsoft is becoming irrelevant on the mobile platform.

This is based on a report in DigiTimes from unnamed sources, so I’ll take it with a grain of salt. But it sounds plausible given Microsoft’s confusing, fragmented mobile strategy to date.

(Speaking of which, I’ve heard from a second developer of a popular iPhone app who was approached by Microsoft to port their app to the Zune. They, like my initial source, declined the offer. Keep in mind that the Zune is not Windows Mobile.)

★ Wednesday, 19 August 2009