T-Mobile Dumps MS SmartPhone

burgburgburg writes "It seems that T-Mobile International, Europe's second largest mobile phone operator, has decided against introducing a Microsoft SmartPhone after all. T-Mobile had announced their plans in February to introduce the MS SmartPhone this summer. Industry insiders say that the software for the phone continued to have 'fundamental problems,' leading to a high failure rate. French mobile carrier Orange introduced a MS SmartPhone, SPV, late last year. It initially had software security problems which Microsoft has claimed are patched."

Comments

Incorrect

[m00nun1t]

This is a more accurate story entitled "T-Mobile has NOT dumped MS Smartphone, just delayed it a bit".

Also, RCR says:

a T-Mobile spokesman said the carrier had never set a definite date, only that it would begin selling the phone sometime this summer. Spokesman Philipp Schindera said there are software problems with the phone, and that T-Mobile, manufacturer HTC and Microsoft are working to fix those problems. He said the phone has not been delayed, because there are still several months of summer left.

Re:Incorrect

[silvaran]

Just because the article is different doesn't make it correct and the news.com one incorrect. The article you linked to doesn't even link to the specific article from the WSJ it took the quote from. It just says, "Some quote from The Wall Street Journal." Here's a few excerpts from the news.com article:

"We have decided not to introduce this phone,'' a T-Mobile representative said on the sidelines of a Deutsche Telekom news conference. "For the time being, we are not pursuing this project further.'

OK, fair enough. Maybe they will later. Though they didn't confirm. And the only substantial comment in the msmobiles site (msmobiles? They couldn't be biased), is the following conjecture: Please note: "for the time being" does not mean "never".

So right now, they've dropped it. They haven't delayed it, they aren't waiting around for Microsoft or HTC to fix anything, but "For the time being, we are not pursuing this project." So the project is stopped. They might pick it up at a later date, but they aren't just "delaying" the project as the msmobiles excerpt seems to imply.

Re:it figures......

[Anonymous Coward]

....That a french cell phone would surrender so easily.

No, it doesn't figure. It's not a French phone at all. It's manufactured by a Taiwanese company for a German customer. And with which part of the phone is there a problem? The software developed by Microsoft, a U.S. company.

I got my Smartphone yesterday

[joeykiller]

Here where I live the Smartphone was officially introduced yesterday, and I've been using one for 24 hours now.

Say what you want about Microsoft, but this time I feel that their 1.0 product is very polished. I've not expirienced any instability, but perhaps I haven't used it enough yet.

Anyway, the user interface is much simpler, more to the point and more usable than competing Smartphone-ish operating systems, as the ones found on Ericsson P800 and Nokia 7650.

It's difficult to describe, really, but it's simpleness - with natural but (in this context) innovative functions as a home button and a back button on the keyboard - really makes it stand out. The browser "home" and "back" metaphor is uses throughout the OS.

I can't say I've often had this experience with a mobile phone (and I'm not sure that it's a good thing, money wise), but this made me _want_ to use it! *Much*. For mail (the Inbox is surprisingly good), for messaging (it has both SMS and MSN Messenger, as well as MMS), for contacts, for appointments, etc.

For years I've carried around both a Palm and a Nokia cell phone, but this is the first hybrid product that's a serious contender to the Palm.

The major gripe is Microsoft's ActiveSync software. I've never been able to make ActiveSync sync successfully with anything. It works the first few times, then it stops wanting to sync altogether. This happened with my HP Jornada 720, later happened with the original Compaq IPaq and now it happens with this phone.

It's a major let down. But the phone in itself is a joy to use.

Fundamental Problem with WinCE

[kevlar]

There is a fundamental problem in WinCE which causes 90% of all the issues people see with these devices. The problem is that WinCE has poor memory management. Theoretically the OS is supposed to manage all memory aspects from stopping running apps to free memory to dynamically loading and unloading DLL's. The most serious problem however is that it restricts the amount of memory available to a DLL to 16 MB. On devices like the HP 5450 and these T-Mobile Smart Phones, this becomes a problem because of the numerous integrated devices the OS has to support. The 5450 has WiFi, Bluetooth and Biometrics which fill up 12 of the 16MB of available memory. As a result, user applications like Adobe Acrobat do not have enough memory to load their linked libraries. The only solution is to jump through hoops managing the memory manually and to disable unused devices like Bluetooth or the Biometrics (which negates getting to the device to begin with!).

A solution to this problem is not due until WinCE .NET comes out which is due sometime this summer.

Its unfortunate that this problem exists. It has apparently been caused by these PocketPC devices growing in size too quickly for the OS. Talk about growing pains...