“As personal computers fade from what Al Mandel called ‘ubiquity to invisibility,’ something has to take over. And everyone I respect thinks the new dominant platform will be mobile. So it’s my job to tell you, then, that Windows Mobile is probably doomed,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS. “Interestingly, this conclusion isn’t based on any personal preference or subjective analysis… It’s a simple matter of market economics.”
“There is generally room in any technology marketplace for three competing standards. Notice I say ‘standards,’ not ‘brands.’ …And among those three standards there tends to be a market-share distribution that is more or less 85-10-5,” Cringely writes.
“This is not a time to bet against the iPhone, which is changing the entire landscape of not just smartphones but mobile phones in general. For all its teething problems, there is a new sheriff in town and his name is iPhone. We’ll see nothing but progress and market-share gains there for at least another two product cycles or three years,” Cringely writes. “RIM is another story altogether… RIM is facing a huge challenge. I’m not saying they won’t meet that challenge, I simply don’t know.”
“If I had to bet right this moment on the mobile 85-10-5 of 2011, I’d say iPhone, Android, then RIM, Symbian, or something completely new from behind Door Number Three,” Cringely writes. “And where will Windows Mobile be in 2011? There way things are headed now, given that Microsoft can’t really afford to be anything but first or second on the platform that supplants Windows, I’d say Windows Mobile will be dead.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "scopie" for the heads up.]
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