Magneto and the Menagerie of Mobile Operating Systems

[Jonathon Watkins]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/09/market_gears_for_magneto/' target='_blank'>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/0...rs_for_magneto/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"We have already seen Microsoft, with its recent integration alliances with Symbian and BlackBerry maker RIM, shifting towards trying to dominate the middleware platform rather than, necessarily, the client operating system. This recognizes a trend already fully appreciated by Symbian's main supporter, Nokia, with its heavy focus on positioning its higher level software, . . . as a standard platform for enterprise and consumer devices. Three years ago SymbianOS and Windows Mobile – with PalmOS and Linux on the sidelines – were lined up for a head-to-head war. Now that war is increasingly irrelevant, and the battle has become one focused on a broader software platform that is largely neutral to the client device"</i><br /><br />This thoughtful Register article looks at how the mobile market is gearing up for the launch of Magneto and how the battle may shape up in the future. Bill Gates said that the phone is largely becoming a software device, which obviously plays to Microsoft's traditional strengths. He also mentions a few interesting snippets about about the future development of Microsoft Mobile platforms, involving automation, OCR and speech &amp; visual recognition. One thing is sure, there's a lot of good stuff in the pipeline. So, how do you guys fancy a 'ubiquitous device' that apparently will automatically do most of what you want it to?

[Pony99CA]

"Three years ago SymbianOS and Windows Mobile – with PalmOS and Linux on the sidelines – were lined up for a head-to-head war. Now that war is increasingly irrelevant, and the battle has become one focused on a broader software platform that is largely neutral to the client device"
I don't even know what that quotation from the article means. Is it trying to say that an operating systems should run on lots of devices and not be tailored to a specific one?

He also mentions a few interesting snippets about about the future development of Microsoft Mobile platforms, involving automation, OCR and speech &amp; visual recognition. One thing is sure, there's a lot of good stuff in the pipeline. So, how do you guys fancy a 'ubiquitous device' that apparently will automatically do most of what you want it to?
I love that blue sky future. They think the device will automatically do what I want? Right now on Windows Mobile, I can't even snooze a reminder for 4 hours. What a joke. If I recall correctly, Windows CE on my Handheld PC had more snooze options and let me specify an arbitrary value if I didn't like the defaults.

Why doesn't Microsoft put user-specified snooze times back in before worrying about trying to bring up a map if I take a picture of an address? Why doesn't Microsoft figure out that we users want a task manager and a way to actually exit programs? Why doesn't Microsoft figure out that we want a way to set time zones for appointments without having to actually change our clock settings?

Or did Microsoft fix these in WM 5.0 and I just missed them?

Steve

[Jonathon Watkins]

I love that blue sky future. They think the device will automatically do what I want?

I was of course being ironic. :) I tend to turn off a lot of 'automatic' settings as they don't do what I want them to. Bring in the telepathic interface. :wink: On the other hand, a few of the possible innovations do sound promising. It all depends how they are implemented of course.

Why doesn't Microsoft put user-specified snooze times back in before worrying about trying to bring up a map if I take a picture of an address?

I know what you mean about the snoozing etc. :? Maybe some of these issues have been addressed with WM5. Time will tell. You can't expect the folks with devices to answer all posible questions this week. We can wait till next week at least! :wink: