Paul Thurrott on the State of Windows Mobile

Paul Thurrott:

As I noted previously, I did meet with Windows Mobile this week. They’re good people, smart people, and they seem to understand the issues. They also seem to value the business market more than the consumer market, but that might only be because that’s what they pretty much offer at this point. I will be writing more formally about Windows Mobile by the end of the year, but I wanted to at least mention one thing I found vaguely alarming. When asked about the success of the iPhone and how that impacts Windows Mobile, I was told that the iPhone “validated” Microsoft’s approach. That’s some weird combination of revisionism, wishful thinking and, perhaps, delusion.

It could well be that this “the iPhone validates our approach” thing is just bullshit doublespeak — that the Windows Mobile team knows full well just how bad a position they’re in at this point but they can’t bring themselves, or are not permitted to, admit it publicly.

But if that’s truly the mindset of those leading Microsoft’s Windows Mobile team, that’s delusion, and they’re pretty much dead. Microsoft’s response to the original Macintosh, Windows 1.0, appeared by the end of 1985. Their response to the iPhone is nowhere to be seen.

★ Monday, 15 December 2008