Goodbye Windows Mobile, Hello Windows Phone?

[Ed Hansberry]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090206PD207.html' target='_blank'>http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090206PD207.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Microsoft, which is planning to unveil its Windows Mobile 6.5 platform at the Mobile World Congress soon, has decided that, going forward, Windows Mobile-based handsets will be promoted simply as Windows phones without specifying an OS version number, according to market sources in Taiwan."</em></p><p>This certainly isn't the first time Microsoft has renamed their mobile device platform. Here is a list of names it has gone by over the years, and since I am doing this from memory, I may have missed a few. Feel free to add those I skip into the discussion thread. I am only including those based on Windows CE. I know MS had other efforts before that, but let's ignore those. <img border="0" src="http://www.ehansberry.com/ppct/wink.gif" /></p><ul><li>Handheld PC - first device based on Windows CE</li><li>Palm-sized PC - the first PDA style device. Actually called Palm PC until the real Palm sued that name out of existence.</li><li>Pocket PC - first successful device running Windows CE. </li><li>SmartPhone - non-touchscreen device</li><li>Windows Mobile added to the name.</li><li>Pocket PC and SmartPhone dropped. Now known as Windows Mobile Professional and Windows Mobile Standard. Windows Mobile Classic was the name for non-phone devices</li><li>Windows Phone (rumored)</li></ul><p>If this rumor is true, something we may find out next week at Windows Mobile Congress, we'll see how long it lasts. I have never seen Microsoft rename a product so many times, much less in just twelve years.</p>

[Jon Westfall]

I think MS should stay away from using "Windows" for anything other than the desktop / server operating system. Successful MS products other than OS'es have never used "Windows" in the title (e.g. Zune, Office, XBox). I kinda get the use of "Windows" for a mobile operating system, but I'm thinking MS just needs to come up with a brand new name. Even better if it has built-in coolness, such as "Microsoft Ice" or "Microsoft Gunslinger".

[Rocco Augusto]

I wonder if this is an omen that Microsoft will be merging the Standard and Professional platforms into one single entity. It makes perfect sense with the trend the mobile market is shifting in. As with the recent Windows Mobile 6.5 series of leaked screenshots (http://smartphonethoughts.com/news/show/92304/oem-leaks-windows-mobile-6-5-user-interface.html), I do not believe I have seen one come out for the Standard platform. Also take into account it feels like there has been a significant drop in released Windows Mobile Standard devices recently while everyone and their grandmothers are coming out with a Windows Mobile Pro device and all of that can mean sad times ahead.

[MadSci]

as in "I was here first!" :D

ok, Nokia might have something to say about that, but really, how relevant is Symbian anymore (at least in N. America)

MadSci

[Brad Adrian]

I just think it's a mistake to keep changing how Microsoft refers to/ names its products, especially its Windows Mobile products. It is so easy to underestimate the value of a recognizable and consistent product name. How many times in the past eight years (or even eighty years) has Coca Cola changed the name of its cola?

[efjay]

I wonder if this is an omen that Microsoft will be merging the Standard and Professional platforms into one single entity. It makes perfect sense with the trend the mobile market is shifting in. As with the recent Windows Mobile 6.5 series of leaked screenshots (http://smartphonethoughts.com/news/show/92304/oem-leaks-windows-mobile-6-5-user-interface.html), I do not believe I have seen one come out for the Standard platform. Also take into account it feels like there has been a significant drop in released Windows Mobile Standard devices recently while everyone and their grandmothers are coming out with a Windows Mobile Pro device and all of that can mean sad times ahead.

How do you envision this merging will happen? Is it actually more of a case of doing away with the WM Standard version altogether? I'm not sure how the two platforms could be merged when they are so different in how they are used ie touchscreen vs non-touchscreen and if they keep the Standard version as it is and just call it something else that wouldnt really be a merger. WM Standard is definitely a good OS but it does seem like the most powerful apps are designed for the Professional version so I wonder where the need to keep the Standard version would arise.

[MadSci]

Frankly I don't have the time anymore to ferret out the differences between all the similar versions of the same software/services MS offers. :confused:

For example, I've had MS Messenger on my boxes for years, desktop, laptop, WM Phones, all o them.

Then along comes Windows 'Live', like the New Messiah and I'm urged to switch. Why? What's the difference. Frankly, it was all so balled up in gobbledgook and BS MS AdverSpeak that I just couldn't be bothered.

