Windows Phone 7 Series: Too Little, Too Late?

Well,

funny you should write about that now – I was thinking of this subject just last night. In my humble opinion, it’s odd to see Windows Phone Serious 7 mimic a lot of the maligned features of the iPhone (limited multi tasking, renewed consumer focus, controlled app installing, copy and paste missing (?) ).

Without a doubt, their current approach would have been the right idea – about a couple of year ago, when all of us pundits were asking – no begging – Microsoft to allow the Zune team a shot at the mobile platform. Now that they have finally relequented on this, it seems that the market is again a few generations ahead of them. App stores, developer mindshare and a proven business models (for all participants in the mobility sea) have been part of the iPhone, Android and to a lesser extend Blackberry capabilities for a while now.

However, you also have to ask yourself – what (if anything) is Microsoft supposed to do? Can they afford to withdraw from the mobility space ? I seriously doubt it. In all honesty, I think the fight for consumer devices is all but over, the winners are Android and iPhone. Fine. Nokia seems content to soak up the “a phone is a phone” type customers and there a *lot* of them out there. A comparatively unexciting business model – but looking at market share, an eminently viable one.

Yet Blackberry is, in my opinion, a wounded animal – *THIS* is where I think Microsoft could have unleashed a vast amount of in-house expertise (after all, as you write they do control a massive chunk of the enterprise infrastructure). For lack of a better metaphor Microsoft should have made Phone Series 7 be more like it’s namesake – the BMW 7 Series – a serious executive device, packed full with relevant features and able to be piloted by the most cringe-worthy of executive boneheads.

Ok so that was a little harsh, but apart from Blackberry and Windows Mobile, there are apparently no real contenders for the business use space – yes, the iPhone “works” with Exchange (and by all accounts rather well) but it’s hardly a “manageable device” a’la Blackberry or System Center Mobile Device Manager (MDM). In my opinion the ultimate announcement at Mix would have been: “Hey we have Windows Mobile 7 – and it’s going to kick blackberry’s ar*e” (add a smackdown event here, squish some fruit).

From a business perspective I can’t see a problem with this – consumer devices carry way more overhead then business devices. The target demographic is less likely to clean their device with nail polish remover or try measure the volume of their farts with yet another ill-thought-out app. Heck business guys want to be cool – so let the zune guys get their mitts on it but don’t forget your core feature set. Step 1: Own the business space. Step 2: leave the consumer & low end space to others – Step 3: Profit.*

(*Note: this is obviously a rather simplified recipe)
Note 2: I own an iPhone, I like what Android is doing, Palm needs to sell itself to Sun/Oracle.

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