“It’s not just browsers and operating systems where Microsoft is experiencing a slow, inexorable decline. They haven’t done so well with their mobile phone initiative either. Windows Mobile is an afterthought when the media pundits speak of smartphones. The chatter is all about the iPhone, the Blackberry, the latest Android-based device and, of course, the Palm Pre. How fascinating it is to see real competition in this space, rather than face an 800-pound gorilla that spends a large part of its time beating down any competition that dares invade its territory,” Steinberg writes.
“Certainly Microsoft’s woes started big-time when the iPod arrived, and Apple rapidly managed to carve for itself a hefty majority of the market, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the usual naysayers. Microsoft tried working with the usual group of third-party manufacturers and failed. They tried the Zune and it was a failure too. The lifetime of the dedicated media player is coming to a close, except, perhaps, for the iPod touch, which is really just a small personal computer,” Steinberg writes.
“Microsoft? They’d love to build a true competitor [to Apple’s iPhone platform, with it’s very successful App Store], but maybe they are just left to recall the famous movie phrase from the late Marlon Brando, ‘I coulda been a contender.'”
Full article, “The Beleaguered Microsoft: The Evidence Mounts,” here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
