The Story
At Microsoft’s annual Venture Capitalist Summit, CEO Steve Ballmer told those present about the priority that Windows Mobile has for Microsoft. According to a source, Mr. Ballmer said that when it comes to Windows Mobile, Microsoft “screwed up.” After the launch of Windows 7, however, the company’s main focus will be on Windows Mobile 7. The mistakes made with Windows Mobile the last time around, so sayeth Mr. Ballmer, “will not happen again.”
It Better Not Happen Again
While Microsoft could pump more money into the product, from a smart business perspective, Windows Mobile 7 is essentially Microsoft’s bid to remain in the mobile sector. If that sounds like a sentence that could describe Palm, then you’re reading this properly. Palm is in a better place in the smartphone market right now with WebOS than Windows Mobile 6.5 is. The only difference is that if Windows Mobile 7 isn’t a success, Microsoft still has the option of pumping some of its billions of dollars into the product to keep it alive.
That said, I’m pretty confident that Microsoft is going to release a pretty darn impressive product with this generation of Windows Mobile. I say this for two reasons. First is that Microsoft has put together a completely new developer team, which means that the same goofiness that we saw in the last Windows Mobile probably won’t happen again. But the biggest reveal is in how Microsoft is recognizing the importance of the mobile sector. According to a recent interview that Steve Ballmer did with Michael Arrington, Microsoft will never make its own handset because the smartphone market is non-niche. So as with Windows, Microsoft only wants to supply the software and leave the other innovations to outside companies.
The final tell is Microsoft’s new strategy for “three screens and the cloud.” Essentially, they want to provide the software that runs all three of these: various incarnations of Windows on your screen, and Windows Azure in the cloud. Guess what? One of these screens is your phone.
