[Crimguy]

They're definitely smoking the crack pipe. They are officially "behind the curve" right now, and have a lot of catchup to do, starting with their mobile browser. I also believe their OEM's are not uniformly building stable products (Hello, HTC???)

[Crimguy]

They're definitely smoking the crack pipe. They are officially "behind the curve" right now, and have a lot of catchup to do, starting with their mobile browser. I also believe their OEM's are not uniformly building stable products (Hello, HTC???)

[alese]

This target would be realistic if Microsoft would put some real effort into it.
For now it just doesn't look like that, all they managed in one year after iPhone was to copy threded SMSs and zoom in a browser, there will be another year (2 years after iPhone) until WM7 devices come to market and WM7 at least from what we know is still "just" a copy of iPhone's interface... I'm just not sure they are working hard and fast enough to be ahead (or at least on par) of the competition when it comes to mobile OS (and desktop OS too, but that's another story).

The one thing going for them is Sony Ericsson Experia - they have one of the major manufacturers (Motorola doesn't count, having them is more of a liability than an advantage and Samsung is just releasing new models of every OS/form factor possible, left and right...) on board and if the X1 is a success this could be huge for them.

[hotphil]

Two letters - UI
Unless MS can sort out the UI they have no hope of pushing Windows Mobile devices to 'ordinary' consumers. The centralised device management may make inroads to the enterprise, but average Joe isn't going to purchase a Windows Mobile device until it can be used stylus-free, the menus are sensibly laid out and the bugs are ironed out.
Other manufacturers are able to produce slick, user-friendly UIs with mass market appeal - why won't MS?

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by Stinger

The first Nokia S60 phone was released in Q2 2002 according to Wikipedia. The first Blackberry with integrated voice was released in Q2 2003. Microsoft has been in the game as long as the other players.

I guess you could argue that Nokia has been making phones for far longer and Blackberry have been making e-mail devices for far longer. But how long has Pocket PC been around?

Totally different. Those were disconnected devices and their focus was Palm. Nokia had a HUGE market presence before smartphones started coming out so their Symbian devices weren't exactly starting from ground zero like WM based devices. RIM was around with connected devices too long before MS released a PPC phone or SmartPhone, so they had inroads to the email market. Voice was just an addon a few years later. And MS has already surpassed RIM.

I would assume that a large portion of Nokia smartphone users are taking photos, listening to music and browsing the web. That's certainly what I see on the streets. Sounds like another certain consumer-centric smartphone platform, doesn't it?

No, not from what I see. People are also using the WM devices with email, GPS/mapping and other third-party software installs. It would be interesting to note the percentage of Symbian users vs WM users that really use the device beyond picture taking. I never see anyone using either device for music though. They all have iPods.

Microsoft's sales have been doubling but I haven't seen any real increase in market share. Their market share has always floated around the 8-20% mark.

You'd argue that Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition, Smartphone 2002 and some of the early 2003 devices garnered 8-20%? I don't think anyone at MS would make that claim.

A tripling of market share does not equal a tripling of sales. It's probably more like getting twelve or even sixteen times as many sales.

Exactly, which is why I never discussed tripling of sales. In fact, my post doesn't even have the word "sales" in it. I think you confused sales with share in your own post.

[Stinger]

No, not from what I see. People are also using the WM devices with email, GPS/mapping and other third-party software installs. It would be interesting to note the percentage of Symbian users vs WM users that really use the device beyond picture taking. I never see anyone using either device for music though. They all have iPods.

I was trying to subtly compare the mass market appeal of Symbian to the iPhone. I obviously failed.

You'd argue that Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition, Smartphone 2002 and some of the early 2003 devices garnered 8-20%? I don't think anyone at MS would make that claim.

I'd definitely argue that. The market for smartphones in 2002 was less than a million units worldwide and only around 3 million in 2003.

It's hard to find any hard data but this Google cache puts Microsoft's share at over 25% of the combined smartphone + PDA market in 2003. It's hard to say exactly how many of those units were connected devices but it's obvious that Microsoft's market share of the smartphone market was at least 10%.

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by Stinger

I'd definitely argue that. The market for smartphones in 2002 was less than a million units worldwide and only around 3 million in 2003.

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS9612657919.html - "Shipments for the entire year of 2003 grew 23.3% from 432.7 million devices shipped worldwide in 2002, to 533.4 million handsets in 2003."

It's hard to find any hard data but this Google cache puts Microsoft's share at over 25% of the combined smartphone + PDA market in 2003. It's hard to say exactly how many of those units were connected devices but it's obvious that Microsoft's market share of the smartphone market was at least 10%.

No way MS had 10% of a 500,000,000 unit market in 2003.

[Ed Hansberry]

Woops. Nevermind. It was about $3.7M units. STill, I am not sure MS would have had 10% of that at the time. WM2003 didn't ship until June and the Phone Edition didn't get out until Aug/Sept - remember back then it wasn't a single unified platform and the phone bits took 2-4 extra months to get in place after the PDA's shipped. Treo was king of the converged devices in the PDA world at the time and RIM was way ahead as well as they already had email devices well established and just bolted on voice that year.

[soho_1]

	2003				2004				2005				2006				2007				2008
Microsoft	11%	10%	10%	12%	11%	8%	7%	10%	8%	7%	7%	9%	7%	11%	11%	11%	12%	11%	12%	12%	14%
Others	2%	2%	5%	4%	1%	2%	2%	1%	1%	1%	1%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Linux	0%	0%	0%	0%	5%	2%	1%	1%	1%	3%	5%	4%	4%	6%	7%	7%	5%	3%	4%	5%	6%
Apple	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	1%	4%	7%	5%
Symbian	71%	77%	70%	72%	66%	68%	71%	73%	76%	75%	73%	73%	76%	72%	72%	71%	71%	72%	68%	65%	59%
RIM	6%	6%	8%	6%	10%	14%	12%	10%	9%	9%	9%	8%	9%	7%	7%	9%	10%	11%	11%	11%	14%
Access	10%	6%	7%	6%	7%	6%	7%	5%	5%	5%	6%	4%	4%	3%	2%	2%	2%	2%	1%	1%	3%

[Ed Hansberry]

Thanks soho. Do you have the source for that?

[Stinger]

Looks like Canalys's numbers but I couldn't provide you with a link. Good work on finding them, soho_1.