Microsoft’s missed mobile opportunity

Apple Online Store “Reasons to feel bearish about Microsoft aren’t hard to find. But it’s the software giant’s diminishing profile in the mobile world that is the talk of Silicon Valley right now,” Martin Peers reports for The Wall Street Journal.

“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.

32 Comments

  1. 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.™

  2. “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.

  3. 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?
    He’d be well advised to take the offer … financial gain is financial gain, after all. Still, how embarrassing! ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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

  8. @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”.

  9. @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?

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