Microsoft still has no iPhone answer

Most of Microsoft's announcements Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona were leaked weeks ago, so there weren't any big surprises.

Now where the heck's the Zune icon on this thing?

(Credit: Microsoft)

There's a new mobile OS, Windows Mobile 6.5, that's supposed to be friendlier than the notoriously clunky earlier versions. (ZDNet's mobile maven Matthew Miller is still disappointed.)

There's a set of cloud-based services for synchronizing data like contacts and photos. (Although apparently v.1 will not be connected with the Windows Live or Live Mesh platforms or services, so the vision of unified data sync across devices is still a whiteboard drawing as far as Microsoft products and services are concerned.)

There's a marketplace for Windows Mobile apps. There's a brand change--the phones will be called "Windows Phones," although the OS is still "Windows Mobile." (Confused?) Oh, and the company has finally acknowledged that competing in the consumer space is important, a year and a half after CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed the iPhone as a "$500 subsidized item" that had "no chance" of gaining any significant market share.

Assuming that any of this makes you want to run out and buy a Windows Mobile phone, too bad. None of it's available until late this year.

I'll give Microsoft some credit for envisioning and beginning to build a free alternative to Apple's MobileMe service. And the mobile marketplace is a no-brainer. But Monday's announcements just underscore that Microsoft has no answer to the iPhone.

There was no entertainment component to the announcements. No port of the Zune client software or marketplace to the phone. No online storage service for music. No mention of where the Danger acquisition went or what former Mac Business Unit head Roz Ho's working on.

Microsoft's mobile head, Andy Lees, did promise that the company's going to make some other exciting announcements over the next 12 to 18 months, so I guess crawl, walk, run is the strategy. But Microsoft has sure been crawling for a long time. And the list of toddlers is growing, with Google's Android continuing to draw attention, Nokia continuing to update its Ovi services, and even Palm coming back from the dead. Not to mention well-regarded competitors like Apple and RIM.

This isn't a monopoly or a slow-moving market with very high barriers to entry like console gaming. This is a highly competitive space where turnover is incredibly quick, innovation will win, and laggards will die. For Microsoft's sake, I hope they've got a lot more mobile news in the pipeline.

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[ibeetle]

Microsoft better do something. In a year in a half it is going to be:<br /><br />1) Android<br />2) iPhone (maybe reverse 1 &#38; 2)<br />3) Symbian<br />4) Blackberry<br />5 ) Windows mobile

[Penguinisto]

Android's growth curve will prolly leave it at #4, even by then. Symbian ain't dead yet but is only bleeding slowly (which keeps it at #1, even by then), the iPhone and RIM will likely be tied for #2 and 3, with perhaps an edge to the iPhone. Windows Mobile will be lucky to not lose the #5 slot to Palm and its Pre, assuming that product releases on time.

[Mark_Anderson]

Nah, Symbian will be ahead for a very long time indeed. WinMo will do Ok because although 6.5 is a bit disappointing it'll be skinned up by HTC, LG and Samsung. RIM will continue to do well in business.<br /><br />The iPhone is a one trick pony that's already becoming last year's phone and Android is just a curio.

[setgo]

OR... Instead of always following Apples lead, they could be pioneering a new market for consumer gadgets. It's too late for this one.

[ballmerisanape]

God forbid. They can't even develop their own icons... that task manager icon is nearly identical to Apple's Activity Manager icon... the sync icon is a little too similar too...

[DrtyDogg]

@ballmerisanape, I hope you are joking as the task manager icon is identical to the windows task manager icon circa XP, and the active sync icon, well that's been used by MS since Windows 95.

[draystl]

@ballmerisanape: Really, the taskmgr icon shown above is the same one they use in XP? Really? I'm running both Leopard &#38; XP side by side, and the icon shown above looks a heck of a lot more like Leopard's than XP's.

[SeizeCTRL]

Look at his name... 'Ballmer Is An Ape' <br /><br />That alone tells you that he's troll and apple fanboy... not to mention a bit of an idiot. If he had used a Windows computer anytime this decade, he would realize that as already pointed out, that Task Manager icon is completely Windows. <br /><br />You just have to love that level of epic failure on his behalf ;)

[Get_a_life_Leo]

I thought Microsoft said they were going to limit the number of WinMo devices to provide a more compelling solution? LG just announced 50-odd new WinMo devices. Google, RIM and Apple (even Palm) must be laughing. This is shaping up to be a repeat of the Plays For Sure debacle. Will Microsoft announce its abandoning WinMo for its own "Zune" phone next year? <br /><br />ibeetle, the order for future smartphones will be more like: RIM, iPhone, Symbian, Android, Palm.

