Mobile Solutions CI

WM7 launching into a headwind

Rethink Wireless has a good summary post on hole Microsoft has dug for itself.

"As part of its Q3 results announcement, Microsoft said revenue in its mobile and entertainment division - excluding the Xbox gaming platform - fell by $80m. Windows Mobile has lost over 20% of its smartphone market share in the past four months, according to estimates from comScore, with...just 15.1% [market share]."

The larger problem Windows Mobile faces is that its success is based upon a licensing revenue model. With sales around $1 billion and profit of a $100 some million how can it ever become a material business to Microsoft when the other business units create around $4 billion in profit on around $15bn in sales?

Microsoft KIN (Pink)--Now the OS players want their own UI layer

Microsoft rolled out their new social networking phones which will be called the Kin phones. The concept looked nicely executed with sms, email, social networks, photoshare, blogging, etc all rolled into a small UI on a qwerty keyboard device with a web-based client for management, backup, and retrieval. As an added bonus we don't have to see any more breathless "reveals" of the Pink project.

I struggle to see how this will be much of a hit though. It's essentially a souped up feature phone in a really strange form factor. Pink turns out to be INQ (remember the FaceBook phone?) with Ovi Share as web backup.

While the product looked nice I was surprised that platform fragmentation didn't get addressed even tangentially. There is no intention for 3rd party apps on the KIN devices but it does bring many dependencies to carriers and other partners. This is an OS overlay on the new Windows Mobile so before WM7 is  in market it is fragmenting like Android has. Given the lack of backward compatibility to WM 6x this is banking an awful lot on silverlight and web service level platforms. Are we going to be seeing every OEM skinning each OS (Blur, Sense, etc) as well as the OS providers doing it? Will Google start offering uniquely branded, skinned, and featured Android subsets? How is it a win for partners to have Microsoft splinter WM even further? How many different service infrastructures are service providers going to support?

In many ways I'd say this looked like Motoblur with a Dashwire integration. Great concept for 2 years ago, still relevant last year, questionable launching in the same window as iPhone 4. My skepticism comes from wondering how Microsoft expects their partners and ecosystem to be excited about offloading contacts, content, and backup (backup! after the Danger debacle) to Microsoft with no value add provided within the application, service, or network partners. 

Microsoft better plan on marketing and selling the crap out of these things if they hope to get and keep any kind of traction. 

New devices start with the platform

Isn't it interesting how mobile platforms now start by marketing to developers? Most of them end there too. I've been reflecting on that while reading the positive reviews of the MIX event in Vegas, Microsoft's developer conference.

"The big take-away message is that Microsoft is trying to make it easy, fast and cheap to make apps for the new mobile-phone platform" says Moconews.

It's great to see Microsoft climbing back into the game. And it's always good for developers, and us as consumers, when distribution becomes easier. However as soon as distribution becomes easier the next thing we'll see is the supply-side blogs and media shouting "holy crap with all this content discoverability is really hard!". That is the story of the iPhone app store's success.

So while it's a positive to decrease the friction in distribution channels it's very frustrating that no one seems to have learned the basic lessons of web 1.0, Blackberry, iPhone, etc etc. I feel that frustration in particular with Android and the OHA. Easy distribution is a message you must have to developers and a reality you must deliver upon as a platform. But that only covers the delivery. It isn't a panacea for creating a market with liquidity (supply and demand in balance), and only markets with liquidity survive.

iSuppli Predicts WM Resurgence--What am I missing?

Analyst firm iSuppli has a new report out which is getting a fair amount of attention. It has WM at twice the current market share of most analysts and then predicts Windows Mobile rapidly gaining even more market share with the number of WM devices tripling over the next three years, leading to a #2 market share. Huh?

There are several things about this view I find puzzling:

• The chart shows total smartphones shipped in 2008 as being around 25 million. What? RIM alone ships over 8 million devices each quarter. They sold more than 25 million devices in 2008. What can this chart possibly mean? Most analysts call current shipments as being around 100M.
• Symbian is projected to hold 47.6% market share. Really? How will that happen? Apple disappears? Android craters? Coming the same quarter where Nokia launches its flagship smartphone on Maemo and only two days after Nokia publicly started walking away from S60 you have to be very bold or just crazy to make this call. Gartner has Symbian falling to 45% last quarter--never mind in one or two years. Other projections are similar. 
• What is the point of making projections into the future with ".6" and other specious indications of accuracy? What a joke! How about rounding or, if you want to actually be useful, showing a 10-90 range?

