SAN FRANCISCO--Although Microsoft would rather everyone ran out and bought a Windows Mobile phone, the software maker is aware of reality. And, since it wants people to use Bing on their phones, it knows it needs to have software that works on other devices.
"Everyone understands the popularity and the pervasiveness of the platform," said Microsoft principal group program manager David Raissipour, following a Bing event Wednesday. "We are actively working on it."
Raissipour confirmed Microsoft is working on a mobile Bing application that will combine a number of features--more than just mapping and search. However, he declined to say what all of those features are or when the software will be ready.
I probed as to whether some of the cool mapping technology Microsoft showed on Wednesday might make it onto phones. Raissipour said such mapping requires a rich platform, but could potentially be done without Silverlight, if necessary. So, what about the iPhone?
"It's certainly possible," Raissipour said. "That's a rich platform."
Microsoft already has native mobile applications for many Windows Mobile phones, BlackBerry devices, and a number of Verizon feature phones. The company is also exploring what it might be able to do on Android, particularly on non-Google branded Android devices. In the meantime, the company has its mobile m.bing.com Web site.
I also had a chance to catch up with overall search engineering chief Satya Nadella to ask some overall Bing questions.
In particular, I wanted to see just how many people are actively choosing to go to Bing.com, as opposed to just searching via MSN or a browser tool bar. With Bing's predecessor, Live Search, very few people actually went to the Live.com page.
"It's still a small percentage," Nadella said, but noted that it has succeeded in getting a fan base, which was a key early goal of the product.
When it comes to the data that Microsoft is including at the top of some search results, in general, Nadella said Microsoft is not paying for the content, nor are companies paying to get their information included.
The benefit to Microsoft is that it displays more useful results while content providers get a link high up in the results page. "It's kind of like SEO [Search Engine Optimization] for structured data," Nadella said. As for those new mapping abilities, I encourage you to check them out for yourself and read . In addition, though, here's a video I did with Microsoft's Blaise Aguera y Arcas, where he walks through the new features.
After a few hours on Tuesday of playing with the Zune HD that Microsoft sent me, I found a lot of things I like about it--the slim size, the Quickplay user interface feature that gives you immediate access to recently added and favorite songs, the big on-screen volume controls, and the Zune Pass, for example. But the Web browser seems like an afterthought.
CNET's Donald Bell had better luck with the on-screen keyboard than I did.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)I know that mobile Web browsing isn't the same as PC browsing, but I've used Safari on the iPhone for more than a year, and it's great--I actually read articles, for work and fun, on my bus commute to work. It's so good, I've been taking it for granted. Not anymore.
Microsoft says the Zune HD's browser is based on the mobile version of Internet Explorer, but it doesn't look like any version of IE I've ever seen. The address bar is hidden--you have to pull up on the gray bar at the bottom of the screen to get to it. The other alternative is to click on a small magnifying glass to conduct a search on the mobile version of Bing, which I found difficult to use. (No slam against the full browser-based version of Microsoft's search engine, which I like.) For instance, when I conduct a search on my employer's name, "Directions on Microsoft," Bing Mobile assumes I want news stories that cite the company, when in fact I just want our home page. There's a link on the Bing Mobile site that says "web," which I assume is supposed bring me general search results from around the Web, but when I clicked it repeatedly, nothing happened. There's also no auto-suggest or auto-complete for search queries--each time you want to search for "Chinese restaurants," you have to type the whole query in.
Regardless of how you're trying to navigate, the on-screen keyboard seems to require more finger accuracy than the fault-tolerant keyboard on the iPhone (probably because of the smaller screen). The back button is hard to hit--I kept selecting the favorites menu by mistake. Sites are also considerably slower to load, and the resolution doesn't seem to be nearly as good as the iPhone or iPod Touch, with a noticeable flicker on pages with white backgrounds.
Maybe it's just me--Donald Bell thought the browser was great--but I can't imagine using this browser for any length of time.
Microsoft's efforts to regain lost ground in the mobile phone business will see the company offering two different versions of its operating system next year.
The company will continue to broadly sell Windows Mobile 6.5 to a large variety of handset makers, while working more closely with several handset makers to sell phones built on a new version of Windows Mobile that has been several years in the making, according to a source familiar with the company's plans.
While Windows Mobile 6.5 is a fairly interim update to the mobile operating system that Microsoft has been selling, Microsoft has also been working on more radical efforts to overhaul the operating system. Both its plans for Windows Mobile 7 and its long-running "Pink" project aim to match the kinds of experiences seen on the iPhone and Android, using more advanced voice and touch interfaces and higher-end hardware.