[bananaphonerules]

I don't they ever would (or should) abandon the WinMo devices. <br /> <br />I know everyone is mostly talking about consumer devices here. <br />But lets not forget the corporate or manufacturing sector. What choice do we have there: propriety platforms or Windows Mobile? Windows Mobile is much easier from a developer point of view.

[Penguinisto]

Hint: Windows Mobile is a proprietary platform. You have to license it, you cannot modify it (at least not without paying huge bags of money for the privilege)...

[DrtyDogg]

I think he was talking about flexibility, ie you can modify it a lot without paying any money. The SDK is free software can be loaded from any computer/memory card, even the UI is just an xml file that can be edited with your favorite editor.

[Penguinisto]

"I think he was talking about flexibility"<br /><br />In that case he'd still be wrong: Android and OpenMoko, as well as Symbian itself (as of recent times) are all open source entirely.

[DrtyDogg]

Open source is not the definition of flexibility, but you knew that.

[jshep]

WOW, I think the term "Out of Touch" "To Big to Adapt to Changing Markets" <br />and mostly "TOTAL LACK OF IMAGINATION" is Microsoft at this point. Thats not to say its quite possible that there are plenty of very imaginative people at Microsoft, but by the time that big rock gets rolling..... the market is gone or changed significantly, then guess what.....back to the drawing board!<br />Only my 2 cents.

[gopnick]

Microsoft's web browser market share is falling.<br />Microsoft's OS market share is falling.<br />Microsoft's Smartphone market share is falling.<br /><br />Yep, as a previous poster said, Microsoft has simply grown too big to innovate. Let's hope that doesn't happen to Apple and Google.

[ozkidzez91]

Once you're at the top, there's no where to go but down.<br /><br />It's no suprise that Microsoft is losing market share, since it was almost all the market. I think this is less Microsoft falling and more everyone else rising.

[baisa]

Microsoft is not "too big to innovate". The company has an idiot for a CEO and idiots for shareholders for not realizing what a useless idiot is the CEO. Make a list of the disasters: Vista: 5+ years, scrapped half way through and rewritten, turned out crap... XBox Red Ring of Death, $1.5B debacle... absurd pronouncements about iPhone and numerous other products... absurd commercials... nothing but lameness and incompetence. The bucks keep rolling in for Windows and Office, so no one seems to care, and the executives working there just pretend to care. It is pathetic. The implosion is coming...

[jaxstephens]

Windows Mobile is crap, and I say that as someone who has defended it and used it on many different PDAs/phones since 2000 or so. Until recently, I was still trying to make excuses for Windows Mobile in the face of being lapped multiple times by the iPhone, Google Android, and Palm webOS. (Sorry, I hate BlackBerry devices; the interface just isn't that good.) But the fact is that Windows Mobile is so clunky, sluggish, inelegant, non-user-friendly, and boring compared to all the other alternatives right now. <br /> <br />The *only* thing Windows Mobile does well and better than anything else is Exchange/Outlook synchronization, and that's because Microsoft makes both products. Beyond that, I'm ready to jump to iPhones this fall for my company; I'm the IT director, and we're currently standardized on Windows Mobile. <br /> <br />Poor Microsoft, sometimes it seems like they don't have an innovative bone in their body. This recent news about Windows Mobile 6.5 shows that they are just applying bandaids to a very diseased and dying patient, and even then nothing will be available until late 2009 after new developments with iPhone and webOS have occurred. <br /> <br />The core of Windows Mobile is an antiquated operating system that can't compete with something like iPhone, Android, and webOS, which were created from the ground up to support finger touch and other modern smartphone features. Windows Mobile, if it is to have any chance of success, needs to be completely rewritten; Microsoft needs to accept the fate that Palm did for its old Palm OS: death. And I seriously doubt Microsoft has the guts to do this.

[jonniesavell]

I believe that they have the guts to do this and I believe that they are doing this as we speak, but time is not on their side. Skunkworks is what you do when you are ahead, not when you are woefully behind.<br /><br />In the meantime, a steady stream of useless announcements is all that we will see. Steve Ballmer is the King of NULL.

[ozkidzez91]

Thought about the fact that when Windows completely change something (ie XP to Vista) it creates such an uproar from those who apparently hate change? Maybe they're trying not to make the same mistake with Windows Mobile.<br /><br />Perhaps it's the users that have ruined Microsoft.

[jshep]

Steve Ballmer needs to put out to pasture.... You need young people, with vision running that company. Same with the US but thats another story.

