Microsoft Smart Guy Takes on Smart-Phone Business

[Jerry Raia]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Microsoft+smart+guy+takes+on+smart-phone+business/2100-1041_3-5682572.html' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Microsoft+smart+guy+takes+on+smart-phone+business/2100-1041_3-5682572.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"With Windows-powered mobile devices lagging behind the Palms and BlackBerrys of the world, Microsoft has brought an electrical engineer from China--a master of the strategy game Go--to put them back in the race. He is Ya-Qin Zhang (pronounced yah-CHEEN jong), 39, an experienced computer systems researcher who helped start Microsoft's Beijing research laboratory in 1999. He was tapped in January 2004 to come to Redmond, where Microsoft is based, to lead the turnaround of the Windows Mobile software business, which has hemorrhaged money for years."</i><br /><br />If you like reading about what goes on inside Microsoft you might find this interesting. The problem for Microsoft as I see it here is they can't do what they normally do to advance, buy up all the competition! 8)

[MS Mobiles]

If you like reading about what goes on inside Microsoft you might find this interesting. The problem for Microsoft as I see it here is they can't do what they normally do to advance, buy up all the competition! 8)

Very good observation!
Microsoft should simply listen to needs of users: no MP3 files as ringtones ? No time activated profiles ? No software for video telephony now that operators need 3G phones ? Yeah, this time Microsoft must deliver on promise instead of buying out.

[Santa Fe]

Ya-Qin Zhang will have his hands full. Just dealing with the all the various interests outside of Microsoft will be difficult. Then making the general public aware of the product and how it can be used is harder yet. I know I had to almost force Verizon to sell me an early Smartphone. And it took months to find useful software to actually make the phone smart. After buying and discarding a score of PPC's and laptops I really am able to operate with just the phone for 80-90% of my needs.

As an early advocate of "one jeans pocket, one device" I'm pulling for him.