Microsoft on the shrink's couch: time to get touchy feely

Tell me about your feelings for Apple

By Mary-Jo Foley and Gavin Clarke, 24th February 2009

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Radio Reg You really have to question the strategic judgment of Microsoft's management team.

Surprisingly, the people who put a target on Palm’s back and beat it have treated the mobile phone as something of an afterthought.

And at the height of the worst recession since the 1930s, with retailers going out of business one after the other, Microsoft has decided to open its own stores, recruiting somebody who has no obvious experience in either the high-street or doing warm-and-fuzzy to head up the operation.

And finally, it flips on Red Hat. Until very recently, Microsoft held out against Red Hat interoperability in virtualization - despite the fact Windows and Red Hat Linux co-habit in the data center - for the sake of extracting some form of show-case satisfaction on patents.

Join Register software editor Gavin Clarke and All About Microsoft blogger Mary-Jo Foley in the latest MicroBite ,as they put Microsoft on the couch and look inside is head on Windows mobile, its plans for a series of retail stores, and virtualization with Red Hat.

Here’s some notes:

"Gesture recognition" in Windows Mobile by 2010 – that’s three years after Apple created the iPhone and with Blackberry already there. A lot can - and will - happen between then and now.

How the retail stores will be less about selling Windows and more about people loving the Windows “experience”, and why there’s a Wal-Mart take over of Microsoft under way.

The Microsoft virtualization agreement with Red Hat was the deal Novell should have done: all business, no fanfare, and no patent protection clauses. Oh, and watch out VMware.

As ever you can listen using our player below, or via MP3 or Ogg Vorbis.

MicroBite 5

We’ll be at Microsoft’s Mix conference for developers and designers in March. Send your questions to us ahead of that show here: microbite@theregister.co.uk ®

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