Cold-water treatment for Ballmer on Windows Mobile
Coming down's a bitch
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If Steve Ballmer loves one group of people more than developers, it's Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) - except when he's gently threatening them, of course.
No wonder Microsoft's chief executive was willing to play the fool, slapping a Windows Home Server sticker on his forehead on stage during this week's MVP conference, according to Tweets from the event.
It was back down to earth with a bump shortly after, though, as Ballmer was put on the spot during a separate customer conference over the company's painful mobile strategy.
Chris Kemp, chief information officer of NASA's Ames Research Center, broke it down for Ballmer when he asked how he could realistically stand behind Windows Mobile when his employees are bringing iPhones and Androids in to work. Kemp pinned Ballmer down at Microsoft's Public Sector CIO Summit in Redmond, Washington, after the MVP event on Wednesday.
"In your presentation you put Windows Mobile right in the center there, but it was a phone that doesn't work in America and an operating system that you haven't released. I'm wondering what your commitment is to continuing to get newer versions of the operating system in our hands so that we don't have to fight this battle on the ground," Kemp reportedly asked.
Ballmer was forced to concede the up-coming version of Windows Mobile, version 6.5, will fall short of what the company should be delivering in the face of the iPhone and Android.
"We have a significant release coming this year. Not the full release we wanted to have this year, but we have a significant release coming this year with Windows Mobile 6.5," Ballmer replied.
Ballmer was forced into a fallback position, talking of problems as "opportunities".
"There's opportunities for us to accelerate our execution in this area, and we've done a lot of work to really make sure we have a team that's going to be able to accelerate."
Scrambling further, Ballmer fell back on how Windows Mobile devices outsold the iPhone last year. While this is correct, it's worth noting the iPhone only began full international availability midway through last year so it's not surprising Windows Mobile out shipped the iPhone. ®
COMMENTS
WM makes Win95 look solid and stylish
I have used mobile phones and PDAs with just about every OS going and WM is the most unstable and ugly POS I have ever used.
I used to use an Ipaq which I had to hard reboot every day. Even Win95 was never that bad. Symbian isn't pretty but it was fairly stable. Android, hmm. The OS is showing promise but the hardware is less than impressive.
All in all, my favourite it, you guessed it, my iPhone. I am a recent convert to the Church of Apple but it is a lot more than a pretty face. Unlike Mac OS X, there are some very annoying bugs, but it has not crashed once in a year of daily use and it is pretty fully featured. Now if only Apple would open up a bit it would be great. Unfortunately that is not Apple's style and that is a major shortcoming.
So far there are no genuinely attractive alternatives but I still have 6 months of my contract to run so the point is moot.
re: Aristotle
Can answer your questions for you, as a mobile phones salesman for a number of years (Gotta pay for Uni somehow!) I will hold my hands up and say that yes, Windows Mobile sucks. Badly. Its not as good at e-mail as the Blackberry's, Android kicks it all over the park already when it comes to web browsing and the iPhone is a much better media device.
Windows mobile offers nothing that is not available elsewhere, especially now that netbooks or mini-laptops are so cheap and widespread. Tried using mobile office on a recent Windows Mobile handset? Its a nightmare, especially on the Omnia.
Throw in a truly byzantine set-up process that is impossible for most consumers to manage unaided (Compared with the G1 for example, which takes seconds) and the worst options system I've ever seen, and its no reason we seem to have stopped selling them all together!
Mine's the one with the G1 in the pocket.....
WM ignored by developers
Why would developers want to support yet another white elephant?
We didnt after the WM5 debacle (only eclipsed by vista), and since then most of us are very happy with Java.
Its yet more spin/PR shyte that will fade to grey.
BREW and Simbian are/have covered the ground that the consumers ARE buying! end of.
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