Microsoft demonstrated Windows Mobile 6.5 at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. That interim update to Windows Mobile will start arriving on phones this fall, while a more radical overhaul of Redmond's cell phone OS is due next year.
(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET News)A Digitimes report this week called the effort a "dual-platform" strategy, although I'm not sure I'd use that term to describe two versions of Windows Mobile being sold at the same time.
What is clear is that Microsoft needs to do something serious if it hopes to live up to its mobile ambitions. For years now, the company has made rather modest updates to the Windows Mobile operating system, which dates back to the days of code powered PDAs and other organizers that were neither phones nor, in some cases, even connected to the Internet.
In that same time, Palm has gone back to the drawing board and reinvented itself with the WebOS-based Pre, while the iPhone and Android have entered the market and even Research In Motion has arguably done more to capture consumer interest than has Microsoft.
Internally, Redmond has shifted a number of its people into the mobile unit. In addition to former server executive Andy Lees, who now runs the phone business, former Mac Business unit chief Roz Ho has been leading a top secret "premium mobile experiences" team responsible for some of the "Pink" work. The company purchased Danger, known for creating the teen-centered T-Mobile Sidekick, and Ho heads that unit as well.
The software maker has also tapped folks from its Tellme unit to help bring improved voice recognition capability into Windows Mobile.
Call waiting
Microsoft has been working on Windows Mobile 7 for what now seems like an eternity, especially in the mobile world. The product was supposed to be in phone makers' hands by early this year, but has suffered a number of delays.
Microsoft's competition might be looking for a silent contender, but they won't find it in CEO Steve Ballmer. Rather than relying on the software giant's marketing professionals to dish dirt on competitors, Ballmer does it himself. And he does it quite often.
On Tuesday, Ballmer had some interesting things to say about Google and its upcoming Chrome operating system.
Steve Ballmer fielding a question from Fortune's Geoff Colvin.
(Credit: Screenshot by Ina Fried/CNET)Speaking in an onstage question-and-answer session following his speech at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, Ballmer told those in attendance that he doesn't "know if Google can't make up their mind or what the problem is over there...The last time I checked, you don't need two client operating systems."
Ballmer couldn't quite stop himself there. He had a few more interesting things to say about Chrome OS.
"Who knows what this thing is?" Ballmer said. "To me, the Chrome OS thing is highly interesting--it won't happen for a year and a half, and they already announced an operating system (Android)."
With all those zingers flying around, it made me start remembering other instances in which Ballmer has taken a company or product to task. So I decided to search Google for all results matching "Ballmer disses." Amazingly, the search returned more than 125,000 results.
Microsoft's CEO likes to hit the competition with some pretty tough comments. Here's what he's had to say about some of his most prominent competitors over time.
... Read moreDon Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Microsoft has found a powerful incentive to get people to use Windows Mobile--at least those within its own ranks.
The software maker has stopped paying for cellular data plans for those using BlackBerries, iPhones and all manner of non-Microsoft devices.
Plenty of Microsoft workers still have an iPhone, but as of earlier this year, they can no longer be reimbursed for their data plan unless they switch to a Windows Mobile-based phone.
(Credit: Apple)Although the move took place earlier this year, it is only making headlines now, thanks to an article on Silicon Alley Insider.
It's hardly a shocking move. Lots of companies standardize on a particular mobile operating system or two and limit reimbursements to those devices.
A Microsoft representative confirmed on Monday that "the data plan reimbursement for Microsoft employees is limited to Windows Mobile devices."
"This policy took effect as part of the broader cost saving measures announced earlier this year," the representative said in an e-mail. The software maker has trimmed its product line, cut staff, and also pulled back on spending on travel, vendors and contractors.
T3's rendering of a Zune-Xbox portable gaming console.
(Credit: T3.com)The Zune rumor mill has been churning for a while, with leaks of an alleged ZuneHD and maybe even a Zune smartphone. The latest rumor gathering steam is sort a riff on previous rumors: Microsoft is developing a portable digital entertainment device that bridges the gap between the Zune and the Xbox 360.
Team Xbox, which ran a story back in January with a similar theme, is the site behind the gaming Zune rumor. Team Xbox's anonymous source had some juicy tidbits to throw out, saying the Microsoft handheld, which has been dubbed the xYz, will be "unlike anything on the market today" and that we should think in terms of a mashup between the Sony Mylo, the PSP, and the iPod Touch. The source, Team Xbox says, wanted to make clear that device "lacks access to a phone network."
