“Windows Mobile’s share of the global smartphone operating-system market fell to 7.9% in the third quarter from 11.1% a year earlier, Gartner estimates. Also losing ground was Nokia’s Symbian,” Peers reports. “In contrast, both Apple and BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion boosted their shares, while Android grabbed 3.5% from zero a year earlier.”
Peers reports, “It doesn’t help that the latest version of Windows Mobile, 6.5, got a tepid reception. A fuller upgrade isn’t expected for another year. Or that device manufacturers such as Motorola are focusing on Android rather than Windows Mobile for new phones they’re developing.”
“What Microsoft risks losing is the chance to establish a stronghold in the mobile ecosystem. That is potentially a huge deal. Already, there are signs that mobile applications are changing Web browsing habits. Consumers may not need to use search engines as much to check their favorite sites,” Peers reports. “Instead, they can tap an application.”
Peers reports, “Microsoft famously stumbled early in recognizing the importance of the Internet and is still licking its wounds after losing out to Google on search. In the next year, Microsoft needs to make its presence felt in mobile, lest it miss another trick.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Move along Microsoft shareholders. There’s nothing to see here. Pay no attention; remain oblivious, as usual. May Steve Ballmer remain CEO for as long as it takes! CLICK HERE FOR A GREAT PC DEAL!
Okay, they’re gone. No way they’ll be able to resist a “GREAT PC DEAL” — in ALL-CAPS, no less. Cheap. Tasteless. Bastages.
Now, for the rest of us: It’s obviously already way too late for the lumbering, ineffectual, derivative, and delusional Microsoft and their shiteous Windows Mobile, no matter how much the moribund maestros of mediocrity (we’re feeling generous today, can’t you tell?) attempt to steal from Apple this time. As always: May Steve Ballmer remain CEO for as long as it takes!
Direct link via YouTube here.
I like Microsoft’s strategy! Go Ballmer!
I actually feel sorry for Microsoft (and I love it)
Long live Balmer!
I second that….. toast to Ballmer.
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en
‘shiteous’ (you made that up, admit it), now about ‘fecal’?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Apple shareholders should give Steve Balmer a bonus for doing such a fine job at Microsoft.
You MAC dorks won’t know what hit you when I-Phone lemmings drop their flash in the pan toy phones for a multitude of wonderful Windows Mobile 7 choices.
In only a few years everyone will be using a Windows Mobile phone for 3 reasons:
1) Windows commanding market share makes a Windows Mobile phone an easy choice,
2) Face it, the I-Phone is very weak in important areas: it isn’t suited for the enterprise, doesn’t have a real keyboard or removable battery, and
3) Microsoft is super great to partner with. All the leading hardware manufacturers can’t wait to get on board.
Keep your heads in the sand, MAC sheep.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Whenever m$ talks about their ‘innovation’ you just want to slap them.
“What Microsoft risks losing is the chance to establish a stronghold in the mobile ecosystem.”
It’s already too late.
MS is 5 years behind Apple in having a phone OS that is a pleasure to use, and even further behind in having an app store that isn’t craptastic. Besides, I imagine that very few developers would feel compelled to write very many apps for it anyway.
Windows Mobile will continue to lose market share and MS loyalists / shills will continue to lament Ballmer’s ‘missed opportunity’.
*raises glass* May he remain CEO for as long as it takes.
Les S said: “Apple shareholders should give Steve Balmer a bonus for doing such a fine job at Microsoft.”. Well, the typical “bonus” for C-class executives who perform well (for someone) would be stock options. Yes, I think that would be Just The Thing! The only questions now, would be “how many?” and “what price?”. Say total value at 1% of his salary, at $250 per, close date being the end of the calendar year?
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He’d be well advised to take the offer … financial gain is financial gain, after all. Still, how embarrassing!
“I like our strategy [sit on our fat asses and do nothing], I like it alot!”
I haven’t watched that for a while, but just had to watch it again. It’s so cringe inducing… the guy’s a dumb as a milk cow. SNL could not parody this and make it more funny than the real thing… and that’s actually kind of sad for anyone who works at Microsoft.
Transformation =
Microsoft 2000… dominant aggressive company..
Microsoft 2010….? *crickets
I predict Ballmer will resign from Microsoft within 18-months.
He’ll hit the Fortune 500 speaking circuit as a motivational speaker.
I also predict Ballmer will begin singing Apple’s praises and will admit in his memoirs that he secretly admired Steve Jobs and envied Apple.
Only a year ago, MS had about a 20% share in smartphones, as they shipped about 20M WinMo licenses. I recall the WinMo manager saying, in Summer 08, that they were targeting a 40% share in 2010! Ha!
I just can’t see how MS has any hope in mobile. They had their first-mover opportunity and now that’s gone. Rim is displacing them in enterprise. Android is displacing them with the OEMs. As Dilger likes to point out all the Android OEMs used to be WinMo OEMs. And, the iPhone has taken their consumer sales.
MS is so desperate they have to PAY to get their OS on handsets. They are paying LG; otherwise, who’d release a WinMo handset? HTC who used to make most WinMo handsets has jumped ship to Android. Palm which used to sell half the WinMo handsets in the US, has put all of their eggs in WebOS. The only way MS gets on handsets is if they pay. They are paying Verizon, reportedly $500M over 10 years to get Bing on their handsets. They are partnering/paying Nokia to put Office apps by 2012! Now there’s a winning strategy.
I’m trying to decide whether Zune Tang is a Mac/iPhone fanatic making us laugh through irony, or if this guy is serious. If Zune Tang is just being ironic, please excuse my naïveté.