Only now, when I find that MS Messenger has finally become a tad difficult to keep working across platforms, have I bothered, and my conclusion, Windows 'Live' Messenger is just a new 'half-version' of MS Messenger, but it does integrate better with a bunch of other bundled apps that I don't care about.

Oh, and I have to do a complicated Registration process, which confuses me beceause it recognises my MS NETWORK ID just fine, but won't let me keep it as they have altered the format of the UserID and Password again. :mad:

Honestly, these people don't have a clue! :rolleyes:

If WLMessenger had been called MS Messenger, version x, I would have considered moving over ages ago. Instead, I am being FORCED to migrate, and nothing pis*#$ off a customer more than being forced to do what he/she doesn't want to.

Hello! Most people learned that in Kindergarten!

This kind of nonsence, along with my second forced migration to a half-baked, buggy unstable version of Windows (Win98 to Me, and now XP to Vista) is precisely the reasons I am going out and getting a Mac Book! If Apple were to get ahead of the mobile technology curve (decent screen - Local Outlook Sync, open OS) with their phone than it would be adios WinMo! :p

Wake Up Microsoft - your coffee is burning!:p

[Rocco Augusto]

How do you envision this merging will happen? Is it actually more of a case of doing away with the WM Standard version altogether? I'm not sure how the two platforms could be merged when they are so different in how they are used ie touchscreen vs non-touchscreen...

This is true but with the new screenshots that we saw you could easily create a non touch screen device that uses the Zune-like interface.

[j2inet]

How do you envision this merging will happen? Is it actually more of a case of doing away with the WM Standard version altogether? I'm not sure how the two platforms could be merged when they are so different


Windows Mobile Standard has some nice features that Windows Mobile Professional doesn't have. One of these is an always-on power management scheme. There have been mentionings in the past on the Windows Embeded and Windows Mobile blogs that perhaps one perhaps some of the features in Windows Mobile Standard will be ported over to Windows Mobile Professional (which would result in improved battery life and potentially higher performance) but nothing definite.

There are other nice features that WM Standard has and Pro doesn't, but things like this are invisible to the user.

[Ed Hansberry]

MS has been merging these platforms for years. PPC had Office, now Smartphone does. Smartphone had data saved to RAM, now PPC does. Smartphone had "soft keys" and now PPC does. And on and on.

I don't know if it is WM6.5, Wm7 or Wm.next but at some point, I suspect there will be one device and it will come in two flavors - touch and non-touch. Everything else will be identical.

[tnels!]

" I have never seen Microsoft rename a product so many times, much less in just twelve years."
==================
How right you are. M$ never renames mainstream products!

DOS, Windows, Windows for Workgroups. Windows 3.0 Windows 3.1 Windows 95 Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows 98 ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7.

And if they ever do rename products, the iterations are all so logical!!!

(That is sarcasm for all you people in Rio Linda.)

[Bob Anderson]

All I can say is that this is the hodgepodge you end up with when you have a marketing department that:

a) Has too big of a budget
b) Wants to spend time "educating" you about a new product, which is just really a re-hash of an existing one, but by naming it differently garners more attention (buzz) and makes for more headlines, and
c) Spends way too much time worrying about consumer reaction to naming conventions than the product itself (and the roar of customer opinions/thoughts/etc.)

[tnels!]

Not to worry about M$ product name changes. I understand there is $40,000,000 in the Stimulus/Bailout package for 'Tech-Product-Naming-Theory' training classes.

[Ed Hansberry]

M$
ahhh yes... Welcome to the Slash.org crowd, complete with using a $ instead of the letter "S." I am disappointed not to see the Bill Gates as Borg image though.

[Brad Adrian]

... Welcome to the Slash.org crowd, complete with using a $ instead of the letter "S."
Note, however, that the reader has been a member of these forums since 2004, so at least it's taken five years to join the ranks of the jaded "Dollar Signers." ;)

[tnels!]

Wow, what a reaction to my use of M$. I am an old time American Capitalist! I am not jaded; I believe profits are good; recessions and losses are bad! I believe the best parts of M$ is the wealth (not just in Microsoft) Bill Gates and his team have created for more that 30 years!

*Disclosure: I do hold some M$ stock.

[Rob Alexander]

DOS, Windows, Windows for Workgroups. Windows 3.0 Windows 3.1 Windows 95 Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows 98 ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7.

And if they ever do rename products, the iterations are all so logical!!!

(That is sarcasm for all you people in Rio Linda.)

Hey, you forgot Windows NT! I don't know how you could miss that, given how obviously it fits between Windows ME and Windows 2000. :p

[tnels!]

