Jason Dunn
03-23-2004, 11:31 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&ncid=738&e=10&u=/ap/20040322/ap_on_hi_te/smart_phone_software' target='_blank'>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&ncid=738&e=10&u=/ap/20040322/ap_on_hi_te/smart_phone_software</a><br /><br /></div>"Everyone will want their cell phones to do a lot more computer stuff. People will shop for these smart phones with a careful eye toward the operating system, e-mail handler and Web browser, how many other programs are available for that platform and how well they all interact with a regular computer. It should be no surprise, then, that a famous software company which already gets paid more than $40 for nearly every PC sold in the world is trying to extend its business model to the cell phone market, confident the familiar look of Windows will be a welcome sight on the small screen. And where Microsoft is involved, of course, there are sure to be differing views, many of them revolving around familiar names such as Linux (news - web sites) and Palm."<br /><br />I read this and my first thought was "Well, duh!" - but it occurs to me that the market is just starting to figure out that software matters. A friend of mine broke his CDMA phone and when he got the new one he re-entered 150 contacts manually...can you imagine the agony? The look on his face was priceless when I said if he had a Smartphone he could have just put it in a sync cradle and had all his contacts within a few seconds.<br /><br />Microsoft has always asserted that software matters, so the next few years will be interesting to watch as they try to show the public that their software is better than what the other guys have. ;-)