Is there a Y!Phone is Microhoo's future?
Jason Perlow has come up with a suggestion for Microhoo--a Windows Mobile-based "Y!Phone" mated with a Wi-Fi-enabled Zune and some combination of Yahoo and MSN online services. Of course, it would also include a camera, a 3G wireless service and, as a differentiator from the iPhone, an integrated slide-out keyboard and support for Microsoft applications.
(Credit: ZDNet)Jason posits that a Y!Phone priced at less than $300 with carrier incentives "could be the device that everyone truly wants." However, he also points out that a winning product would need more "sex appeal" than the current 3G Windows Mobile phones. Most importantly, the Windows Mobile interface needs to be completely revamped to take on the iPhone and whatever the Google/open-source Android sect develops.
It's a grand idea, but it's hard to see Microsoft or Yahoo or the combined companies pulling it off in the near term. All the mobile device companies are learning from the iPhone, and will eventually come up with similar functionality. But duplicating the fit and finish of a Steve Jobs device will take way more than combining a reinvented Windows Mobile-Silverlight software, a redefined Zune, and Yahoo and Microsoft services.
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I know one person who admits they own a Zune. And that one was a gift from a non-tech savvy parent.
So, Microsoft will stick with bad glue a lot of unresponsive and uncompatibles elements and it... "could be the device that everyone truly wants."
Sorry, Jason, I have a nicer taste for quality than you!
You saw the IDG report on Windows OS. It's too bloated to run on anything that's price competitive in the mobile space. Microsoft's effort is dead in the mobile space until they re-architecture the windows operating system to make the kernel smaller. Otherwise Microsoft's overhead in product mgmt and marketing to make the mobile OS and desktop OS 'appear' to be the same (in terms of being able to run similar microsoft apps) will be way too much of a waste for them. Sure. They can throw a ton of money at it. But there will be no 'passion' from the internal developers to push this out the door as the friction from the desktop team and the mobile team will take its toll.
Apple won here because MacOS X as well as the iphone OS is based on the MACH kernel from CMU long time ago. It's a very small kernel and light. Besides that, you have the Steve factor. He dictates UI at apple, where as at microsoft the UI is designed by a collection of human interface designers schooled in cognitive sciences and anthropology.
The dictator wins.
You saw the IDG report on Windows OS. It's too bloated to run on anything that's price competitive in the mobile space. Microsoft's effort is dead in the mobile space until they re-architecture the windows operating system to make the kernel smaller. Otherwise Microsoft's overhead in product mgmt and marketing to make the mobile OS and desktop OS 'appear' to be the same (in terms of being able to run similar microsoft apps) will be way too much of a waste for them. Sure. They can throw a ton of money at it. But there will be no 'passion' from the internal developers to push this out the door as the friction from the desktop team and the mobile team will take its toll.
Apple won here because MacOS X as well as the iphone OS is based on the MACH kernel from CMU long time ago. It's a very small kernel and light. Besides that, you have the Steve factor. He dictates UI at apple, where as at microsoft the UI is designed by a collection of human interface designers schooled in cognitive sciences and anthropology.
The dictator wins.