[kojacked]

Sad, sad news... Windows Mobile 6.5 provides little more than some new, ugly navigation. Most of the underlying apps still need a stylus to some degree. It's like they never sit down with real people and have them use it. <br /> <br />While the underpinnings of the OS may be good. The GUI and every app written on it needs to be re-written. <br /> <br />Windows Mobile 7 will have to be an order of magnatude better than 6.5 because by the time they get this out their only advantage (business apps and integration) will long be overtaken by other phone OS's. <br /> <br />They really need to dump the folks running the WinMo team and get some fresh blood in there. Drop the desktop metaphor, get finger freindly, hook to the cloud, and do things that people expect out a modern phone these days. <br /> <br />WinMo is quickly turning into the hobbiest's phone (kinda like Linux is on the desktop).

[tmanon]

You were really close to having a good comment until you took the cheap shot at Linux at the end. <br /><br />If WinMo were anything like Linux, it wouldn't be dying.

[ozkidzez91]

@tmanon:<br /><br />It was a statement, not a cheap shot. And it's true; Linux is used by those who are willing to give the time and effort required to learn to use it comfortably, and it also is much more interesting to learn than Windows.

[JScottK]

Had to laugh looking at the screen shot. I had to reread the top center icon text three times. Keep reading it as Microsoft (as a verb, like google) my phone and tried to figure out just what horrible thing that would do to your phone.

[jessiethe3rd]

Microsoft isn't going to compete with iPhone... just like iPhone isn't going to compete with WinMo in the Enterprise enviroment.

[Penguinisto]

RIM already owns that... your point?

[myles taylor]

Why do you say that? A lot of people in the business environment are going to iPhone. It's happening. Also, Microsoft's main competition is RIM so it's not just Apple they are losing to.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Penguinisto: <br /> <br />I think the point was pretty blatantly clear. Apple is targeting consumers and Microsoft is targeting busienss users. There is no good or bad to this. <br /> <br />Myles Taylor: <br /> <br />The iPhone / Touch is not suitable for the Enterprise marketplace. The email application is very lacking with no ability to keep separate address books, look at offline mail folders, browse folders within the inbox while offline, etc. These are basic abilities that even Palm can do. Unfortunately Apple will not allow anyone else to produce a mail client and the included one is not much better than rubbing two sticks together. <br /> <br />Here's a good example: I have both my Google email and work account connected. My Google address book was only around 50 entries. The moment I synched to the Exchange service, the Apple device downloaded the entire address book of more than 35,000 entries. I don't have a choice in the matter- you can't make those sorts of changes in their mail app or settings. It's all or nothing. Now my original contacts are hopelessly lost in that flood. That lone has rendered the address book useless to me. <br /> <br />There's a lot of silly things like that which make it clear that the device is not ready for the business market at this time. They've had nearly two years now and it's just not ready.

[Penguinisto]

@Dan: Indeed... there is no good or bad to it - RIM owns the enterprise space. So what was the poster's point?

[tipoo_]

Not every car company needs to make a porche killer. not every tech company needs to make an Iphone killer. end of story.

[Pishkado]

True, not every car company needs to make a Porsche killer. (if you're gonna talk about cars, BTW, learn how to spell their names.) You can go after a totally different market segment, like Hyundai and others do, and be quite successful at it. However, if you say you're going to compete in the mid-range consumer sports car market, and your best 2009 offering is still behind a 1994 Porsche in performance and handling, you have a problem.

[CDubber]

Oh come on, no answer for the iPhone? Microsoft now has My Phone, just like Apple's MobileMe - and it even *sounds* like iPhone (BONUS!). They now have a phone-based store, just like Apple! They now have a finger-friendly interface, just like Apple! And they're going to open retail stores, just like Apple!<br /><br />Microsoft: The Freedom to Innovate (TM). LOL!!!<br /><br />Somebody please put this technological dinosaur out of its misery so we can focus our dollars on truly innovative companies. MS has become a joke of the highest order.

[Vegaman_Dan]

It would appear that Microsoft has competition for being a joke of the highest order when you start posting. :)

[sanjayb]

Got to admit though it was funny. :-)

[superswiss]

I start considering the iPhone for myself once my wife stops getting frustrated with the things her iPhone doesn't do. In the meantime I stick with a WinMo phone that doesn't comprise on the feature side of things just to look sexy.

[eltoro2827]

oh god,,,,these cnet writers need to go work for apple.

[myles taylor]

WHy do you say that? I've seen them say a lot of really nasty things about Apple or Apple products. Every time someone criticizes Microsoft doesn't mean that they are working for Apple.