The article goes on to note that the graphical interface found in the New Xbox Experience will make its way onto the handheld. "Buy a song, a movie, or a TV show on your Xbox, play the content later on the handheld or the other way around," the source said. "Play an Xbox Live Arcade game either on your Xbox or in this handheld." Sony's been trying to move toward a similar relationship between the PS3 and PSP but it remains a work in progress.
So, is the rumor legit? Will we see a new portable entertainment system from Microsoft this year?
We're willing to buy into this one--to a degree. Our second-hand sources confirm that the Team Xbox post is basically on the money and that Microsoft is indeed prepping a device that's designed to compete with the iPod Touch, not the iPhone. As we said, we've been hearing bits and pieces of this rumor before. For instance, some alleged ZuneHD specs that were circulating earlier referred to "3D gaming" capabilities for the device. So it makes sense that the Zune HD--or Zune xYz--will have some tie in to Xbox Live Arcade games. And hopefully, Microsoft will having something to say about it at E3 next month.
What do you guys think? If true, is this a PSP, iPod Touch, and Nintendo DSi killer all rolled into one device?
For those wondering about Microsoft exec Stephen Elop's suggestions that Office is coming to the iPhone, let me be unequivocal. It is.
How do I know? Microsoft has already said so. The software maker is planning over the coming months to introduce Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Those programs will run not only in Internet Explorer, but also in Safari and Firefox. And, lest there be any ambiguity, Microsoft has already confirmed that this means Office for iPhone and Office for Linux.
Don't get me wrong. Those are both big deals--particularly Office for Linux (think Netbooks and other Web appliances). It's just that they weren't new revelations, as some thought, on Wednesday.
For those who want to hear about Office for the iPhone straight from Microsoft's mouth, here's a video interview I did earlier this year with Office development chief Antoine Leblond.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer knows not to blink.
On the desktop front, Microsoft is not discounting the approximately 1 percent market share gain Apple has garnered in the past year, bolstering its position as the No. 4 player in operating systems behind Linux, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, during a midyear update with analysts Tuesday.
"We're very focused on both Apple as a competitor and Linux as a competitor," Ballmer said.
And concerns regarding Google's open-source mobile operating system Android are not far behind.
"I think the dynamics with Linux is changing somewhat," Ballmer said. "I assume we'll see Android-based, Linux-based laptops, in addition to phones, and we'll see Google more and more as a competitor in the desktop operating system business than we ever have before."
Last month, for example, a report surfaced that raised the question of whether the Android operating system had recently been successfully ported over to a Netbook.
"The seams between what is a phone operating system and a PC operating system will change, so we have ramped our investment in the client operating system," Ballmer said.
And on the mobile operating system front, Windows Mobile ranks third, with Apple's iPhone fourth and Google's Android currently a blip on the radar, but nonetheless a concern for the Redmond giant, Ballmer said.
"The truth of the matter is all the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android," Ballmer said.
He added he sees competition in the mobile arena occurring on two fronts: one is selling mobile-related software independently from the hardware, which may explain the software giant's reported interest in launching a Windows Mobile online applications store. The other front is a combination of software, hardware, and services bundled together, similar to Apple's iPhone or Research In Motion's popular BlackBerry.
Microsoft has made some stumbles in the mobile world, but a strategy shift made more than a year ago will soon pay dividends, the company's top Windows Mobile executive said in an interview with CNET News.
Andy Lees, the executive brought over from the server unit a year ago, said that Microsoft's efforts to make sure that its mobile software could run on a wide range of phones resulted in an operating system that failed to take advantage of advances in hardware.
Andy Lees
"We aimed to go for a lower common denominator," Lees said. Microsoft was also limited by the origins of Windows Mobile, which was developed to power handheld computers that neither connected to a network nor handled voice.
"We started out when we were in PDAs (personal digital assistants) and then a phone got strapped to the back of the PDA," Lees said. The company also failed to recognize that phones--even those that were used for business--were still as much personal as they were professional.
Meanwhile, Apple and Google have joined the fray with operating systems designed from the ground up to take advantage of the latest in phone technology.
But Lees said that Microsoft embarked on a new strategy some time ago that will come to fruition over the next 18 months. The first steps in that strategy, he said, will be announced at the Mobile World Congress conference that takes place in Barcelona in the middle of next month.
