Mobile Handsets: Battle Lines Drawn for 2004

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=11545' target='_blank'>http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=11545</a><br /><br /></div>"Microsoft built on inroads made at Orange with a multi-faceted announcement with Vodafone at ITU Telecom World in Geneva, only to hear Vodafone's reservation at the year-end with their 'not quite ready for prime time' comment. Microsoft presses on with improvements to the platform, with smarter phones from Sierra Networks and surprisingly, Motorola, originally a Symbian investor. Microsoft's unique selling proposition is the link to the enterprise through the dominance in PC desktop software, but this has not yet translated into handsets. The separation of PocketPC and Smartphone operating systems artificially divides PDA and handset platforms, despite the cohesive properties of .net. Microsoft need the quality gains to translate into quantity."<br /><br />This is an interesting article that talks about all the players in the market today - it's a good read to get an overview of where everyone is at. Vodafone's criticism of the Smartphone platform certainly won't help things, that's for sure - Microsoft has a hard road ahead of them to convince the world's largest carrier that the Smartphone is ready for their customers.

[Mike Temporale]

Sometimes you can't see the forest through the trees.

Being the largest, you are usually slower to react. (Microsoft is the exception here) The large dominant player in a market is usually not the first out the door with something new. They have settled down nicely with what they have and don't see the opportunities. Often times it is not until they look and see that the competition is doing very well selling a product that they don’t currently offer.

I wouldn’t focus too much energy on convincing Vodafone that the Smartphone is ready. Instead I would focus my energy on other carriers and get them on board. If Vodafone looks around and sees that their competition is all carrying these Microsoft smartphones and doing well with them, they will have to follow.

[possmann]

I noticed one comment he made in favor of Palm getting a better initial and current foot in the door regarding convergent devices (palm phone OS devices) and from what I see I have to reluctantly agree with him. I cannot wait until more of the major carriers start adopting the Smartphone platform and/or the PocketPC phone platform. The one thing I do see is that price could be a potential issue in vendors accepting the platform as Microsoft is always more expensive than the Palm OS and therefore will make wide acceptability an issue – at the very least it will be slower to start until the price drops.
I do agree that you really can’t drop everything – I myself have a TabletPC (Fujitsu ST), a PocketPC (Ipaq 1935) and am dying for t-mobile to come out with a Smartphone OR for Motorola to upgrade their current Smartphone to incorporate blue tooth (and the 2003 OS of course).
My Smartphone will always be on me, but the features of the Smartphone OS will now enable me to leave my PocketPC behind whereas I always take it with me now. 2004 will be interesting to watch – but I don’t see anything major until after Q2 – sigh.