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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."
Uhh hello, I smell zealotry. The microsoft bashing has gone far enough people. seriously. What's with continually leaping on MS whenever something they're involved in doesn't quite take off? You don't know just WHY T-Mobile dumped the phone, you can only go on one or two lines from a press report. That's hardly going to give an accurate view of the story.
Any company investing in as many projects as Microsoft is bound to have the odd knockback, it's just real life.
"Windows, Pocket PC, Tablet PC, etc. All of these products didn't really do well until version 3 rolled around."
Huh.. except Windows, I wouldn't say anything else in that list has done well. Unless you meant doing well as "Educating prospects about better alternatives". IE, WMP etc haven't done MS any good - and they're already at versions 6 and 9.
It even appears that MS partners are now treating them like MS used to, not so long ago. Kinda suggests the Windows success has proved very costly for MS, actually.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Cell phones require far more resilience then organizers or pocket PCs. For example: Compare the Treo to the Nokia Communicator. While the second is designed as a cell phone with added functionality, the first is primarily an organizer with crammed in phone functionality. I know a number of happy Communicator users, while the number of happy Treo users I know of is precisely zero.
In addition embrace and extend is a philopsophy, which rightfully has zero credibility in the phone business. It's all about (meticulously respected) standards.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Zealotry? How about just the simple idea that a cellphone should be a cellphone? I don't need to play games on it. I don't need to it to check stock quotes. I don't need it to take pictures, or remind me of appointments. I need it to be able to receive and send calls, and store numbers that I regularly call. If it can do that, I don't care if it's from Microsoft or from Fred Flintstone.
The problem is, Microsoft seems to have this problem with keeping things simple. Well, for that matter, with regards to cellphones, they're hardly alone.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Not a bad business strategy at all. In fact, it's really good one.
Actually no. As a business strategy it sucks.
If any other business tried it they would go down faster than a drunk girl at prom.
Microsoft has always has the DOS/Windows OEM sales to keep them afloat when the first 2 revisions fail.
And since ms can keep tossing money away and their competitors can't, ms usually wins out of attrition.
Ms simply has deeper pockets than everyone else because of DOS/Win OEM sales.
Reboot a Psion 5? What are you talking about? I've never had to reboot a Psion 5. The only problem with these things is hardwarefailure due to user error, ie dropping it on a concrete floor.
Epoc is the most stable OS I've ever used. And as an organizer a Psion has one of the best usable aganda/database/spreadsheet applications, compared to other organizers (Palm/pocketpc).
Of course, people develop bad software with Linux as well. The difference is that Linux has no pretenses about it: software development is hard, GUI development is hard, and VisualFoobar doesn't make it much easier. If anything, VisualFoobar lets people who aren't sufficiently skilled do things they shouldn't be doing in the first place.
You are kidding right? I have a Sony Ericsson P800 which crashes every now and then. It seems more prominent when bluetooth is on. I have actually seen a call come in which caused it to crash before actually ringing. When it does crash you have to hold the power button down for 10 seconds and then power up. Nice phone but the crashing is darn annoying.
And with regards to WMP, I think one of the other replies says it all. Its a platform which is available on 95% of the world's desktops (give or take a few of us Mac & Linux users) and I'm sure their masterplan is to liase with the recording industry and create a secure computing platform (not my words) for the playback of music.
Tim
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
I work in the embedded market and it is the standard.
Our partner-company was a 100% Microsoft-shop and Linux is forbidden in the corporate LAN - yet they still chose Linux as their platform for *ALL* their new devices.
What about VXworks? PalmOS? QNX? Are these people quaking in their boots?
Yes they are. You can get big discounts from everybody.
What about all the special purpose real time OSes that many companies use.
Used in many existing devices, but for most new developments, a real OS is chosen for shorter development time. (the hardware is fast enough already)
Linux isn't the standard in the embedded market any more than it is the standard on the desktop.
Laughable. According to this study: here Linux (+ BSD) was running on 11% of existing systems in 2001, but was used for 50% of new projects.
I can only confirm these developments, Linux is already the de-facto standard on embedded systems.
What idiot modded this guy up?
Check his user info. He only has 3 comments, ever. All of them in this thread about how great the MS smart phone is and how "Smartphone is a brilliant OS."
Sounds like a rabid MS fanboy or an astroturfer to me.
Here is a link to some user reviews of this phone. In particular, note the user reviews which describe these updates which he claimed just increase efficiency, are actually necessary to keep the phone from crashing all the time.
This is my favorite quote from his postings:
"There was never any problems with the OS, only the Orange side of it. The firmware upgrade has improved performance and batterylife and its now a very good phone/pda."
Funny, it seems everyone else's smartphone crashes but his. Maybe he got a magic phone.
Life is too short to proofread.
IMHO Bill G is not successful because he is a visionary in the computing field.
Bill Gates is successful because he is a good businessman. I once got curious and did a little research on the worlds richest people. Know what all of those who made their own money seem to have in common? Insane business sense/craftiness. The ability to work deals that just make others shake their heads. He knows how to work the system for all it's worth.
Bill Gates has always bet on Moore's Law, and has always won.
MS has never really worried about beating competitors spec-wise, not because of Moore's Law, but because they beat them other (often illegal) ways. If doesn't matter if the other guy's software is better, if you control the OS that everyone uses. All you have to do is develop/buy your own and bundle it with your OS. Instant market share. You make money because you just charge more for the OS to recover the cost, while the other company dies. Why is anyone going to buy a competitor's product (for additional cost), when the already have the MS equivalent?
Now, back on topic: MS can't use this tactic to get WinCE on cellphones. This means they have to compete on a (somewhat) level playing-field. Since their software is currently inferior to Symbian OS for smartphone use, I predict they will loose. By the time WinCE is stable enough, it will be too late, another OS will have already become the standard.
The only way I can see MS really making it in the embedded OS field is if they take huge losses, basically giving their stuff away, until they get market share. They definately have the money to do this, but even so, they may not get anywhere. Even if they charge $0, they still have to compete with embedded Linux at the same price point. With Linux, companies know that they will always be able to redistribute it royalty-free. They also know that, at some point, MS is going to want to make back the money the spent developing WinCE, so they will get charged for it eventually.
Meanwhile:
Symbian is owned by Ericsson, Panasonic, Motorola, Nokia, Psion, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.
That's basically all the major cellphone manufacturers. Since they all own the OS, they know they're getting their OS just about as cheap as possible anyways, as well as knowing that they have control over it in the future.
Since their cellphones are already the standard, one can be pretty sure that whatever OS they choose to put on them will also become the standard. Just like MS choosing IE.
Life is too short to proofread.
27% is not 50%. But even so, 50% does not imply a standard, it just means it's the most popular. When 90% of embedded projects use linux, you'll have a case to make.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
And where is IE today?
Lets have a look....
IE & cookies = Yes or No.
Any Other Browser & cookies = What Ever The Fuck You Want.
IE & pop-ups = Find and install a pop-up stopper.
AOB & pop-ups = WETFYW
IE & tabbed browsing = What are tabs?
AOB & tabbed browsing = WETFYW
Slackware - because apt is for the lazy.
IE, WMP etc haven't done MS any good - and they're already at versions 6 and 9.
;)
Internet Explorer hasn't done MS any good? Huh?
The entire purpose of Internet Explorer was to put Netscape out of business, and it did essentially that. Netscape made the mistake of touting its Communicator product, combined with its Web server software and Java and JavaScript technologies as an applications platform, rendering the underlying OS as being largely irrelevant. Microsoft responded with Internet Explorer and began the whole 'embrace and extend' strategy towards Internet standards and the rest is history.
As for Windows Media Player -- I'm not even sure what Microsoft's goals were for that.
My journal has hot
I don't know where all the "MS will win automatically" people crawl from, if you look at their track record, they have lots and lots of unsuccessful projects.
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Probably from under some rock in Seattle. All of this Guys comments fall into these 4 easy categories
1) "...Yep, MS-product XYZ may be crap but, watch out for version 3
2) "...Yes, MS-product XYZ does support PQR, I have it on a shelf in front of me
3) "...I have a 'NON-MS-Product' and the a' MS-Product XYZ is better
4) "... Download this MS-Software product patch from 'Some MS-Web Site' ".
If you dont believe me check it out, here if it wasnt so obvious astroturfing it would be truely sad.
It took them at least 5 major release to get DOS right finally with v5.5.
It took them at least 6/7 major versions to get C(C++) right.
Its taken then 9 or 10 versions to get windows right with XP (v1,v2,v2.2,v3,v3.11,NT,95,NT3.5,98,NT3.5,ME) and finally XP.
It took them 5 major versions to get IE right and they throw it away with version 6.
And these where their core products.
Something they've never got *right*, Office (Outlook,Word,Access), IIS, Frontpage Outlook/Exchange, J++.
In some cases they took-over a right product and still got it wrong, i.e. FoxPro.
As for Windows Media Player -- I'm not even sure what Microsoft's goals were for that. ;)
WMP is a multi-pronged strategy. First, it helps cut off the Apple publishing/video editing platform leakage. Secondly it cuts off the air supply to other video format vendors/producers (such as Real Networks) by making those external products surplus to requirements for the average user. The Window Media formats hold the potential to control the encodings and base formats of a large amount of digital video in the future and thereby increase vendor lockin.
Funnily enough, this is a very similar strategy to the IE vs Netscape strategy. Establish a base in the core product that displaces external vendors and acheive market share as a result. Expect the same sort of maneouvre with SQL Server 2000 (or at least parts of the core engine) - it's already been seen in several places (MS VS.Net, MS Visio).
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
The saddest thing happened when I read this. I realized that I was assuming this was astro turfing. It didn't even occur to me that it could be a real account of somebody enjoying using something. My trust in people has dropped yet another notch. Marketing wins yet another round.
Pooey.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.