“Microsoft expects sales of its Windows Mobile platform products will account for 40% of the global smartphone market in fiscal 2012 (July 2011-June 2012), according to Eddie Wu, managing director of Microsoft ODM embedded devices, Asia,” Daniel Shen and Steve Shen report for DigiTimes.
“Microsoft currently focuses its efforts on promoting the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system and the company has no plans to launch Windows Mobile 7 until 2009, Wu stated,” Shen and Shen report.
Full article here.
Good God, they must be giving them hallucinogens now!
Microsoft’s sales of its Windows Mobile platform products will account for 40% of the global smartphone market the day they exclude Apple (and all other non-Microsoft) products from the definition of “smartphone market.” And not a day sooner.
[UPDATE: 5:06pm EDT: Added “(and all other non-Microsoft)” to Take. Thanks, Predrag.]
it never ceases to amaze me what some people will believe
someone better send MS a memo letting them know that the FUD tactics of yesteryear dont work anymore. People can now smell what MS shovels .. and it aint roses.
Ridiculous.
Sounds like the marketing people at MS are spinning some tall tales again. Wait until the full-tilt iPhone SDK and iPhone 2.0 are released into the wild.
How long has Win Mobile been available? It’s at version 6 and still sucks. Palm is better and it’s pretty bad.
The day Win Mobile has 40% market share is the day everyone carries a Microsoft Big-Ass Table® around in their pocket…
Are you happy to see me? Or is that just a Big-Ass Table?
Excellent. While we are making definitive statements some 4+ years out, please tell us who will be elected president, who will win the Super Bowl, and who will lose the World Series in how many games.
Can you honestly imagine what it must be like to work as a product person in the poisonous culture of the MSFT sales-centric environment?
a slow, agonizing death – every day.
With the iPhone, and Googles Android come out this year, it will be difficult for them to get 40% market share.
Re: MDN Take
Nah, they’ll just use the same statistics cookbook they’re using to prop up Vista sales.
Or they’re start shipping Windoes Mobile on half their PCs.
Wow… Microsoft really can’t see its own fading relevance…
Any chance we could see a video of Ballmer saying that? Please iCal this, MDN!! Perhaps they added a zero by accident.
Dumbphones. Where can I get a real nice Dumbphone?
MDN, your take is extremely optimistic for MS WinMobile. Even completely without Apple, there are Symbian and Palm out there. While iPhone has, in its 10-month existence, carved out one out of every five devices already, majority are still Symbian. Your take implies that MS will be so successful against Symbian that it would overtake it with their wobbly platform.
I would say, you’d need to take out both Apple and Symbian out of the ‘smartphone’ definition in order for MS to make 40%.
Good luck, Mr. Wu (Eddie, not Shaw). It’s just like Mr. Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi pre-war minister of information, proclaiming that ‘There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!’; you probably feel and sleep better believing in what you are saying will come true…
Wow, I wish I could be paid bucketfuls of money to make naively optimistic, blatantly inaccurate and rationally unsupportable market share predicitons.
This Eddie Wu sounds like he’s been under the tutelage of one Rob Enderle, reality-mangler extraordinaire.
Sorry, I seem to have missed something. Windows is one of several platforms in the Smart-Phone market today … and has been there for a couple of years. Linux and Apple are both gaining market share there and can be expected to continue to grow for a year, maybe two or three (or four or five). If revs one through six can’t get them the traction they need in the weaker market, how will ver seven or eight manage with iPhone 2(+), Google, a new Linux, and who knows WHAT all to compete against?
I don’t see it. Even if they position themselves at the bottom, with the ‘semi-Smart’ phones … I don’t see it.
sorry but how long has windows mobile been around for smart phones? who are they going to take 40% from and with what? the basic formula hasn’t changed since version dot and now their going to start developing again?
40% is a joke
Microsoft is on a different wave length with the belief that Windows Mobile licenses sold account for market share. So anything is possible in their world.
Come on, people – these are marketing and development people! They HAVE to say that or they would be out of jobs.
With the “global smartphone market” defined as being all phones running Windows ME + all phones with a full qwerty keyboard, excluding any phones by manufacturers that don’t use Windows ME on any of their handsets [namely RIM and Apple].
Microsoft will be lucky if Windows Mobile achieves 40% market share amongst Microsoft employees.
Absolutely!
The Zune halo effect alone should provide 40%!
Don’t you guys get it? This is clearly a glimpse into Microsoft’s corporate strategy!
By the end 0f 2010, the iPhone will have 80% of the smartphone market. Microsoft executes a hostile takeover of Apple and rebrands the iPhone as the iZunePhone-.net-MSN-HotMail-WindowMediaPlayer. Microsoft will resurrect Bob as the graphical UI and give users a choice of a command line interface as well (DOS). Since this will break the touch screen interface, all units will ship with a full size (but ergonomic, of course) Microsoft keyboard. The new device will include three new buttons (CNTRL-Alt-Delete).
These innovations will cause half of the devices to simply stop working. Voila, 40% marketshare!
Look! Ours has more buttons, you want more buttons don’t you? How can you be productive without a ****load of buttons? Oh, and look we’ll have Flash too! We are willing to compromise on our standards for the sake of expediency, but no worries. Adobe’s release works just fine for us!
Well, of course a Microsoft exec will say that…
It’s the same people who actually thought Zune had a chance as the “iPod killer.”
“With the iPhone, and Googles Android come out this year, it will be difficult for them to get 40% market share.”
THIS
If you believe MS 40% claim, you certainly think Shrek is real.
in light of that bold statement, i should probably get a head of the curve and get me a Windows Mobile phone . . .
2012 . . . 4 years from now . . . does anyone remember what the smartphone market was like in 2004?? Does anyone believe that the smartphone market will resemble anything like it is today??