“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.]
I like Bob. I don’t always believe what he says though, but he does have some way out crazy ideas
Wrong. Flat out wrong. iCal it bitches.
Mobile phone will not replace computers but coexist with them. LOL. I heard this garbage back in the early 90’s when everyone said that interactive tv will replace computers. They were proven wrong.
And we all know what an amazing prognosticator Cringley is.
Great that he’s in favor of iPhone taking control of the mobile space, But 85% share? And personal computers fading?! Bob, please send a box of whatever you’re on to me. I’d like to escape for a bit.
“Windows Mobile will be dead”
No, no, ‘e’s resting. And Nokia will be pining for for the fjords.
I think he’s on to something. No, i mean he’s on something. But i sure like the thought of WinMob dead and buried!
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Given that there will be a valid replacement for the keyboard, a “wearable monitor” that works, far better connectivity, then perhaps we’ll all be wearing computers that will act as telephones.
But they won’t like like anything out there right now.
We will get faster processors, better battery life and faster connections. Oh yeah baby, this is the beginning of a new format.
Well, Isn’t Windows mobile 7 delayed until perhaps as late as 2010 for actual deployment? Hasn’t Apple already blown by Windows mobile in market share? Didn’t Apple just sell more phones than RIM? This phone has some serious traction, and their competitors haven’t come close to providing a product that rivals it. And you know Apple is not sitting on their laurels at this point, but are making iPhone even better. 85% seems a bit far-fetched, but Windows mobile seems pretty irrelevant now, and with another year to wait for improvements, they could well be squeezed out. The usual MS bully tactics and monopoly leveraging will do them no good here.
but video did kill the radio star…
A personal computer is overkill for the average person. There’ll be simple, specialist appliances like the iPhone and slightly larger tablet.
Imagine an iPhone dock that connects to the new cinema display (and all its peripherals) and add a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Time will tell, but I do agree that the laptop will fade away from public use and be left at home or the office. When I travel for less than a week on a b-trip, I used to take at least one laptop, now, I only take the iphone. Do I miss my laptop sometimes, sure, but do I really need it, is it REALLY worth the weight or hassle at the airport…NOPE!
A personal computer is overkill for the average person.
Or at least what the average person does most – e-mail & other communication, web browsing & other information retrieval (think of iPhone’s weather and stock apps for starters), and games.
Portable devices probably won’t be up to serious word processing anytime soon. Not because of processor power or storage, but because of the limited physical interface. That will be both for internal as well as cloud apps. Similarly for number crunching (spreadsheets) or databases (other than retrieval and simple interactions).
Let me get out my handkerchief. This news brings a tear to my eye.
Oh the justice, the justice of it…
Microsoft brought down by one single, solitary mobile phone…
It can’t happen soon enough.
MS is done. Apple is on the rise
Windows Mobile is already like #3 or #4 in the smartphone OS space. And to the displeasure of Ballmer all of their WinMobile OEMs are or soon will be part of the Android movement. HTC Microsoft’s largest Windows Mobile (WinBile) OEMs is having their first big hit in the smart phone space with an Android Phone.. MS should be getting ready for the Dear Ballme, letter from HTC, telling MS that they’ll be Borging all of their smart phones with Android from now on. Good News if you’re a HTC investors as soon they’ll dump the MS parasite (WinBile) off their profits.
You know that Apple patent where the laptop slides into the side of the display?
What if you just slid in an iPhone instead??
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“Hasn’t Apple already blown by Windows mobile in market share?”
No.
“Didn’t Apple just sell more phones than RIM?”
Yes, this quarter.
“Windows mobile seems pretty irrelevant now,”
Except in the rest of the world, were Windows Mobile phones outsell iPhones by a wide margin. When numbers are all totalled up, Windows Mobile is still outselling the iPhone two to one. At least that’s better than the PC market where on a whole world basis Microsoft is still outselling Apple thirty to one.
Bob is an idiot. Forever a side show in the world of technology, he makes predictions like some circus clown and he’s never right. The worst thing you can want to happen is for Bob to predict something good for you. He’s as off the wall as any of the pro Windows morons MDN points out regularly.
Well…
Interesting thoughts, but I don’t think so… There are too many people who are stuck on windows for no other reason than they are comfortable with it, know how to tweak it, have perfected the art of reformatting after a virus or malware infection…
What I would believe and support is a statement that said that three years form now that 50% of cellphones on the market are iPhones and the other 50% is made up by everyone else…
Microsoft has a bigger war chest than RIM. Personally RIM sucks worse then windows mobile, because there is nothing familiar about RIM. I have a blackberry, forced on me by corporate IT, I hate it, still trying to make the thing useful after 6 months….
@ Not So Fast …
Windows Mobile was sinking in market share before the debut of the iPhone though, and is on a fast downward trend with no new version in sight for two years.
The iPhone also *has* “blown by Windows Mobile in North American smart-phone share already. So in a sense the original poster was right.
Windows Mobile gets a big bump from it’s non smart-phone utility, and iPhones sales are distorted by the fact that they only recently went international. If you consider only smart-phones, and what people choose and are choosing for a smartphone, Windows Mobile has already lost and has no plans for the foreseeable future.
but but but….
“Apple’s iPhone is no threat to ‘great, exciting’ Windows Mobile phones” says MS exec.
microsoft is under attack on way too many fronts for all the talk of war chests plans to matter. you can’t fight the entire world, and MS has made enemies of everyone. first the phone system will fall. then the game system, then office, and finally windows. it has already begun.
oh, and theloniousMac, as a sideshow on mac news sites, i expect you know a tech side show when you see it. the regulars all know you are a troll. go away.
What are the current smartphone market share stats after Apple announced their 6.9 million iPhone sales?