Here is a reality check from Gartner: "Microsoft's mobile operating system had 11 percent of the global smartphone market in Q3 2008. A year later, it had 7.9 percent of the market, while the iPhone's share had risen from 12.9 percent to 17.1 percent, and RIM's share had risen from 16 percent to 20.8 percent"

I'm not one one to sing Gartner's praises. But did iSuppli talk to any operators? None of the top four US carrier product teams are super excited about WM 7 and certainly none of them are talking about decreasing Android and other platform launches in favor of WM. It's very hard to understand what this report could possibly be based upon and how it squares with what I hear directly from carrier teams.

Did iSuppli talk to vendors? Microsoft itself has said that 85% of its devices come from HTC, which is now at least equally focused on Android. LG is indeed an important partner win but they are not solely focused on WM and also will not have significant share of the smartphone segment for some years.

This report is very contrary to what I read and what I experience. And I'm not the only one seeing the opposite: Wired: "How Microsoft Blew It". What am I missing?

Microsoft rolls out WM 6.5

Microsoft had their big open house yesterday to roll out Windows Mobile 6.5. There were no big surprises so if you've been following mobile news at all over the past year or two you got just what you were expecting.

There is a decent roundup here at CNET. It focuses on the remote wipe and app store. It tells you something that the overall usability and the flow between applications and user scenarios is getting very little coverage.

Microsoft itself emphasized "operator choice" in promoting the dozens of handset form factors that will be available. That is a useless drum to bang--operators are not your press audience and they are the only ones who care about operator choice. 

Developers here that and think "great, further fragmentation and I can be sure I have to tailor an app to multiple devices or have an addressable market that is unlikely to top 1 million". Consumers here that and think of all the feature-laden unusable phones that have been shoved over the counter for the past fifteen years.

So that is my cranky Tuesday morning summation of the incremental release that never should have been. When does WM 7 launch?

FUD alert: MSFT & Nokia aliance is not RIM challenge

Well the rumours were true and Microsoft and Nokia announced a collaboration to distribute Office mobile software on Symbian devices. Reuters quotes a Nokia executive as saying "This is giving some of our competitors -- let's spell it out, RIM -- a run for their money".

FUD alert! It is not, of course, doing anything of the kind.

1. Mobile client software is not a challenge to the device, middleware, and NOC integration offered by RIM.
2. This deal is with Microsoft's Office division and not the mobile division so it does not neccessarily signal anything further than software distribution. It is in effect a bigger version of a dataviz launch. 
3. Offering Microsoft mobile does not affect enterprise buying decisions for solutions--that happens because of role admin capabilities, security from both a process and hardware/software perspective, more basic usability criteria such as battery life, UI, device durability, etc. 
4. Slapping more client software on top of Symbian as an OS is not a recipe for better integration and access to mobile business needs. Integrating those features natively in Symbian would be, but that won't happen because the OS moves to the Symbian foundation and not Nokia.  

So this is a great distribution deal for Microsoft and a nice extra for Nokia's E-Series device line. But you'd certainly think that a company that had burned through several in-house mobile email efforts, a huge acquisition and divestiture, and several partnerships during failed efforts to offer solutions competitive to RIM would know better than to use a client software distribution deal to claim parity with a Blackberry and BES solution. Doing so just demonstrates how little someone understands the enterprise mobile market.

Android Cupcake vs Windows Mobile 6.5 vs iPhone 3.0: Preview

This preview takes a high-level comparison of the main feature upgrades to Android, WM, and iPhone operating systems. Notice there is no significant new Blackberry OS to add to the mix.

IT PRO Reviews | Android Cupcake vs Windows Mobile 6.5 vs iPhone 3.0: Preview

I'd add to this review that with Apple's introduction of cut and paste and improved on-device search the other major OS players will have to find a new approach to competing with the iPhone.

The fastest way to create meaningful differentation for Android, Symbian, or WM platform partners will be to begin reducing or repackaging features to simplify, simplify, simplify. This should be done to optimize along one of a few major themes: Social address book, discovery and navigation, or capture and share. Each theme is mutually exclusive.

Will anyone actually take this approach? No. But it is the best roadmap to driving services uptake.