[Vegaman_Dan]

This is an ironic comment. There typically is someone in any thread commenting that CNET is MSFT or Apple biased based on the popular opinion at the time. <br /> <br />I don't know... perhaps CNET is guilty of doing something silly like.... reproting the news?

[rnaoncfixd]

You do realize you're commenting on an opinion thread/blog, not an actual news article, right?

[Linus816]

Microsoft has been struggling of late for sure. Vista failed, WinMo is outdated, and the zune is struggling. However, I can see things picking back up soon, maybe as soon as the fall. That is the time things will really pick up. Windows 7/ WinMo 7 and new zunes will all be coming out about then. If Microsoft can deliver in those 3 categories, Microsoft should get back to normal.

[tmanon]

By the time Windows 7 comes out, Ubuntu will have gone through 2 more releases and be booting up in an average of 21 seconds from nothing to everything on normal PCs (includes notebooks). Snow Leopard will have already come out and we'll see what it has in store and Windows 7 will be the last on the field. Not to mention Ubuntu 10.4 will come out fairly close to the same time Windows 7 comes out. <br /><br />Winmo7 will need to be more than just a catch up mobile OS in order to make a dent in the market as it is and, if WinMo6.5 is any indication, 7 won't be more than just that, a catch up OS.<br /><br />Zunes have already failed on a massive scale. They aren't cross platform compatible like the iPhone is and the "services" offered are crap to anyone who knows about Last.fm or other free, legal alternatives. On top of that, having them lock up on such a large scale and giving such bad press is never a good thing. <br /><br />Microsoft will have to do more than just bring things out on time in order to get back to normal. Microsoft will have to change dramatically.

[Mark_Anderson]

@tmanon<br /><br />And when Windows 7 comes out no-one will care about OS X or Linux because even if we accept that Vista is a failure as you silly fanboys like to trumpet OS X has managed to increase its global market share by a mere 2% and Linus doesn't even register.<br /><br />No-one cares. Deal with it.

[kcotham]

Only corporate shills and sheep without a brain use Micro$oft products. There are alternatives, and 99% of the time, they are more effective and less expensive than the 3rd-rate crap that Microshaft churns out. Anyone that thinks differently is either fooling themselves, ignorant of the facts, or just plain stupid.

[iBuzz]

From the article:<br />"This isn't a monopoly or a slow-moving market with very high barriers to entry like console gaming. This is a highly competitive space where turnover is incredibly quick, innovation will win, and laggards will die."<br /><br />This is one of the most insightful things I've read regarding Microsoft and mobile. Microsoft is simply not a nimble company that can compete in such a space. Their core competencies and software/product development processes are geared towards markets where new versions of products appear every few years (like Windows, Office, and Xbox). They're simply not fit to compete in mobile. It's a complete mismatch between market requirements and corporate culture.

[atish505]

They are doing extremely poor in Xbox/gaming category. They still have no answer to PSP 3 and Nintendo DS.

[The_happy_switcher]

...and never will.

[msjonker]

This still looks like my Windows Mobile 5 PDA from 4 years ago. I couldn't stand that thing.<br /><br />Ballmer must go, plain and simple.

[codynews]

Wow. I try to be a MS supporter when I can but I love my iphone and those screenshots of Winmo 6.5 look like crap.

[atish505]

Windows Mobile is dead, It trails all OSes in fourth quarter of 2008 (and for full 208) except for Palm. It is a joke. The sooner they realize and break out of the 'Emperor's new clothes', delusions the better for them.<br /><br />They had huge opportunity, to fill in the market space left open by the failure of iPhone, and very limited success fo BlackBerry in both China and in India (the world's largest and second largest mobile markets). However they chose to drop the ball and Nokia and Sony Ericcson took away the Lion;s share of the market with Symbian based smart phones.

[DrtyDogg]

Actually it was Q3 that Apple bested Windows Mobile. And as far as full "208". Here is a quote from the report that you are mis-quoting:<br /><br /><br />Despite being overtaken by Apple globally in Q3, Microsoft has increased its share of the smart phone market year-on-year, helped by the volumes being achieved by vendors like HTC and Samsung in particular<br /><br />http://www.canalys.com/pr/2008/r2008112.htm

[seven7dust]

The Iphone was introduced just 2 years back, people seem to be forgetting that !<br />it can't take over the entire world in that small a timeframe<br />Give it time, maybe the next iteration will do better in unsubsidized markets like India !<br />but ya Nokia is the king worldwide !<br />the problem for Microsoft all round is that they need to take market-share away from the Competition <br />by wooing the customers, something they r not very good at to say the least !