Zune Tang is the ultimate voice of sarcasm here. Always good for a laugh.
Hold on a second…a little history lesson for all the n00bs. In the 90’s the Clinton administration’s DOJ pretty much told the world that if M$ got into the computer making business….they would come down on them REALLY hard with anti-trust suits and that congress would follow suit by doing things like making Windows open source and forcing it as a U.S. backed Operating system standard. Then there were also ideas floating around about splitting Microsoft’s OS business from the software business. AT the point M$ had to host a full office of DOJ ani-trust attorneys on the Redmond campus to help expedite all the investigations going on against M$.
So there are historical reasons why M$ tackles some of these business sectors in stupid ways. And I am not saying that the corner they painted themselves into wasn’t well deserved. Anybody remember the Microsoft processor tax?
just my $0.02
@zune tang —
That is your best post EVER.
What’s weird is, there are people who actually say that shit seriously.
Just imagine Zune Tang’s postings being read with Stephen Colbert’s voice. Then you’ll understand.
@ Jim McIntyre,
I never thought of that, but when I went back and read ZT’s post imagining Colbert’s voice I almost wet my knickers. Great suggestion.
@Ray
So you’re blaming Microsoft’s ineptitude on the government? That’s rich!
Microsoft is above the law and so is Wall Street. They operate openly under a different set of guidelines; they’re called loop-holes in the law. They do the opposite of what’s called for in the law.
I can think of a half-dozen instances where Wall Street, et. al., big business listened to what government wants and then does whatever the hell they want to do.
Off-shore accounts, corporate espionage and raids on employees, sweatshops, discrimination, open racism, sexual harassment, rewarding and reinforcing bad behavior, tax-avoidance, you name it, they’re the pioneers of thumbing their nose at the government.
Lest ye forget your history, it was Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, ordinary citizens dressed like native americans who dumped the tea in to the harbor, not the American government.
So all I’m saying is, the world’s citizens made Microsoft who they are in the market, not the government. If Microsoft’s consumers believe them to be forthcoming then they’ll continue to buy their products.
As long as Microsoft continues to “tackles some of these business sectors in stupid ways” they’ll continue to lose market share and not even the government will be able to prop them up as “too big to fail”.
Might this be the start of something good in general?
Such as the fall of M$ — let it be swift and finale!
@therepguy
let it be swift and finale!
I’m like the guy in Saving Private Ryan: Don’t shoot! Let ’em burn to death.
I’m old school and not as forgiving, I guess.
That’s wrong, isn’t it?
@therepguy
“…let it be swift and finale!”
Let it indeed be swift and final.
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Let us also hope they go out with a rousing finale.
Oh duh another “just you wait” from the Zuney. Seems to me that you went on the same drivel with plays for sure and the Zune.
Still waiting on that one, and it’s way past your iCal expiry date Zuney.
So once again to your face…
Liar.
All microsoft had to do was make a decent OS and sell it to the 95% of the public who would buy it.
Its called ‘shooting fish in a barrel’.
They came up with Vista instead of a good and clear and functional OS and now they are struggling.
Gates got lucky with the gift of DOS and Apple’s arrogance back then, but his horseshoes arent transferring to Ballmer.
Apple changed, Microsoft didnt.
They have zero chance of entering the Smartphone world – with the turnover in phones as fast as it is, I cant see them even being in the Smartphone market in two years time.
If someone uses an iPhone, how long before he buys a Mac?
Same goes for Android and Linux (if there was a Linux that installed without Geek-Speak……)
A 7.9% market share sounds like rounding error to me.
We all know Ballmer is stupid, but this guy Martin Peers saying, “Consumers may not need to use search engines as much to check their favorite sites”
I don’t use search engines to check my favorite sites, I use my browser of choice and bookmarks. Have I been doing it wrong all these years?
” Consumers may not need to use search engines as much to check their favorite sites,” Peers reports. “Instead, they can tap an application.”
Yeah, that comment had me stumped too.
Comment from: Zune Tang®
You MAC dorks won’t know what hit you when I-Phone lemmings drop their flash in the pan toy phones for a multitude of wonderful Windows Mobile 7 choices.
In only a few years everyone will be using a Windows Mobile phone for 3 reasons:
1) Windows commanding market share makes a Windows Mobile phone an easy choice,
2) Face it, the I-Phone is very weak in important areas: it isn’t suited for the enterprise, doesn’t have a real keyboard or removable battery, and
3) Microsoft is super great to partner with. All the leading hardware manufacturers can’t wait to get on board.
Keep your heads in the sand, MAC sheep.
Your potential. Our passion.™
==========================================
Oh welcome back seems like you took time out over Xmas, did you mange to get a Girlfriend or are you still dating Steve Ballmer?
Oooh Windows Mobile is so great the the main manufacturer is HTC what a joje Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, LG are all looking towards Googles Android and symbian platforms and scaling back on their Windows Mobile !!!!
Lol
3) Microsoft is super great to partner with. All the leading hardware manufacturers can’t wait to get on board.
Yeh only because your lover is Steve Ballmer, if you rub his head you get 3 wishes you know
@ Derek in Milan: “with the turnover in phones as fast as it is”
Actually that’s exactly how they will be able to survive in the “smart phone” market. Most of these users are not loyal to their carrier or device. They don’t give a crap which OS it runs, as long as it “can” do all the neato things they saw some other person’s phone doing. So WinMo 7 will have a market just as Android does now.
My conspiracy theory: MS board of directors are all large holders of Apple stock — Ballmer is allowed to keep working so the value of their Apple stock increases.