Rejuvenating Pocket PCs / Windows Mobile devices August 10, 2009
Posted by Vasudevan in My thoughts.Tags: idea, Mobile platform, new, Pocket PC, Rejuvenating, windows mobile
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The recent success of iPhone, Palm Pre, Android, etc along with the 3 year old BlackBerry phenomenon outplayed Pocket PCs / Windows mobile phones sadly. Partial reason for this could be that all these phones are designed by keeping a very clearly defined target users as opposed to Microsoft’s effort to repeat the Windows for Desktop phenomenon for Mobile phones by keeping the platform to suite all. May be this was an ideal startegy 3 years back, but no longer the same.
What can make Microsoft to win back their lost ground?
According to me, there are two key reasons for Microsoft’s failure.
- Windows mobile’s UI sucks!
- Lack of freshness
Even if they address both by introducing a new, path breaking UI and bring in freshness to the device, it may not help. It will just be “another” cool mobile OS and continue to lag behind the new comers.
It may sound wierd, but still, I recommend Microsoft to open up their UI layer to the developer world and create chaos. Many device brands like LG, Samsung, HTC, etc are have great hardware, but their UI sucks as it runs on Windows Mobile. By opening the UI layer, they can leverage on it and come out with innovative UIs which can make eack Windows Mobile device unique. Consumers will then have additional choices, rather than getting succumbed to Apples and Palms. This could be a revolution in the mobile space and let the consumers decide which device to go for, no matter which Mobile OS is powering their device. In any case, Microsoft would be benefiting as these devices are powered by their platform. Is n’t that Microsoft wants any day?
What do you think? Shower your thoughts!
My space 
See the following videos:
http://vimeo.com/3240086
This is the answer to your post.
This is the obvious response from Microsoft. But I think, rejuvenating the UI by Microsoft itself won’t take it anywhere. This is when MS should extend its previous strategy of opening up its platform for third party developers to come up with their own apps. This helped MS to rule the market along with Palm for a decade. But now things have changed and the next wave could be when MS retains its OS platform and open up the window manager to third party developers. We can see wonders by them coming out with amazing set of UIs for windows mobile devices and hence regaining the lost plot!