Microsoft smart guy takes on smart-phone business

With Windows devices lagging behind the Palms and BlackBerrys, Microsoft enlists an electrical engineer from China.
The New York Times

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[robintontx]

I hope they can fix it

From my observations they have to overcome the following obstacles:

1. They are currently dependent on the device manufacturer to provide support for the product. Unfortunately the device manufacturers have little to no ability to provide support. To make it worse, some of the manufacturers have been working to build a reputation of lieing to the customers about the CE os (I-Mate and T-mobile are the two that come immediately to mind).

2. They are dependent on the cellular providers to support their phone software features. Anyone who has had to deal (or attempt to deal) with a cellular provider in the US regarding technical issues can see how much of a obstacle this is.

3. They have to improve the quality of their implementation. I have to reset my device every few days to keep it functioning properly. The average user is not going to put up with this.
In addition their Bluetooth implementation leaves a LOT to be desired (Gee, let's leave the built-in speaker and microphone enabled while using a bluetooth headset, I wonder where all of that noise is coming from?)

Mistatement about the market dominant technology

RIM or Palm are absolutelly not the current dominant technologies on a WW basis.
Symbian is the market dominator by far and RIM is behind MS already...The US are not the world and in fact are quite far behind Europe in using these technologies. Check-out this link for actual numbers: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.canalys.com/pr/2004/r2004102.htm" target="_newWindow">http://www.canalys.com/pr/2004/r2004102.htm</a>