“In the last quarter, the iPhone and Research in Motion (maker of the Blackberry) overtook Windows Mobile, while Nokia remains comfortably in first place in smartphones. At the end of the June quarter, Microsoft had to admit that Windows Mobile missed it self-set target of 20 million by 2 million,” Tim Nash writes for Low End Mac.
“In today’s mobile market, Microsoft is already outpowered by Apple’s financial returns,” Nash writes. “Last quarter Apple sold 6.9 million iPhones at an average price of over $650. With a margin of over 50% (analyst Charles Wolf of Needham & Co), this generates gross profit of over $2.2 billion. In the year up to June 30, Microsoft sold 18 million Windows Mobile licenses for $8-15 per license (Strategy Analytics) for a maximum of $270 million. With RIM reporting gross profit of $1.3 billion and Nokia selling 15.5 million units (mainly N series and E series) in their respective last quarters, Microsoft is falling more and more behind just as the market is expanding.”
Nash writes, “Windows Mobile 7 has been delayed. HTC, the Android G1 manufacturer, expected to release a WM7 handset in Q1 2008. Now the next release will, in the words of longtime Microsoft follower Paul Thurrott, “allow smart phones to render Web pages like they did almost a decade ago on traditional PCs”. The interim version after that looks as though it will ship in late 2009 (ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley). It looks like too little too late. The iPhone will be through the annual update by then, and the App Store will be closing in on or already past 1 billion downloads.”
Full article here.
Circling the bowl… it’s been there for a long time. Just spinning faster now!
Stucks to live in Microsoft land……..
I haven’t seen the word bloodbath on here in a while.
To quote Ballmer: “I like our strategy, I like it a lot.”
May he remain CEO of Micro$haft forever.
EL
Got dat right!
“Circling the bowl”
hehe
All MS can hope to do is catch up to iPhone 1.0, which will be way too little way too late. Reminds me of Zune 2.0 coming out as Apple blew the traditional Pod out of the water with Touch.
I doubt it. The thing we try hard to forget on this web site is that MS is ubiquitous, and they are firmly entrenched. Look at the Zune, a total failure in my book, but, I can still go to Wal-Mart and buy one. It’s a company that can afford to throw money away – and it does. I keep wondering if it’s even possible for them to run out of cash and assets, even if Windows fails I wonder if they’re just so well off as a company that they could stay afloat indefinitely. I guess we’re going to find out.
That should read “Apple’s Flush With Excitement as Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Circling the Bowl”.
Clear that bowl, Windows 7 will be ready to circle next. That one is big and may clog the sewer pipes!
I can’t stand M$ either, but this is apples and oranges. M$ doesn’t not make a hardware phone, only the software. That makes it hard to compare income. Now if they did make a zunephone, we know it would suck so that’s probably why they don’t.
Microsoft will make a Zune Phone.
Screwing their partners is in their DNA.
Hmmm…
Nokia, ‘In first place’… right….
but, this begs the question, ‘for how long?’
http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1266189
enjoy it while you can…
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It won’t be long before Windows Mobile is beleaguered.
Oh, come on, MDN! You gotta put that picture of a Zune in the toilet at the top of the article.
Cut and Paste
tethering
full exchange activesync
full device encryption
800×480 screen support
support phones with or without touch screen, with or without keyboard
full bluetooth stack with OBEX file transfer
fully open, can install any app from anywhere
Variety of browsers, with support from the Firefox and Opera teams (with better rendering than Mobile Safari)
Disk mode
Voice command
LG
Samsung
Motorola
Sony Ericsson
Background apps like IM
Today screen
devices with cameras up to 5 megapixel, with auto-focus and flash
software with turn by turn GPS navigation allowed
ANY software allowed, not just what Steve likes.
Flash support
devices with removable batteries
devices with removable storage.
I am clearly not talking about the feature-poor iphone OS.
No company is safe, not Microsoft, not even Apple. Case in point: Montgomery Ward, one of the largest retailers in the history of the country went out of business in 2001 after 129 years of operation (another company later bought the name and now sells stuff online).
It’s a case of what have you done for me lately? Apple keeps doing things for us whereas MS…
BTW, I heard of those 6.9 million iPhones shipped, 2 million have not been sold. Talk about stuffing the channel.
Was that just to try and beat RIM’s numbers?
Surur, but not enough people seemingly need those things, especially MS’s implementation of them, to make the system a success. Apple has already proven that a number of people are willing to forego certain features in order to reap the other overall benefits of the iPhone. If and when Apple adds any of those things it just strengthens their position.
Your argument seemingly boils down to the idea that the longer the feature list the better something is. No device does everything perfectly, all of them make compromises of some sort. Apple has admittedly excluded some things, things that I would use, but their solution has obviously convinced a lot of people in a short space of time and can only improve as the OS matures. MS had a massive headstart and despite numerous versions failed establish themselves and are now playing catch up.
@Surur
Thanks for the list of items that I do dearly wish I had on my current iPhone 3G. Unfortunately, the one item that was missing was that all these things crash and run unreliably. Having said this… I’m on the fence about my recent switch from a Plam Treo to an iPhone.
Treo was a brick… win goes to the iPhone for style
Windows mobile crashed and wouldn’t sync half the time… iPhone wins
Cut and Paste… hands down WM wins
Tethering… heck, if my iPhone would stop dropping calls, I’d be happy
Voice command… give me a break Apple… WM wins
Removable storage… not an issue so far, but WM wins slightly
Anyway… basically, I love my iPhone and want it to beat WM badly. I’m still positive and hoping it will soon, but for now, I’m just satisifed to have the prettiest and coolest phone out there. Is it the best functioning? Not even close… but maybe someday.
Just stop dropping calls and I’ll be less likely to regret my switch!!
@M.X.N.T.4.1
“Your argument seemingly boils down to the idea that the longer the feature list the better something is. No device does everything perfectly, all of them make compromises of some sort. Apple has admittedly excluded some things, things that I would use, but their solution has obviously convinced a lot of people in a short space of time and can only improve as the OS matures. MS had a massive headstart and despite numerous versions failed establish themselves and are now playing catch up.”
I could list 100 features that are nice but not compelling. Those features are only the ones I find useful. Who does not find cut and paste useful, whatever the implementation. Or disk mode? Or tethering?
And talking about implementation – when I plug in my Touch Pro the device pops up a very nice screen, asking me if I want to tether, use diskmode or sync. If I leave it alone if does the previous selection automatically. Could not be simpler.
I think I should point out that 18 million “sets” sold in the past year is a fairly sizable number. Sure, others are growing to make it past them, but that is STILL a fairly sizable number. As for the “profit” comparison to the iPhone, apples to oranges! The profit awarded to the iPhone is for both the hardware AND the software while the profit awarded to WM is merely for the software.
The only real competitor to WM is Android. Neither Nokia nor RIM are licensing their OS except as part of their own hand-set sales – just like Apple. All the smaller companies – including Palm – have two choices, WM or Android. As long as there are smaller companies …
Oops, I forgot. My greatest regret is living thin because I can’t really afford my AT&T;plan. Mom lost her job and now it’s on me to be the breadwinner… At least with the Treo it was one and done.
Oh well. At least mom said I could paint the basement, so I got that going for me.
My Touch Pro is slicker than snot on a glass door knob and when the iPhone reaches feature parity I MIGHT think about switching but for now WinMo rocks my world and carrying the TP in my front pants pocket looks like I got chub.
I did not type the above comment but I can endorse it. The VGA screen rocks!