Analysis - Microsoft gets back in the mobile game

[HEXUS]

The software giant had to deliver with its mobile OS and, judging by its presentation at MWC 2010, it has.

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[TheAnimus]

Ah dear old microsoft.... Oh wait, it looks like theres money in them thar hills........

Worst case scenario it makes a truely stunning phone OS, that ties in with cloud office stuff for the bizz users, games with xbox for the kiddies and it dominates the market, pushing apple to its normal 1% market share.

Then they get lazy and rest on their lorrals and nothing happens for 15 years.

Oh wait, replace apple with palm, and its a history lesson.

[kingpotnoodle]

Every company has it's ups and downs... not many tech companies are solidly excellent over 10, 20 or 30 years everyone turns out a stinker or gets put behind by an unexpectedly good competitor sometime or another. It's good to see them bounce back, keep the market competitive and the drive to innovate high.

[MadduckUK]

7 months off isn't it? meh. everything will have changed again by then

[dangel]

7 months off isn't it? meh. everything will have changed again by then

Really? What's the other game-changer? Android and iPhone are just improving incrementally now.

[MadduckUK]

Really? What's the other game-changer? Android and iPhone are just improving incrementally now.

not seen the HTC desire/legend launch vid today? the new sense is more than incremental - and that will continue

[dangel]

not seen the HTC desire/legend launch vid today? the new sense is more than incremental - and that will continue

Busy day - so only just now - but yeah looks great Only for HTC devices right? Are HTC 'fixing' android in the same way they did on WM now?

In the same vein, why not this? http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=13378

But we digress, because neither are the OS, and both exist on WM and Android platforms. And I'd take a wild guess that the all new sense might get ported to WP7.. Ain't that great?

[TheAnimus]

Actually Dangel, do people care about the OS?

99% of users can't tell the OS from the shell really. The only reason they care about the OS is because of the applications they have available to them. For instance if Open Office and Office for Mac weren't such a massive joke, windows might not have the 97.5% domination of the workplace desktops, or whatever it is.

Which in a mobile phone, where some of the most popular 3rd party applications are "fart button" and "virtual beer" or whatever its called, do consumers care about the OS?

I guess what i'm saying is what is the breakdown of % people care about something?

For me I guess its an end to end functionality thing, like been able to quickly read something on the screen, that requires the highest res screen that can comfortably fit in my pocket. Then things like the browser (opera is just waaay ahead on the mobile stakes, except for flash support) so I guess my breakdown would be:
asthetics: 10%
screen 60%
browser 30%

but do I care which OS it runs on in that use case? Not at all.

hopefully some of that ranting will make sense.....

[dangel]

hopefully some of that ranting will make sense.....

Yeah I get where you're coming from - and I agree - but to a developer it does potentially matter - OS bound features are likely to be easily extensible and you can leverage them in your own apps etc. And so it that sense it does matter (and by proxy to the consumer in richness of apps). I don't see a shell offering anywhere near this depth and so it's a one-time front end so ultimately not as important. That said, we don't know enough about WP7 and it's APIs yet - but we soon will..

[TheAnimus]

really?, an example I would use would be the Wii vrs the Xbox.

Is it the OS that plays a roll in defining the difference in games, or the hardware?

I really don't think its the fact that microsoft have made developing for the xbox a doddle, because when you comare the xbox vrs the ps3 (which is renound for been 'difficult' to work with) the games are VERY similar, compared to the difference between the xbox and wii.

[dangel]

really?, an example I would use would be the Wii vrs the Xbox.

Is it the OS that plays a roll in defining the difference in games, or the hardware?

I really don't think its the fact that microsoft have made developing for the xbox a doddle, because when you comare the xbox vrs the ps3 (which is renound for been 'difficult' to work with) the games are VERY similar, compared to the difference between the xbox and wii.

TBH I think that's off track here - it's hardly comparable to shell versus OS which is the issue here and what i'm getting it is what a shell actually provides as an app ecosystem versus an entire OS. It seems obvious to me that (unless HTC have gone all-out and are reaching out to developers with Sense all of a sudden) there's a world of difference in what this will allow people to do with it.