Comments on: Sony Ericsson to do first Windows phone

As part of an effort to boost its presence in North America, the handset maker is planning a family of Windows Mobile devices, starting with a business-oriented device due this summer.

[shane--2008]

what?!?

so to boost their presence they will build a phone that runs a
system that is getting trounced? good plan guys!

will they install netscape on it too?

[this1!]

jajaja

although im not sure how factually based your claims are, i found them funny. thank you.

[rdgadz]

are ya sure?

21% market share isnt bad... it was second amoung smartphones, now third behind apple. So if you were Sony and already had palm, 4th largest, where would you put your money?

Even though they are direct competitors on so many other levels, phones arent one of them.

[developIT]

Bwa-ha-ha

Your nose is getting longer ABMer!

[Penguinisto]

Not much choice...

The top two phone OSes in the North American market are, in order:

RIM (Cr/Blackberries), which are build only for that specific product series.

OSX, built for exactly one product: The iPhone.

Windows Mobile comes in at #3 (and not a pretty #3 at that).

Symbian, which globally is #1, is a distant #4 in North America (not exactly sure why, though IIRC it may have to do with not working near as well with EDGE networks).

So you get a choice - 'doze mobile (which sucks globally, but works well enough with EDGE), or Symbian (which does well globally, but sucks WRT EDGE, IIRC).

Hobson's choice, I suspect...

/P

/P

[sanenazok]

hear that Sony

thanks for nothing! You should have told Sony about this BEFORE they designed their product. I'm sure Sony will find out now because they'll read your post and know their mistake.

IMHO, companies make decisions based on a lot more facts than what you can muster for purposes of writing an anonymous comment. WinMobile isn't perfect, but it sure beats Palm or Symbian in the U.S. market. When it comes to phones, the hardware is as important as the software and Win CE is good enough otherwise Sony wouldn't be using it and MS wouldn't be making money selling it.

[pilaa]

Good Luck with that one!

I have had Windows Mobile phones since the HP6300 and they are a piece of junk. My HP phone stopped ringing about 5 months after I got the phone, the phone consistently crashed and I had a heck of a time trying to get bluetooth devices to work with it.

I ended up trading it up to a T-Mobile Wing and Windows Mobile 6 is even worse. You have to dig through so many menus to get to speed dial and the dialing buttons are so much smaller than they were in previous versions. THE WINDOWS INTERFACE DOES NOT WORK WELL ON A MOBILE PHONE. I hope Microsoft is listening...

All my friends have recently purchased iPhones and love them. After playing around with one, I plan to get rid of my windows phone and purchase an iPhone myself. The iPhone may run OS X but it doesn't look like it (hint, hint)

[rdgadz]

learn how to use your phone

there are about 10 different ways to access your speed dial, all of which use 1-2 buttons.. menus?

oh and you can also set any function to any button you wish.

oh by the way there is free software to make your wing os look pretty much like iphone's interface

[Renegade Knight]

Make North American Phones...

I've been itching to buy one of their phones. But they don't make a version for North America. That's not all that helpful for someone willing to pay the money to get an unlocked phone.

[mahurshi]

Battery life

MS should optimize Windows to prolong battery life. This is one dimension which they can explore to get ahead of competition.

[ericn80]

looks like an HTC

Is this a rebranded HTC?

[johnericanderson]

HTC Mobile wm6 rocks!

Yup. Sorry guys. It rocks.
Best phone I ever had.
Speed dial is voice activated. "Call Home." It does. "Call work." It does.

Blue tooth is a snap.
WiFi is delicious.
Syncs with my Exchange/Outlook.

WHere am I supposed to be, and what's their phone number?

The ability to run MS Remote Desktop seals the whole thing.

I can run support calls from my fishing boat.

[JCPayne]

Bring on the blue screens!!!!

YEAH!!!!!

[SenorFrog]

My Wait Continues...

WM6 gets the job done but god, to steal a line from Niobe, it's got a fat ass. An associate has a iPhone and there is a noticeable difference between the responsiveness between OS X and WM6. Part of it has to be (as someone else hinted at) that OS X, like Symbian, is tailored to a specific device while WM6 is playing jack of all trades with multiple platforms. This has to be a move in the right direction for Microsoft. Before I was waiting for iPhone version 2, then I added Android to the list of things to wait for before upgrading my phone. A tailored Microsoft phone may also be worth waiting for.

[jumpjetta]

Well...

That's a step backwards.

[jumpjetta]

Garbage

My wife's Winmob-based phone is the least intuitive user interface
for a device I've ever used. It requires more steps to do simple
things than any other phone I've ever used.

[sanenazok]

Intuition

When it comes to operating a device, intuition will only take you so far. Sorry, you have to learn how to use stuff or you can just rely on intuition and barely get by, complaining all the way. My brother got a WinMobile phone and hated it until he did something radical - watched an online video showing how to set up shortcuts, customize the thing, etc.