"You are going to see a bunch of announcements at Mobile World Congress but also it is going to be the beginning of a 12-, 18-month period where you are going to see a whole bunch of different stuff," Lees said.
Part of Microsoft's new strategy, Lees said, is not relying on operating system upgrades to improve its products. The new approach, while still making money by selling a mobile operating system, places considerable focus on services that help connect the phone to the PC and Web as well as devices such as the Xbox.
Microsoft has two separate teams at work on the services piece. One is Microsoft's Windows Live group, while the other is a rather secretive group headed by former Mac unit head Roz Ho--a group that also includes the team Microsoft acquired when it bought Danger. Lees declined to say specifically what Ho is up to, however.
But Lees acknowledged the company also needs to improve that core operating system, which is widely seen as lagging that of most of its rivals.
For some time now, Microsoft has been working on a significant overhaul of its operating system, known as Windows Mobile 7. However, that project has hit delays, prompting Microsoft to push forward with an interim update, Windows Mobile 6.5, which the company is widely expected to detail next month. Lees declined to comment specifically on either version of the operating system, but promised the company would have more to say on the OS front in Barcelona.
Lees also promised that Microsoft would start working more closely with hardware makers. He pointed to deals late last year with LG and Samsung.
He noted that the power of the kinds of phones that come out next year will be incredible, well beyond even today's devices. Phones next year will have dual-core processors, super-fast data connections, and graphics power rivaling that of the original Xbox.
"That's a phenomenal thing on a phone," he said. The phones of the future will also have location information beyond just GPS sensors. "It will know where it is pointing, it will know which angle it is being held at."
Web browsing has been another weak spot for Microsoft. The company made up some ground late last year with a pocket browser that essentially crams the desktop Internet Explorer 6 into a Windows Mobile phone. But it lacks the kind of easy zooming and gesture recognition present on the iPhone or in Palm's Pre. Lees promised that Microsoft would surpass those interfaces by the end of the year.
Lees would not confirm details of a rumored rival to Apple's App Store, reportedly known as SkyMarket.
"There is some question whether we can more directly connect the developer and the end user," he said. "We're looking at that."
Apple dismissed the notion that Microsoft and others are catching up to the iPhone, however.
On a conference call with analysts last week, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer dismissed the growing competition from rivals saying Apple remained "years ahead" in the phone business.
"Our competitors are scrambling to try and copy our success," he said.
During a trip Down Under, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has had a lot to say. This week in Sydney, Australia, he stated that he isn't interested in wooing Yahoo anymore, he doesn't understand how Google plans to profit from Android, and he has confidence in President-elect Barack Obama's leadership.
And while the expressive executive on Friday also said Microsoft "may look into" using WebKit, the open-source browser-rendering technology used by Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari browsers, he mostly rejected that idea, according to a Computerworld report. Instead, he said the two prominent Microsoft rivals--as well as social network Facebook, in which Microsoft has heavily invested--have something more worthy of mimicking: an application platform.
Despite acknowledging that WebKit's open-source nature is "interesting," Microsoft's chief executive elaborated on why he says the software giant is sticking--at least for now--with its Trident rendering engine for Internet Explorer.
"I think there will continue to be a lot of proprietary innovation by us, and other people, inside the browser itself," he said. "A company like ours needs to have (its own) rendering service. It is important that we have a browser that embraces (Internet) standards but also allows us to have innovative extensions, even before the standards bodies go there."
On serving as a liaison between developers and consumers, Ballmer seems to have a more collaborative view.
"I actually will agree that there's some good work, particularly at Facebook and also with the iPhone, where both of those companies have made it easier for developers to distribute their applications," Ballmer said, referring to Apple's iPhone SDK and App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the Facebook Platform, which provide independent developers with a way to more easily program, market, and distribute platform-specific software. (For its Ballmer-criticized mobile operating system, Google has introduced the Android Market.)
A key motive of each of these platform initiatives is attracting developer attention, and Microsoft is indeed taking note that the strategy is working. The iPhone software development kit, for example, was immediately picked up by 10,000 developers, and it gained more momentum when Apple dropped a nondisclosure policy for App Store releases.
"They've made it easier to kind of get exposure for your applications," Ballmer told a crowd of developers. "There's not much money being made, but the general concept of giving developers a way not only to get their code distributed, but to really get visibility for the code, is a good idea."
Will Microsoft develop a similar concept for Windows developers? Time will tell.