Microsoft 's Windows Marketplace for Mobile: Strengths and Weaknesses

Microsoft announced details yesterday about its forthcoming mobile application market. Widely reported on in tech media, some of the key points have nevertheless been overlooked.

The revenue split and market availability (focus of most reporting) are neccessary but not sufficient factors to creating a working market relative to the success of the iPhone App Store. Where Microsoft is making some very smart moves is in the build and distribution cycle:

• Microsoft will run a "rigorous certification and testing process" before applications go to market, offloading this task from developers and ensuring consumer confidence in the apps and WM devices.

• "Developers will be able to see detailed feedback during and after the certification process of their application on the Windows Marketplace for Mobile developer portal. Ultimately this enables developers to devote more time to writing innovative applications, and less time trying to navigate the approval process". This is brilliant! It leverages Microsoft's strengths, attacks an App Store weakness, and provides real values to developers and ultimately consumers.

Microsoft Unveils Its Developer Strategy for the Next Generation of Windows® Phones: Familiar tools, large worldwide customer base and transparent policies allow mobile developers to innovate and generate new revenue opportunities with Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Marketplace for Mobile..

Microsoft is spot-on in targeting the build and development phase and in doing so in this manner. As they point out: "Developers can utilize familiar tools and technologies to build unique experiences for the Windows Mobile platform through Windows Marketplace for Mobile, including the Windows Mobile 6 SDK and .NET Compact Framework 3.5.

Windows Mobile 6.5, the next generation of the Windows Mobile operating system, will allow developers to build innovative mobile applications without having to learn new skills or programming languages, by leveraging familiar desktop and server development tools such as Win32, Active Template Library and Microsoft Foundation Classes (Visual C++), Visual C#, Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET and asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX)."

This is Microsoft's real strength.

The weakness is in the demand side. The international reach isn't so impressive without an iTunes-like infrastructure to handle billing, taxes, etc. And what about localization? Microsoft may be planning to address all of those issues but if so they need to detail how and when.

Microsoft is also still claiming 20,000 applications on WM. So what if none of those work on 6.5? How many even work on 6-6.1? Most of those applications are clunky business applications which are custom built by SMB or enterprise facing ISVs for the WM5 platform. Unless Microsoft has specific programs, tools, and processes for porting those apps they are not relevant to creating an iPhone App Store platform competitor.

Microsoft is not the only player in this position.

The question now is who will build programmatic support for the sales and marketing and/or support phases of the application lifecycle? Who will provide "porting boot camps" or programs to extend past successes or cross-platform extensions? This is where the most challenges lay for developers and ISVs.

The sales and marketing phase--Discoverability, demand generation, and building product/feature roadmaps and pricing strategies to create success--will be the biggest challenges facing mobile app providers on all platforms.

So far Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft have decided that is not their problem. They are wrong. The first one to realize that and adjust will gain market share advantage. The more likely outcome is that another player entirely, a service provider or device marker, will leap into the gap provided and deliver even more competition to these players.

Microsoft rebranding WM to "Windows Phone"?

Engadget delivers the most coherent roundup of Skybox and WM rumors. The most interesting aspect is the landing page with the Live services branding. Internally it had been going under SkyDrive, SkyMarket, etc. and apparently will be called "MyPhone" to match a broader rebranding of "Windows Mobile" to the far catchier "Windows Phone".

Microsoft has already pulled it's "myphone" site.

It would be hard to botch the PR portion of a launch more thoroughly than this--unless you consider MobileMe.

Microsoft insists it's not making a phone, rumored to be rebranding WinMo to "Windows Phone" - Engadget.

As a sidenote, all of the functionality promised here is already available from other providers, but it's worth comparing to Dashwire whose team is ex-WM people. To get a concrete view of the Windows Mobile roadmap from 6.1 to 6.5 to 7, you could do a lot worse than looking at Dashwire + Zumobi.

Motorola continues to slide, confirms WM7 not coming til '10

Motorola is proving that devices which are divorced from services continue to lose valuable share in the market and to have a coherent story for investors. The earnings call was painful to listen to.

Motorola Inc. Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript -- Seeking Alpha.

This will soon apply to HTC and other Windows Mobile partners as well, don't let Motorola's myriad problems disguise that. As Sanjay Jha openly admitted in the Q&A, WM won't be competitive as a platform until 2010. What he didn't say is that he's basing that assumption on Apple, Android, RIM, Palm, Nokia/Symbian/Ovi not making substantial progress until then.

That is an awfully risky bet.