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Steve Ballmer - CEO of Microsoft - is complacent about Windows Mobile phones ! January 28, 2007 [General] | By Edward J. R. Being complacent is very dangerous because it blinds given business and makes it susceptible to failure. During the press conference where UMPC was unveiled for the first time in history, we asked a question about multi-touch support and the answer was "somewhere in Windows Vista time-line"... but Windows Vista is shipping next week to all customers and Apple is launching a mobile phone with multi-touch in June this year, and Microsoft still has no support for multi-touch neither in Windows Mobile nor in Windows Vista, yet Steve Ballmer dares to laugh out Apple's entry into mobile phone industry: Ballmer: (laughs) $500 full-subsidized with a plan! I said that is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine. Now, it may sell very well or not, I, you know. We have our strategy, we've got great Windows Mobile devices in the market today, we, you can get a Motorola Q phone now for $99, it's a very capable machine, it'll do music, it'll do, uh, Internet, it'll do email, it'll do instant messaging. So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot. Wapner: How do you compete with that though? He sucked out a lot of the spotlight in the last few weeks because of what happened at Macworld, not only with the iPhone, but with the new iPod. How do you compete with that, with the Zune? Ballmer: Right now, well, let's take phones first. Right now we're selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year, Apple is selling zero phones a year (half smile). To read more (including full transcript) and to see video recording with interview where Steve Ballmer said above, click here. Conclusion: while outside of USA Windows Mobile has rather small market share in smartphone market - around 10%, about 80% being owned by Symbian - in USA Windows Mobile has leading position - thanks to Windows Mobile Treo phones and thanks to success of Motorola Q and recently also Samsung BlackJack. To gain market share outside of USA Windows Mobile would have to deliver handsets that could compete with latest Nokia handsets, i.e. : small size, built-in 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and high-quality video recording (minimum: 640x480 pixels, 30 frames per second), built-in GPS, built-in HSDPA... but unfortunately Windows Mobile phones still are known from having poor quality cameras, so Symbian's market share is not endangered outside of USA. On the other hand in USA, where products of Apple Inc. are extremely popular and have cult status, it looks like market share of Windows Mobile is destined to fall when Apple will start selling iPhone. Instead of announcing multi-touch support in Windows Mobile Photon, Steve Ballmer is laughing out Apple's new phone - it looks therefore that it is certain, that also in year 2007 global market share of Windows Mobile in smartphone market will fall - as it was in year 2006. Ignoring multi-touch by Microsoft is a huge mistake.  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 12 Comments ]
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