[johnm]

18 months is a long time to wait. MS Mobile is just too slow at following market trends and too deaf to customer complaints and suggestions. Heck even from within MS they don't listen, I tried and gave up. The push towards the smartphone platform and away from pocketPC phone was a big mistake in my opinion. Also people have been screaming for browser and other improvements since 2000 - where are they?

Part of the problem at MS (my opinion anyway) is that they focus too much on dog fooding. They live in a world where everything is Microsoft only. Currently you get seriously abused if you use an iPhone on campus. A few years back you got beat up for using Google. Heaven forbid you get caught using a Mac (unless you're in the Mac group of course). The problem is that if you put on blinders you don't know what is going on in the market and with your competition. Remember Balmer saying he would never let his kids use an iPod? If you've never used an iPod how can you know how bad the Zune sucks?

Employees there, as a general rule, have no idea what the competition is. They live an breath MS products. Back when I worked on Windows we had a Friday dev talk where someone brought in and demoed the latest version of OSX. People were shocked. There were literally audible gasps and open mouths across the room. All the time I was thinking, "How can they not know this? Don't they visit the same sites I do? Aren't they curious geeks like myself?" I have lots of stories like this. Don't get me started on browser tabs, Gmail and Google maps, but I digress...

I have friends that work in the mobile group and I wish them the all the best, but so far I'm not hearing anything from them worth getting excited about. I think management has it all backwards. If I were in charge over there, I would give EVERY SINGLE Windows Mobile developer, PM and manager an iPhone. I would make them live with it 24 hours a day, and tell them "Now go and make something better than this!"

As for me, I'm moving on.