I did forget NT! Great point! I wonder if I forgot any others? I know there was a promise for 'multi-user DOS' that never happened, so I don't think that one counts. Does OS/2 count?

[landswipe]

If true, this sounds like Microsoft are trying to stay in-vogue.

gPhone, iPhone... now Windows Phone (wPhone).

So what happens in the future when the 'phone aspect' of these devices becomes insignificant? Back to Windows PDA?

[mscdex]

Hey, you forgot Windows NT! I don't know how you could miss that, given how obviously it fits between Windows ME and Windows 2000. :p

Don't forget Windows CEMENT either... :D

[superrrguy]

I have it on good authority from a source in Microsoft, let's call him Gill Bates, that the next versions of Windows Mobile will be called "Windows Phone i" for touch screen versions and "Windows Phone BB" for non-touch screen versions.

[Craig Horlacher]

They really need to stick with a name. I think "Windows Phone" sounds stupid. "Mobile" sounds much cooler than "Phone". "Phone" sounds old, boring, and feature deprived. I think they should stick with "Windows Mobile".

As far as products with Windows in the name flopping...that didn't seem to help the WebTV, Zune, or Bob. They all failed in most people eyes.

[Brad Adrian]

All I can say is that this is the hodgepodge you end up with when you have a marketing department that...
I'm not sure if your comment is meant to be tongue-in-cheek or not, but I think the issue is a lot more complicated than simply having "too much money." If anything, I think it's a symptom of trying maybe a little too hard to keep apace with markets that are very image-conscious and that can turn at the slightest consumer whim.

The Pocket PC/Windows Mobile products have never, IMO, hit the same naming sweet spot that other competing products seemed to make contact with immediately (for example, the iPod). Add to that the drastic changes that have taken place in functionality since the first Pocket PC in 2000 and it's small wonder that there seems to be inconsistency in the relationship between the products and their names.

I've worked in the market research field for nearly 20 years, and the types of projects that I find most fascinating (and for which the outcome is the most difficult to anticipate) are those relating to product image and naming. You really never know HOW people will respond to various potential product names.

[Bob Anderson]

I'm not sure if your comment is meant to be tongue-in-cheek or not, but I think the issue is a lot more complicated than simply having "too much money."

Brad, to answer your question, my response really was a little tongue-in-cheek and a little real.

Your experience far and away trumps my soapbox stance here, but what I will say is this, in my 20+ years in business in general, companies that spend too much time analyzing always find themselves in analysis paralysis. At some point, you have to make a decision, stick with it, and move forward. More importantly, you pick out your plan and then stick with that plan - rather than switching gears because of, what you label as customer whim.

I've worked for 2 types of companies - the analyzers and the do'ers. The analyzers rarely make mistakes, but are always late to every game. They are reliable, but not trendsetters. Do'ers make mistakes, but more often than not hit home runs fairly consistently. Any technology company that chooses to be an analyzer (I consider Microsoft an "analyzer") rather than being a do'er (I consider Apple a do'er) just never will generate the "buzz" because their offerings are just too plain. I'm sorry, I'm a huge fan of WinMo, but always playing it safe is NOT going to get you into the realm of "killer app"...

Now, take that analyzer mentality and spread it to marketing, give them a huge budget, and what do you think you are going to get: name changes, etc., that really do nothing to add value to the product, but they've been analyzed extensively!!!

So while I never want to discredit trying to understand your market, at some point you have to say "I'm going to create a 'killer app/device' and the device itself with its capabilities will generate the marketing buzz we need." (The Palm folks did this with what we're hearing about the "Pre")

If I was at Microsoft I would seriously consider deep cuts in marketing and advertising and send a signal to my development staff that says, in essence, you are my development and marketing team: make something that is going to blow the socks of the market when we release it. The device has to "sell itself" by virtue of what it can do to enhance our user's experience.

[azhiker]

Common, name changes is part of consumer updating, and a "get our attention" kind of marketing. Stay with the same name may mean we stay with the same limitations of the past.

What if we called Windows, "DOS Graphical?" No way! It went from just Windows, to Windows 95, then 98, then XP and now Vista. Why not the same for the handheld environment?

My hope is with a name change, so is the enhanced experienced, fixed problems, etc. Incremental change, keep the same name, major change, then name change! Otherwise it will backfire on you.

[royjn]

Interesting article, but shouldn't that be "something we may find out next week at Mobile World Congress" instead of "something we may find out next week at Windows Mobile Congress"? :confused: