Ballmer Admits "We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"

Barence writes "Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer has blasted the company's own mobile operating system at the firm's Venture Capital Summit. One tweet from an attendee claims Ballmer said the company had 'screwed up with Windows Mobile. Wishes they had already launched WM7. They completely revamped the team.' Another claims Ballmer said 'we've pumped in some new talent. This will not happen again.' It's not the first time Ballmer has attacked Windows Mobile, having publicly stated that version 6.5 was 'not the full release we wanted.'"

Comments

Title

[sopssa]

Nice way to twist the title and forget "with" too. They didn't screw up whole Windows Mobile like you could think, but they wanted to launch WM7 already.

I actually like Windows Mobile most from the mobile platforms (however, I haven't tried Android yet). It's *a lot* more open than iPhone, as in you can run any software on it that you want. Also it seems to be customizable quite much, since HTC's version is a lot different from others. And there's a lot programs available.

And dont even get me started on Symbian and the insanity to program something for it...

Re:Title

[johanatan]

HTC's version uses some black magic. Most of the other customized versions involve partnerships with Microsoft. In general, it's [i.e., the 'Today' screen] not very customizable without hacking.

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[richie2000]

They didn't screw up whole Windows Mobile like you could think

I have a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone and... Well, yes they did. Totally. I have heard that the vendors that took the time, cost and effort to customize WM6.5 have produced fairly usable products. The HP iPaq 914c Business, not so much. Not at all, frankly. But I will give them this; they have ported the unique Windows experience to the small screen - I have to reboot the phone about once a week to prevent it from locking up when answering or placing calls. This functionality was obviously a low priority. I have to go into the task manager daily to remove programs, or else they fill up the memory, even preventing the task manager from running, another condition forcing a reboot.

Executive summary/mini-review of the HP iPaq 914c: Nice hardware, lousy camera, shitty OS.

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[ranga_the_don]

"We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"

Wonderful confession, there we go! Mr Ballmer, Can we have it for other M$ products too?

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[plague3106]

Hmm... its interesting, because you start off saying that OEMs that took th etime to customize have decent products, but then you blame Windows mobile for the problem you're having with your particular phone. Did you consider perhaps that HP dropped the ball and they screwed up your phone?

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[Yvan256]

Oh, oh! I can do that too!

Ballmer Admits "Windows is Screwed Up".

Re:Title

[manekineko2]

Unless you're an internal tester, you do not have a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't even out yet. The first phones with it are slated to ship in late October.

There are people out there with hacked ROMs running leaked builds of 6.5, but you can hardly judge the final OS based on hacked ROMs running leaked builds.

That said, yes, WinMo 6 is totally crappy. Based on my playing around with the leaked builds, WinMo 6.5 is still rather crappy. WinMo 6.5.1 is getting decent, and its UI doesn't look like it was from 2001, but it still has those general WinMo unexplained slowdowns and could use a lot of improvements.

Overall, Windows Mobile is clearly suffering from that Microsoft problem that once they think they are in charge of a market, all innovation completely stops. It's so total of a stop, it really looks intentional, but it's a little hard to believe even Microsoft execs could be so short-sighted as to purposefully derail development. Still, Internet Explorer and Windows Mobile sure look like two examples of that.

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[gilesjuk]

Ballmer laughed off the iPhone when it came out. An appstore and a billion plus downloads later and who is laughing?

Microsoft can't even launch an mp3 player that is good, they haven't even bothered launching it in the UK and much of Europe.

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[richie2000]

Unless you're an internal tester, you do not have a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone.

Oops, you are correct. I have 6.1.

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[richie2000]

Hmm... its interesting, because you start off saying that OEMs that took th etime to customize have decent products, but then you blame Windows mobile for the problem you're having with your particular phone. Did you consider perhaps that HP dropped the ball and they screwed up your phone?

The WM version that's on my particular iPaq model is more or less untouched by HP, they just added a few themes and gave up. I'd say it's more like Microsoft screwed up Windows Mobile (BTW, I just checked and I have 6.1, not 6.5) and the OEMs that took the time to fix all of Microsoft's mistakes are to be commended. I can't say that HP dropped the ball, but it is quite obvious they didn't pick it up either.

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[Triela]

sopssa admits, "They screw up whole Windows Mobile"

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[Anonymous Coward]

What? The Windows Mobile interface is *awful*. It has half as much usability as BlackBerry and 10% that of the iPhone. It also allows you to do things like having applications in a "half-deleted" state pretty easily.

Also, you are allowed to run your OWN software on your iPhone, as long as you pull in your device ID from iTunes. However, I'd agree that Apple's software signing model is completely stupid compared to RIM's or Microsoft's.

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[Jurily]

Overall, Windows Mobile is clearly suffering from that Microsoft problem that once they think they are in charge of a market, all innovation completely stops.

I'm going to get modded to hell and back for this, but Microsoft never really did "innovation". What they did was "buy up competitors who innovate, and integrate the result poorly".

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[Cornelius the Great]

Unless you're an internal tester, you do not have a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't even out yet. The first phones with it are slated to ship in late October.

There are people out there with hacked ROMs running leaked builds of 6.5, but you can hardly judge the final OS based on hacked ROMs running leaked builds...WinMo 6.5 is still rather crappy. WinMo 6.5.1 is getting decent, and its UI doesn't look like it was from 2001...

I'm puzzled by this self-contradictory post.

The leaked 6.5 roms are the same builds that testers are currently using, so provided which build is going to be the official WM6.5, it's fair to assume that the official one is already leaked, and you may or may not have tried it already.

The WM 6.5 builds showing up in hacked roms now are actually based on later revisions than what will come out next month. Builds 23052 and higher show off a new interface which gives a fair indication of what WinMo will look/feel like as it evolves into WM7. The "stable" WM6.5 to be released next month will likely be based on one of the 22xxx builds.

Most of the 22xxx-based WM6.5 roms I've used are much more stable IMO than the stock WM6.1 build that came on my phone.

But I understand Ballmer's frustration. WM6.5 is simply to appease manufacturers who are releasing WM-based devices that cannot wait for WM7.

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[toadlife]

My experience is that the phone vendor can really make windows mobile look bad. My first windows mobile phone was a t-mobile wing. The wing had a 200mhz OMAP processor and only 64MB of RAM. With the default T-mobile wing ROM (which was window mobile 6.0) you would have only 12MB of RAM free after booting up. With the default software the phone would constantly freeze and run out of RAM almost immediately. Then I found Xda-developers.com and learned how to make my own ROM. I made my own ROM for the wing. The difference was night and day. With the custom ROMs I built I had between 18-25MB of free RAM instead of 12MB and the phone went from requiring a reset every day to almost *never* needing one. My ROM had very few fixes for Windows mobile. It just lacked all of the useless crap that T-Mobile packed into their ROM.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I just logged out to use the slashcode bug to preserve my moderation, to say to you that, yes, I do mod people down who starts their posts with "I'm going to be modded down for this." Because it is a cheesy attempt to get free insightful moderation. "Oh look at me! I'm saying something controversial and evil fanboy mods will eat me!" Que accusations of ms fanboyism and evil censorship.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft can't even launch an mp3 player that is good, they haven't even bothered launching it in the UK and much of Europe.

Wait what?

The Zune HD is good. And, you yourself seem to admit that with the second half of the sentence. So, I'm having serious trouble parsing what the hell you were trying to say.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft can't even launch an mp3 player that is good

They don't have to. GS Player > iTunes. And is GPL'ed to boot.

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[jim_v2000]

Not just the HD...the original Zune 30 (still sporting mine that I bought off Woot.com) is a GREAT mp3 player.

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[Jurily]

I only said that so you have a chance at modding my post on its own merits, and not based on your perception of my motives. I fully expect that post to fluctuate between -1, Flamebait and +3, Insightful, and I'm fine with either. I have enough karma to speak my mind on occasion :)

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[elfprince13]

Didn't those all die, at the same instant due to a software bug?

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[wastedlife]

So after cleaning it up, it was still using at least 39 MB of RAM after initial bootup? That seems high to me for a phone OS. According to specs, the minimum required for Android is 32 MB of RAM, I would take that to mean it runs and can have at least 1 app within those constraints. Although, it could be that WinMo does not have a pagefile, while Android allows for swap space. Anyone phone devs out there with some insights?

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[Z00L00K]

One of the more screwed up parts is that the Bluetooth stack seems to be severely lobotomized. Hey - I thought this was a mobile device!

And documentation to write drivers for Windows Mobile seems to be something thrown together by a gang with severe personality disorder. And I *NEED* to write a driver to interface a Wiimote with Windows Mobile. (And it's not even for a hobby application I'm doing it)

Any hints/tips/code etc. aside from Microsoft's that can help me would be a blessing.

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[Anonymous Coward]

As long as apple stick with shiny mobile jukeboxes and stay away from computers then most people who know anything about anything will be all the happier.

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[93 Escort Wagon]

Didn't those all die, at the same instant due to a software bug?

No, they worked perfectly - 365/366 of the time...

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[Achromatic1978]

And? Yes. It was an embarrassing, but easily fixed bug. Should it have been spotted? Of course. But explain to the simpletons among us why that makes it such a horrific product. Bonus points if you can then point to other similar products that have never had a bug that causes a spontaneous reboot.

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[rplst8]

Ballmer laughed off the iPhone when it came out. An appstore and a billion plus downloads later and who is laughing?

Microsoft can't even launch an mp3 player that is good, they haven't even bothered launching it in the UK and much of Europe.

I think Balmer hit the nail on the head in his latest interview with Engadget, devices like the iPhone (by itself) are a niche market. The smartphone market as a whole is a big market. Microsoft is shooting for the long haul big market with their efforts. One reason he says you'll never see a Microsoft branded phone. iPhone = Niche, just like all Apple prodcuts. Oh, and how many of those 1 billion downloads were free apps? Hmmmmmmmm? Oh and BTW, Microsoft's big competition (and Apple's) in Europe is Symbian, no secret there.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The Zune HD is good.

No, it's not. Period.

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[toadlife]

WinMo reserves RAM for a "page pool", which I'm assuming is virtual memory. One of the problems with T-Mobile's original ROM is that they set the page pool size to a ridiculously large size (20MB I think), which sucked up way too much RAM. I do know that Windows mobile does *not* support the use disk to swap out RAM, so all virtual memory has to be in RAM.

Given what I know, I do think that Windows mobile's management of virtual memory blows. It would seem to me that a modern phone OS should be smart enough to manage virtual memory on it's own.

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[thetoadwarrior]

It's more open than the iPhone but then what isn't? Windows Mobile was awful when I tried. The phone too often lost it's signal and permanently until the system was rebooted, it's touch screen calibration would work for months and then all of the sudden it go for weeks or longer where it lost it's calibration every time it went into sleep mode. It had real issues displaying simple jpegs properly for a background image, with most showing up looking faded. The desktop buttons and start menu, like calibration would be perfect, and then all of the sudden display funny or not work right.

I could understand if I put a bunch of 3rd party software on the system but I didn't install anything. TBH, it had everything I needed. It was just frustratingly buggy.

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[Runaway1956]

Ballmer Admits "We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"

I knew that it wouldn't take long before some fanboy or astroturfer set us all right. I read TFA, and Ballmer isn't happy with either 6.5 or 7 - so, what more is there? Apparently there was a version 6 and a 6.1, are there more? Ahhh, there was a verion 5. I guess that one wasn't screwed up?

"Bloggers attending Microsoft's Venture Capital Summit reported today that Ballmer said Microsoft "screwed up with Windows Mobile" and changed the Windows Mobile team recently to try to recoup losses."

For once, I have to agree with Ballmer. If he says Windows Mobile is screwed up, I have to believe that Microsoft has screwed that damned pooch!!

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[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to get modded to hell and back for this

Yeah, bashing Microsoft on slashdot? You're really playing with fire!

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[mvdwege]

Microsoft's big competition (and Apple's) in Europe is Symbian, no secret there.

Make that the rest of the world, not just Europe. Nokia and Sony-Eriksson are the big players in EMEA, with the Korean vendors like Samsung and LG doing brisk business in SE-Asia. Windows Mobile is struggling everywhere but in the U.S. Heck, even their flagship OEM (HTC) is now shipping Android phones.

Mart

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[obarthelemy]

Lucky bastard. Mine locks up once a day, and that's with 2 third-party apps: an e-reader and a media player. It locks up even when I don't run those 2 apps between lock-ups, so I'm fairly sure they've got nothing to do with it.

Also, I just love having the Windows Experience on a tiny screen, with no real keyboard nor mouse, but lots of windows to scroll, tiny red Xs to click... It makes me appreciate how easy Windows is on a real PC !

The worst of it is: I blame Palm. If those suckers hadn't screwed up so badly towards the end, we might be able to get Palm V's usability in a phone ! As it is, i'm switching back to a dumb phone + Palm TX combo. Best of both worlds.

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[AlXtreme]

Well, your comment was like preaching to the choir. It's not like Microsoft has a good image here, and people will mod you down for saying something negative about them "innovating" :)

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[PitaBred]

Que? Spanish for what? Did you misspell "queue", which is the wrong word anyway? You really wanted it's homophone, "cue".

Literacy: It's not just for novelists any more!

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[thetoadwarrior]

Yeah so good that it's not sold worldwide due to its resounding success where it is sold and that date bug in the non-HD version was awesome.

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[im_thatoneguy]

What do you mean? The ZuneHD is amazing. And with a ZunePass the experience is incomparable.

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[nwf]

My wife had a Palm Treo with Windows Mobile. It was the worst, most pathetic attempt at an OS I've ever seen.

It locked up constantly, got to where you could not actually make calls, ran out of memory, etc. Settings scattered through like 17 different sub-panels, combined with a ton of completely useless settings. Doing anything required far too many clicks. Bluetooth? Forget about reliability. It would just refused to connect to the headset after a while until one power cycled it. Email was painfully slow, particularly when you had attachments or images. And the need to manually delete stuff when it ran out of memory was just crazy. And audio would sometimes just stop working. No ringing, no voice, nothing.

But my favorite was how it handled text messages. Every now and then, she'd need to delete a bunch of them because it ran out of memory (a user should never have to worry about this, IMHO.) Deleting all of the messages took at least half an hour. No exaggeration. I've never seen anything that lame. It's like they were deleting the first, moving all the others down in memory, rewriting them to flash, then repeating.

Even trying to turn the thing of was nearly impossible to figure out. To reboot, it was faster to just pop out battery.

She returned one and got another, no better. She then got an iPhone and loves it.

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[MrCrassic]

I disagree somewhat.

I don't think that Windows Mobile was a screwed up product. I think that its latest competition is starting to reveal just how outdated the platform is.

Ever since I can remember (user since Smartphone 2002 with the MPx200), WinMo devices were designed to be the jack-of-all-trades. You could check your email on them, play music and videos, surf the web and run most of the apps like being on a PC. Unfortunately, this usually means they inherently become the master-of-none, as their background processes would often cause lock-ups, memory leaks and other baddies and had horribly high power consumption, especially when compared to the RIM and Palm devices.

Today, iPhone can do those same tasks faster, easier and much more elegantly than WinMo could ever dream of doing. Blackberries are still the swiss-knife of corporate and personal email collaboration, but are now able to do media fairly well (though they still suck horrendously for internet browsing). Even Palm, which is on life support, can compete with WebOS. Then there's Android which basically claims ALL advantages Windows Mobile use to have, but in a much more elegant fashion...

On top of all of this, the fact that service providers always had to customize Windows Mobile to extremes (i.e. HTC TouchFLO3D, Palm's customizations, etc.) makes jumping to Android and, for Palm, WebOS that much more attractive. On its face, Windows Mobile 6.1 is a BEAR to use, especially when compared against other devices. (Ever try using that TINY TINY keyboard with your fingers? Sure, the stylus can do it...but who wants to use a stylus anymore?) Windows Mobile 6.5 is getting there, but still has a lot of work to do. (Moving the bar to the bottom is a great step ahead.) Why wouldn't anyone want to save time and money? (As an aside, HTC didn't really need to provide SenseUI for Android, as Android is pretty decent from a usability standpoint as-is, but I guess having TouchFLO3D there made it easier to port.)

Either way, Microsoft was never really known for innovation, and because of this, I highly doubt that even Mobile 7 can really save their mobile division at this point. It's a has-been.

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[elfprince13]

iirc the story correctly, it wasn't a "spontaneous reboot," it was a "crap, I can't use my Zune" sort of issue.

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[keefus_a]

Let's be fair. They work perfectly 1460/1461 of the time, since that was just 1 out of 4 years.

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[Com2Kid]

I believe that the Driver Development Kit (DDK) comes with Platform Builder for Windows Mobile which isn't available for distribution. You can download the 120 day evaluation version of PB for WinCE5.0 (which Windows Mobile is based off of), I believe it comes with a DDK and there is a ton of shared features and source between WinCE5 and WinMo5.x to 6.5.

I am guessing that since it is not possible to plug 3rd party HW into WM devices, that no need was seen to release a public DDK.

It looks like there is a Bluetooth HID driver available from TekSoft, but MSDN says at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa455763.aspx that WM supports HID mice and keyboards and other input devices so YMMV.

Also check to see which Bluetooth stack your device is using, both Widcomm's and Microsoft's Bluetooth stack can be found on retail devices. Also note that some device manufacturers disable portions of the Bluetooth stack, so some devices may not support all features of Bluetooth that the stack is capable of.

Re:Title

[cawpin]

Microsoft can't even launch an mp3 player that is good, they haven't even bothered launching it in the UK and much of Europe.

Well, you haven't been paying much attention have you? The Zune is a GREAT MP3 player. The iPod wasn't perfect when it was first introduced either. The Zune HD looks amazing and will hopefully have an App store.

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[Nethead]

My Sony Walkman cassette player?

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[cyber-vandal]

But Microsoft are nowhere near in charge of this market unless I'm completely missing something.

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[Anonymous Coward]

My experience is that the phone vendor can really make windows mobile look bad.

My experience is that some cat owners really make cat droppings look bad.
Consumers will go on and on about the bad smell and taste.

All it takes is a little TLC treatment. Keep those droppings in small chunks, make sure they're dried well, then coast with several layers of colorful frosting. Pick someplace hot and dry for doing this in quantity, as in The Mojave Project.

Spend a bunch of money on advertising so that people go for that sweet eye candy and new look. (keep users from experiencing the under the hood aspects of the product - discourage chewing!)

If developers follow the steps above, you'll be amazed what people can accept and swallow whole!

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[Dun Malg]

I have to reboot the phone about once a week to prevent it from locking up when answering or placing calls.

Yes, this. I jumped ship when this fun "feature" reappeared in 6.5, after having been absent since 6.0. I had to reboot my old WM5 Mio A701 twice a day because the module that handles the cell comms would freeze. Upgrades that are downgrades suck.

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[Dun Malg]

There are people out there with hacked ROMs running leaked builds of 6.5, but you can hardly judge the final OS based on hacked ROMs running leaked builds.

In my experience there are somethings you can judge from them. I cooked my own ROMs for years for WM, generally running the bleedingest-edge one I could find. No major shortcomings have ever been dealt with between early leak and public release. Always just serious bug fixes. 6.5 is bloated, as were 6.1 and 6.0. That's not going to get better after RTM.

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[manekineko2]

No, but they were in charge of this market between the time they killed Palm and when the iPhone came out. Now they are incredibly far behind, because they were sitting around twiddling their thumbs for years while there were no viable competitors.

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[Anonymous Coward]

agree with parent. I can even compile my code for WinMo under linux!
While I hate desktop Windows, I actually apreciate WinMo since Windows CE 1.0 (I still have my Cassiopeia A-11 and until recently, it worked flawlessly).
Symbian is anal, but still more sane than Cocoa

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[bigman2003]

You say Windows Mobile Bluetooth stack is lobotomized.

I've been playing full-stereo music on my bluetooth headphones for quite a while on my Windows phone- but they've just added that feature to iPhones. Previously you needed to use a dongle.

So the Bluetooth stack is lobotomized in comparison to what?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Mobile 6 is hell on the programmers who deal with configuring it on a cell phone in the first place.

I was correcting translations at Fujitsu when they released the F1100 for Docomo. It was a Windows 6 mobile device, and their biggest problem was completely incompetent Windows support. They simply could not get help from Microsoft, and had to leave out certain features that were absolutely necessary for the Japanese market. One of the people I worked with grumbled that Microsoft, as a "Gaishikei" (foreign) company, only attracted second-rate talent in Japan and as a result did not do proper requirements gathering. Every night when I left (often after 11 PM), the only programming team that was left at the office was the F1100 team.

Balmer: Fix the damn tech support for Windows Mobile in Japan.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's a little better than that at 1460/1461.

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[Anonymous Coward]

But I will give them this; they have ported the unique Windows experience to the small screen - I have to reboot the phone about once a week to prevent it from locking up when answering or placing calls. This functionality was obviously a low priority. I have to go into the task manager daily to remove programs, or else they fill up the memory, even preventing the task manager from running, another condition forcing a reboot.

Sounds just like my brand-new Nokia N97 with latest software. Although I have to reboot it daily...

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[Olipro]

HTC's "Manila" interface is a today item that overlays and essentially replaces the whole kaboodle - it also has its hooks in the gwes EXE (GUI) in order to modify the device's interface, the fancy 3D shit is a capability of the hardware. The way that's achieved is simple enough - get yourself a copy of Platform Builder, read the source... you can in fact download the CE version freely, which is (usually) close enough to WM that you can make something.

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[Olipro]

the leaked builds you refer to are coming out almost daily my friend, it's like a live action stream of ROMs, the majority of which are, for the most part, usable. The thing is, the ones that see the light of day to the average punter are all cooked ROMs of course, adulterated with additional shit and the cook's branding thrown in, I hate the bloody things, and I say that as the person jointly responsible for the patched SPL that allows you to flash them.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's killer is Android, handset makers love it.

Android is going to slaughter Windows Mobile, what idiot in their right mind thinks Office Excel Mobile is a killer mobile application (A 4 by 4 sheet ????) ? Pull your head from your arse please.

Windows Mobile hung itself a long long time ago.

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[johanatan]

Yea, I know how they do it. I was just saying that it isn't an officially sanctioned method. The official customizations of the Today screen are actually rather limited.

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[johanatan]

It's like an application overdrawing the entire desktop on Windows--not exactly banned but neither condoned. :-)

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[Ash Vince]

And the best thing about Windows Mobile is that it allows me to tether my phone to my Linux Laptop, then use the laptop as an internet gateway to a small LAN. I know this does not give the best speed in the world, but it does enable me to download updates to a machine that is in a remote location so has no fixed internet connection. I only use that machine for playing games when I am there so I do not want to pay a monthly fee for a phone line and net account for a flat I am only in once per month at most.

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[mehrotra.akash]

But my favorite was how it handled text messages. Every now and then, she'd need to delete a bunch of them because it ran out of memory (a user should never have to worry about this, IMHO.) Deleting all of the messages took at least half an hour. No exaggeration. I've never seen anything that lame. It's like they were deleting the first, moving all the others down in memory, rewriting them to flash, then repeating.

Even trying to turn the thing of was nearly impossible to figure out. To reboot, it was faster to just pop out battery.

She returned one and got another, no better. She then got an iPhone and loves it.

even my nokia 6600 has these 2 problems
dont most of the phones take 15-20 mins to delete 800+ messages??
though i never got a memory full error, the phone does slow down after 800+ messages so when i do sort through them and delete them, it takes abt 15 mins to do so.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing it with iShit doesn't make it good. Apple consumers aren't exactly the most fairly treated consumers on the planet. Apple holds the phone which you bought hostage so that you will always depend on them to do anything from providing software to repairing it. They artificially create a dependency, and all they need to do is to make the product shiny enough for it to sell. What goes for cost? Well, if you are bound to receive future revenue from all sold products you could, uhm I don't know, sell it for a cheaper price than the competition? You want to compare mobile platforms? Don't bullshit yourself and line up OpenMoko, Symbian, Maemo and as you said Android. Oh and Apple fanboys, mod me down more, that seems to be all you ever do when somebody legitimately criticizes your beloved bullshit factory.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... I'm going to buy my mp3 player from the one company that is clinging tooth and nail to DRM.

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[Dun Malg]

Ahhh, there was a verion 5. I guess that one wasn't screwed up?

No, WM5 was very screwed up. Microsoft was doing a commendable job unscrewing until 6.5, when it all started to fall apart.

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[manekineko2]

I'm curious, what's the source of this near constant leak of unreleased versions of WinMo? Is it straight from Microsoft in a quasi-official fashion, i.e. are they supporting the ROM customization scene?

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[rtb61]

It's called profit, once you achieve sufficient market dominance than corporate ideology demands that you monetise that market dominance ie. put up prices, reduce development (reduce costs), reduce customer support (test to see how far you can squeeze), leverage that dominance into other markets whether other products or marketing and basically do everything you can to increase profits in the short term, the long term is somebody else's problem.

So typical of M$'s failures in highly competitive markets, Ballmer is carrying on with the typical CEO song and dance to trying to convince that the all new product (basically the same old same old with a new cloak and maybe throw in a new name) will capture the majority of the market, it keeps the share price afloat and his job intact. Pretty much identical to the way M$ markets to the consumer, it new all singing all dancing products against versus it's previous crappy it's not worth supporting products.

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[mobby_6kl]

> dont most of the phones take 15-20 mins to delete 800+ messages??

Not my WM6 phone. It's not instantaneous as one might want, but perfectly acceptable, I'd say. I just deleted about 600 messages from my inbox folder, and it took all of 25 seconds to do that. Unless their algorithm hits a brick wall within the next 200 messages, I don't see this task taking even a minute to complete.

Unless... you guys are talking about manually going through each message and deleting them one by one. In that case, yeah, even if takes just one second to check a message and delete it, dealing with 800 messages would take about 13 minutes, but then it's a PEBKAC situation.

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[Hal_Porter]

I'm going to get modded to hell and back for this, but Microsoft never really did "innovation". What they did was "buy up competitors who innovate, and integrate the result poorly".

Wow you're right. Criticizing Microsoft for not innovating on slashdot. You're a brave man.

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[mehrotra.akash]

any clue why windows has a similar problem?

if there are a very large no. of small files on a flash drive, it does take a while to delete(2000+files 3 min)
this is on a relatively slow pendrive, but still..

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[doktaru]

Microsoft can't even launch an mp3 player that is good, they haven't even bothered launching it in the UK and much of Europe.

(emphasis added)

What do you mean? The ZuneHD is amazing. And with a ZunePass the experience is incomparable.

It looks like you were not paying attention to what the parent actually said. The Zune HD is not available in outside of the States (and it looks like you cannot even get it in Canada), so I do not see how a product you cannot buy is any good.

Re:Title

[mobby_6kl]

This being a USB flash drive explains most of it. They're just pretty slow, especially for writes. It feels weird that I have to explain this on slashdot, but there's a part of disk dedicated to storing the information about the files located on it, usually known as the file allocation table. This information would include the filenames, creation or modification dates, and most importantly, their physical location on the disk. For each file deleted, the system needs to check with that table for the information about the file, and mark it as deleted.

The system doesn't need to physically change the files themselves, which is why deleting a 10GB file takes as long as deleting a 10KB one. Still, when deleting a large number of files this overhead begins to add up to a significant amount of time. This also applies to creating, moving or copying files, so for example one 1GB file will be copied much faster than 1048576 1KB files, as the system needs to create a record for each of those, in addition to all other overhead.

Re:Title

[Progman3K]

Overall, Windows Mobile is clearly suffering from that Microsoft problem that once they think they are in charge of a market, all innovation completely stops.

I programmed Windows CE 2.1, 2.2 and 3.0 a lot from 1997 to 2001 and it was flaky as hell.

I recently worked on a project with CE 5 and 6.

To my complete amazement it was STILL crap! It's like they barely worked on it at all.

Re:Title

[jim_v2000]

I don't know about "die", they were "inoperable" for a day. Didn't know how to deal with a leap year.

But anyway, mine has been chugging along ever since I bought it off Woot a few years ago. Just keeps going along like the little black mp3 brick that it is.

Re:Title

[tehcyder]

I'm going to get modded to hell and back for this, but Microsoft never really did "innovation". What they did was "buy up competitors who innovate, and integrate the result poorly".

Wow, you're a braver man than me, going out on a limb like that in a place like this. Criticizing Microsoft is pretty much heresy round here.

Re:Title

[wastedlife]

Did some googling and the "page pool" in WinMo is reserved for executing ROM files since they cannot be executed directly. This seems to have some good info:

http://www.etenblog.com/2008/01/14/change-your-page-pool-size/

With all of the complaints I see and hear and after spending a couple hours troubleshooting an ActiveSync issue with one(the issue was with the server config, not the phone, but the phone did crash and need rebooting several times), I don't think I would ever consider getting a phone with WinMo on it.

Correction

[grub]

"We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"

s/Mobile//
There you go.

.

Re:Correction

[fatcow]

"We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"
s/ Windows Mobile/!/
This is better.

Re:Correction

[sorak]

"We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"

s/Mobile//
There you go. .

yy50p

I remember back in grade school that sort of thing was a punishment.

Re:Correction

[AndrewHowe]

No.

Whatever you think about Microsoft (and if it's the usual cult mentality, I really don't care) Microsoft have screwed up pretty badly (more than normal, if you will) on WM7.

It's hella late and they have pissed off a lot of people. I would personally really like to see Microsoft's continual presence in the mobile space if only for the sake of diversity... I'm unashamedly a Microsoft user and mostly supporter. Downmods be damned. But WM7 is pretty much a disaster area.

I hope they have something really good on the way... And even then, I worry that they're gonna let Android rule the world. Which is careless, because Android used to suck. But it's getting better very quickly, and there's still no sign of WM7.

Re:Correction

[Quixote]

echo "We Screwed Up Windows Mobile" | sed -e 's/We/We Are/' -e 's/ Up.*/!/'

Re:Correction

[ignavus]

"We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"

s/Mobile//
There you go. .

I was going to suggest shortening it to "We Screwed Up"

But then I realised that it made more sense if I shortened it a bit more: "We Screwed U"

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*

If only the general Windows user could get your SED joke.

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

You support those you trade with? Stop for one second and think about that, just consider who will always be ending up drawing the shortest straw in that relationship.

Let me guess...

[Joce640k]

The old one was crap but the new one is perfect - just like every other Microsoft launch *ever*.

Re:Let me guess...

[PhrostyMcByte]

I don't know anything about the new one, but the old one was definitely crap.

Windows Mobile uses almost exactly the same APIs we're used to on the desktop. Anyone that knows how to code a Windows GUI app should have no trouble coding one for Mobile. Hell you can even use .NET if you want, so there is a whole other class of developers who can do it too. In short, the possible developer pool is *huge*.

The problem is, apps tend to look and feel too much like they should be running on a desktop. In their rush to make the development experience so similar, they didn't think to make the UI actually work on a phone. They completely missed the touch window. Even now, I have yet to see a really intuitive touch interface for Windows Mobile that isn't a completely custom third-party shell.

If they want to attract users, they need an intuitive UI and a single place to find apps. If they want to attract developers, they need easy tools to make intuitive UIs and a single place to sell apps. It's not a hard concept, but they're failing pretty spectacularly at it.

Re:Let me guess...

[numbski]

I'm happy for your Microsoft, and Imma let you finish, but Google had the best mobile launch of all time!

Re:Let me guess...

[Bert64]

It has a subset of similar APIs... It's effectively a completely unique os that uses the windows name to try and fool people into thinking it has some level of compatibility with the applications they already use...

OSX and Linux are actually much closer between their desktop and phone oriented versions, many applications can simply be recompiled (i have things like nmap on my phone for instance) tho it obviously makes a lot more sense if you design a new interface which is appropriate to the device.

In terms of interface, windows mobile has an interface designed for a desktop, which has been crudely kludged for use on a pda, and even more crudely kludged to try and make it work on the phone... The interface is just terrible.

And yes, you're right that they need a single place to find apps... But remember that's not the windows way, users should be expected to locate their apps manually by buying them in physical stores and downloading binaries from arbitrary websites... And then manually run a setup program and blindly click next a few times until it's installed.

Countless people on this very site have claimed that linux is unsuitable because it typically has a single simple place to find apps rather than doing things the same way windows does.

Re:Let me guess...

[93 Escort Wagon]

The problem is, apps tend to look and feel too much like they should be running on a desktop. In their rush to make the development experience so similar, they didn't think to make the UI actually work on a phone.

I personally think you've missed it. The Windows Mobile UI is intentionally as much like the Windows desktop UI as possible. They made a conscious decision to push the brand at the expense of having an actual useful, well-designed mobile interface. It was just a fundamentally flawed decision, and I'd bet it was made with pretty much no input from the Windows Mobile team.

Re:Let me guess...

[mvdwege]

Anyone that knows how to code a Windows GUI app should have no trouble coding one for Mobile.

And this is exactly the problem. Microsoft marketed Windows Mobile to traditional Windows developers. But a phone is not a desktop. A phone is a resource-constrained device, and traditional desktop programmers are not used to this environment.

Worse, it seems, from my experience, that Microsoft marketed WinMo internally in the same hare-brained way, as the phone has a UI metaphor and a resource consumption totally unsuited for its target platform.

It appears that this is finally getting through to upper management, which is a good thing, as the mobile market is sufficiently competitive that MS can't play its usual game of letting hardware resources catch up with their shoddy programming without getting their lunch eaten by Symbian, Blackberry, Apple and Google.

Mart

Re:Let me guess...

[AndrewHowe]

WinCE has a very large subset of desktop Win32 APIs. Of course it's not binary compatible, we're mostly talking about ARM platforms on 'phones.

Linux has the whole apt-get/aptitude/whatever thing but that's not going to be the draw in the mobile space. Something based on it maybe, but it's gonna have to be a whole lot more user friendly to compete with the App Store etc. Even if it's more free(TM)... And of course few people are going to develop for it if there's no return on their investment.

Linux makes a large amount of sense on a nerd targeted netbook, in fact as a mostly Windows user I might switch to something like that, but the mass market is still not driven by the forces you would like.

Some of your points are well made.

Re:Let me guess...

[ajlisows]

And yes, you're right that they need a single place to find apps...

No doubt. With the Pirate Bay shutting down it WILL be hard to find Windows Apps. ;)

Re:Let me guess...

[BenoitRen]

Countless people on this very site have claimed that linux is unsuitable because it typically has a single simple place to find apps rather than doing things the same way windows does.

Do you know why? Because this "single simple place" can't possibly have everything, and installing something from somewhere else is hell. I know I still haven't installed the damn printer driver I need properly.

Re:Let me guess...

[Dun Malg]

The problem is, apps tend to look and feel too much like they should be running on a desktop

I think IE for WinMo is the classic example. It renders pages like they took the desktop version and told it it has a tiny screen. Text becomes a mangled mass of nonsense when it starts wordwrapping to the next line after each word, and graphics placement is haphazard at best. It's like the browser has no idea it's trying to display on a screen too small to hold a web page. This was one of the reasons I jumped ship to Android: I wanted to be able to access web pages.

Re:Let me guess...

[Dun Malg]

I give you a trophy for spelling "hare-brained" properly. Plus I think your analysis is correct.

Re:Let me guess...

[jonbryce]

You could always install another browser, such as Opera, Iris (webkit), Skyfire (Gecko remotely rendered on a server), or Fennec (Gecko rendered natively)

Re:Let me guess...

[Billly Gates]

"The old one was crap but the new one is perfect - just like every other Microsoft launch *ever*."

No you are thinking of the next version of WindowsMobile. That will be the one that will be perfect. Just wait....

Journalism

[Reason58]

You have a quote directly attributed to Ballmer, and your source is some dude's tweet. Sounds legit to me.

Re:Journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does kdawson let journalistic integrity stand in the way of a good Microsoft bash?

Re:Journalism

[Stenchwarrior]

Slashdotters have to rely on indirect investigation. Otherwise they'd have to actually go outside to get the news.

Re:Journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does kdawson let journalistic integrity stand?

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Journalism

[InsertWittyNameHere]

Are you questioning CNN's research methods?

Re:Journalism

[Concerned Onlooker]

Really, you can't bash Microsoft. Unless you run Cygwin, of course.

Re:Journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

It ought to be backed up at least by a link to a Wikipedia article.

Re:Journalism

[selven]

The tweet will soon probably prove its veracity through a link to Slashdot.

Re:Journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying it's no use wining?

Getting cold

[Haxzaw]

Hell called, they say send parkas.

I would be on Slashdot more often...

[Monkeedude1212]

If the browser on this HTC was any good for browsing. Seriously logging into a website can take a good 5 full minutes because my STYLUS isn't accurate enough to click the username field - unless I zoom in, which is something that I have yet to master, because its the least intuitive user control ever. If I hold down my click I can select zoom in, and it will remove about 1 pixel from each dimension requiring multiple hold&zoom selections to get it to a point where i can click on what I want. OR, on the odd chance I DO do it correctly, it zooms me in the full 200% possible and I have to literally scroll the screen sideways in order to enter my full username visibly. But since I don't know what it is to do it correctly, I will sometimes zoom in the full 200% on accident, and there seems to be absolutely NO way to Zoom out that I can find.

Don't even get me started on actual BROWSING... sometimes, and by that I mean about 30% of the time, my page will load, and then it will start to Refresh even though its done loading, but it won't actually refresh, it'll just sit at a white blank page with the URL I entered and a progress bar, despite it already having loaded the full page less than a second ago.

Seriously, if I didn't use my email so much, I would say that Internet browsing on this thing is NOT worth the Data package.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[Stevecrox]

It's not your phone its slashcode. I've got a Nokia 5800 which has the same webkit browser the iPhone has (in a direct comparison me and a friend couldn't see a difference) and it struggles with Slashdot. I have no idea why.

For me slashdot takes ages to load the last 10kb's of any page, then immediately tries to load another page which isn't a new page. Once I press Stop the page loads and displays properly however the browser will lock up for approximately 30 seconds. If I wait too long to cancel the previous web page load the entire web browser will slow down and require me to close it and re-open to fix.

I'm sure people will argue its my phone but the register, bbc, amazon, ebay, various forums, you tube, google maps, etc.. all load and work perfectly and slashdot is the only site I've found which has any issues.

Lastly my Orange m500 (running Windows Mobile 2003 SE) used to load Slashdot ok (formating was screwed up but it was all there and readable). Around the Windows Mobile 5/ O2 XDA Mini S release some slashcode update caused it to seriously degrade. I'm beginning to wonder if the "designers" need to go do a HTML for dummys training course.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[manekineko2]

Default Opera browser on my HTC Diamond, which is actually already a generation out of date, is pretty good. In fact, I'd say it's the best-designed mobile browser I've ever used, better even than the vaunted iPhone Safari.

It initially loads a whole page with absolutely tiny fonts so you can get an overview. Scroll wheel zooms in or out so you can get detail where you need it. Double tap does a quick zoom in with reflow, so that on pages with long lines of text you can read it all in one column. This dual mechanism is ingenious, giving you the best of both worlds of preserving formatting and having a mobile version of real webpages that is usable.

Unfortunately, while I think the design is fantastic, the whole thing is let down by the cruddiness of Windows Mobile and the slow CPUs that always seem to be paired with it. Zooming with the scroll wheel sometimes takes a few seconds to register, which doesn't sound like much, but is enough to make using the scroll wheel irritating, and leaving the browser with basically only the reflow zoom mode, which it really a shame.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[SigILL]

Once I press Stop the page loads and displays properly however the browser will lock up for approximately 30 seconds.

That's caused by the large amount of Javascript processing /.'s dynamic frontpage does. I disabled the dynamic frontpage and all the other ajaxy features of /. and now it's quite usable on my iPhone 3G. On my commute I occasionally even find myself reading comments and moderating.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[Red Flayer]

...it's quite usable on my iPhone 3G. On my commute I occasionally even find myself reading comments and moderating.

It's drink and drive in moderation, not drive while moderating.

The question is, what suffers more -- your moderation skills or your driving?

(Yeah, yeah, I know -- you take the bus/train/monorail/motorized walkway)

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[Bert64]

Is it the HTML, or is it that microsoft browsers are typically 10 years behind everyone else when it comes to html standards support?
Seriously, slashdot loads fine on my iphone, i quite regularly read it on the train to work.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[PitaBred]

Please tell me you aren't driving during your commute. Or if you are, please tell me what city it's in. I want to know where not to drive.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[drerwk]

Please- a quick howto. I hate /. on my iPhone.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[mcrbids]

Try SkyFire. It's what makes browsing the 'net actually work with my HTC WinMo 6.0 phone. The IE that comes on there is spectacularly worthless.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[jrmcferren]

While I have to switch to optimized mode in Blazer to reduce horizontal scrolling on my Centro, I don't have any problems with slashdot on my Centro. I don't know why everyone is bashing Palm nor why Palm Os devices are being discontinued. BTW I am posting this from my Centro.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[bhtooefr]

The GP is talking about an HTC device, those usually ship with Opera Mobile 9.5.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[bhtooefr]

Annoyingly, Skyfire renders in 320x240 mode even on a 640x480 device. Not only that, but there's nasty latency between any actions, thanks to the fact that it has to make a round trip to a server to do anything.

That said, I do use it for watching Flash content that I can't access using Opera or the YouTube app.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[bhtooefr]

Wow, you actually got Blazer to work well? I'm surprised.

Here's why Palm OS devices are being discontinued: The OS is a kludge on a kludge on an ugly hack on some duct tape that was OK for 1997.

Because Palm didn't bother to license the multitasking capability of the kernel they used (AMX 68000,) Palm OS "multitasking" is about as good as MS-DOS TSRs - very unstable.

The OS also isn't good about managing resources properly - it doesn't check to see if programs have released their resources after quitting (which, granted, is part of the reason the "multitasking" even works.) But, this means that applications can appear to exit fine, but fail to release a resource like bluetooth or the camera. You know what happens when a program fails to release bluetooth? You get 12 hour battery life until a power cycle. Happened to me.

Web browsing on Palm OS is very painful. Blazer is horribly outdated compared to everything else, and is horribly slow, and Opera Mini would be great if it weren't for the absolutely terrible J9 JVM, which is buggy as hell, and hangs a lot. I was rebooting my Centro almost DAILY thanks to that pile of crap.

Application development is odd due to the database file system, and the fact that... to run native ARM code, you first have to punch out of the 68000 emulation environment.

The UI was dated. Minor complaint, but still true.

And, I'm not even scratching the surface of Palm OS's problems.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[Dun Malg]

It's not your phone its slashcode. I've got a Nokia 5800 which has the same webkit browser the iPhone has (in a direct comparison me and a friend couldn't see a difference) and it struggles with Slashdot. I have no idea why... slashdot takes ages to load the last 10kb's of any page, then immediately tries to load another page which isn't a new page. Once I press Stop the page loads and displays properly however the browser will lock up for approximately 30 seconds.

Works fine on my Google G2, which uses the webkit browser.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[Anonymous Coward]

I read Slashdot on my Touch Pro2 using Opera Mobile via Google Reader, it will reformat text so that it works on a small screen (mostly). Try it, may work for you.

Re:I would be on Slashdot more often...

[SigILL]

Please tell me you aren't driving during your commute.

I commute by train, 15 minutes each way. Also, I don't think we live on the same continent (I'm Dutch), so you're probably safe :)

Ballmer trying to mindfuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I never did use it, I already suspected they screwed up Windows Mobile. Now I'm wondering: if Ballmer says it was crap, what are they hiding, what's their agenda? Was Windows Mobile actually really great?

Is it wrong to discuss Red Light tickets here?

[dtolman]

Since everyone is discussing MS in THAT topic...

Re:Is it wrong to discuss Red Light tickets here?

[sopssa]

Red Light tickets is uninteresting, but what if we discuss Red-light district here?

Re:Is it wrong to discuss Red Light tickets here?

[mcgrew]

Ok, here you go...

Re:Is it wrong to discuss Red Light tickets here?

[Gilmoure]

Red Light Windows?

Manufacturers

[qoncept]

I'm glad I'm not the manufacturer of a WinMo phone right now. It's tough enough to choose one over the other options based on its actual merits, without the king of the developer essentially saying it sucks. Wonder if Ballmer thought of the implications before he spoke.

Re:Manufacturers

[sopssa]

He didn't say it sucks. He said they wanted to get WM7 done already and they screwed up with *that*. Title is just misleading as hell.

Re:Manufacturers

[mvdwege]

Never worry. Their flagship OEM (after they screwed over Sendo) is already leaving the sinking ship. HTC used to be a Windows-only shop, and now they're shipping, and visibly promoting, phones with other OSes.

Mart

Too bad Google's screwing up too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully (for them), it seems Google's screwing up in mobile too - getting cease-and-desist-happy attacking the Android customization community :(.

Sad if Google's over-enthusiastic lawyers let Microsoft overcome these screwups.

Re:Too bad Google's screwing up too.

[Randle_Revar]

I thought Google screwed it up when they decided to use Java/Linux instead of GNU/Linux...

Re:Too bad Google's screwing up too.

[Runaway1956]

It's a HELLUVA lot easier to put a coffee bean into a mobile device than it is to stuff a damned BISON in there!! WTF, didn't you ever try to put 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag? Did ever study physics at all?

Re:Too bad Google's screwing up too.

[NuShrike]

Yup, and now retracting by giving developers more native access, as they should've done from the beginning. Take a hint Palm!

WinMo 6 is OK but not finger friendly

[BcNexus]

Tiny buttons, scroll bars and radio buttons keep it from being finger friendly. However, the platform is more open than the iPhone so I can choose my apps and let them run in the background.

Besides making it more finger friendly, there also should be an official JVM from Sun. That'd be awesome.

Re:WinMo 6 is OK but not finger friendly

[mobby_6kl]

I've used mainly two WM devices, an old PDA and a recent 6.1 smartphone. The touchscreen OS was clearly designed for the stylus, but I've never had much problems with using my fingers to scroll through a page or dismiss a dialog when absolutely necessary. And when using it with two hands, which is apparently how the various iphones are usually used nowadays, I prefer to use the stylus anyway.

The more recent smartphone version works just fine as a phone though, that is, the regular keypad is enough to comfortably interact with the system.

None of the standard WM versions are of course in any way sexy, but this also means there's no shit flying around the screen all the time when you're doing something trivial. The various custom interfaces like those from HTC, Sony Ericsson, or SPB seem to provide all the bling anyone might ever want.

The various apps are probably my favorite part about WM though. Since nobody's forced into a restrictive store, there are all kinds of apps from kamasutra to packet sniffers, to programming languages. Seeing all the excitement about the recent Wolfenstein 3d port was quite amusing too. Developing for the system is quite easy and fun well. So far I've only ran into one somewhat ugly issue when accessing the camera directly from a C# app, and that's only a problem because I have about zero experience with C++. All the other APIs I've used were pretty clean and easy to use, and as a result, I've quickly written about half a dozen apps which are actually useful without any previous WM/C# experience.

So what I'm saying is that WM definitely has some serious problems, but I'm willing to overlook them just so that I don't have to put up with anyone's (Apple, Google, and Palm, I'm looking at you) bullshit.

Re:WinMo 6 is OK but not finger friendly

[Overzeetop]

I like the platform, but I'm with you on the finger v stylus modes. It was, after all, built for pocketPCs, which everyone expected to have a stylus for. Nowadays, though, fingers are the way to go, and WinMo just hasn't gotten with the program, despite a full revision (6) since anyone has really used a pocketPC. Make the clickable status icons bigger and make it easier to navigate to programs and settings. There are lots of things we're asking winmo phones to do that the OS just wasn't made for, and MS can't seem to get it in gear to fix them. The amazing thing is that the developer community does seem to push out layer upon layer of things that the UI should do natively, and MS never seems to notice. Make you wonder if everyone at MS really doesn't use their software, or if they're just lazy.

Re:WinMo 6 is OK but not finger friendly

[dotgain]

You've got issues. You should print out your /. comment history as an example of the things you say to people and take it to a shrink who'll hopefully make you better. It's obvious from your need to repeatedly attack total strangers that something is bugging you in life, I know you're not a troll.

Your help will start with staying away from here, and forums like it, so you can focus on your real problems, which I can assure you are not the people you respond to here. You're hurting yourself more than them.

Sincerely, from one stranger to another, please take a moment to reflect on this.

Re:WinMo 6 is OK but not finger friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that is an impressive -1 streak he/she's got going on. However I'm not sold on the 'not a troll' idea. There are some real weird people out there who base their own worth on some very different metrics than most. (Not that is not an issue in and of itself.)

These days on /. you have lots of people using multiple accounts such that they can mod their own posts up and other posts down in threads. Not saying that that person is doing it to themselves but they could be for all we know.

But then again I always prefer to side with stupidity/ignorance/straight up weirdness over malevolence. Especially on teh interwebs.

Re:WinMo 6 is OK but not finger friendly

[Reservoir Penguin]

I for one is glad that there is atleast one vendor left who is stylus friendly, taking off my gloves to use the capacitive touchscreen when it's -45C outside (pretty much 4 month a year) is not a very attractive proposition for me.

Pumping

[Angst Badger]

It would certainly explain a lot about the quality of the software coming out of Microsoft if their CEO is someone who thinks of "talent" as some liquid commodity you can "pump in" to a project.

Re:Pumping

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuming soon, windows mobile with "Full Release".

Re:Pumping

[ausekilis]

Somewhere in here is a Microsoft Sewage Treatment Plant joke... i just know it...

Re:Pumping

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than Ballmer squirting his talent in, Zune-style, right?

Re:Pumping

[lkl]

http://xkcd.com/323/

Re:Pumping

[farnsworth]

someone who thinks of "talent" as some liquid commodity you can "pump in" to a project.

Of course you can't "pump" talent. You squirt it.

Re:Pumping

[stupidllama]

Not to mention a "full release" joke, i'm i little disappointed i didn't see one.

Re:Pumping

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I have a half-dozen friends who work for MS (four devs and two PMs, who've been there for 1-2 years apiece), and they say that's exactly how it goes. The management decides on a project it wants to do, and then they push as much money and manpower at it as they can until it's finished. There's not a whole lot of concern about the quality of their personnel; it's like they read the Mythical Man-Month and consciously choose to ignore it.

Re:Pumping

[Anonymous Coward]

It would certainly explain a lot about the quality of the software coming out of Microsoft if their CEO is someone who thinks of "talent" as some liquid commodity you can "pump in" to a project.

Oblig: http://xkcd.com/323/

ship it when it sorta works

[jollyreaper]

It's not the first time Ballmer has attacked Windows Mobile, having publicly stated that version 6.5 was "not the full release we wanted"."

But you released it anyway, didn't you, Steve? You say you're sorry but you don't mean it.

Re:ship it when it sorta works

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Microsoft is adopting the OSS philosophy.

Re:ship it when it sorta works

[rattaroaz]

I think you may be quoting him out of context. He is talking with investors and industry analysts. He is not saying "I am sorry the product sucks." He is saying "I am sorry we were not able to sell more, because the product sucks." Different message, and I think he really did mean it.

Re:ship it when it sorta works

[pdabbadabba]

Hey, a broken watch is still right twice per day.

Re:ship it when it sorta works

[Cornelius the Great]

Key audience: investors and analysts. While WM6.x does work fine for typical smartphone usage, it lacks an appstore, which has been a real moneymaker for Apple. This will be standard in WM7.

Re:ship it when it sorta works

[Bert64]

Not a digital one...

Re:ship it when it sorta works

[pdabbadabba]

Well played. (But we all know that Steve Ballmer is as analog as they come.)

Re:ship it when it sorta works

[dunkelfalke]

There still are some improvements there over the WM6.1

The only Windows Mobile that truly absolutely sucked was 5.0. It was in fact so bad, that people rather installed the first, crash-prone and nearly unusable WM6.0 alpha builds onto their devices.

Here's how you fix that Steve...

[tha_toadman]

Developers! Developers! Developers!

Re:Here's how you fix that Steve...

[Monkeedude1212]

If I hadn't used up all my mod points... LOL

Re:Here's how you fix that Steve...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but instead, they went with:
DESIGNERS! DESIGNERS! DESIGNERS! DESIGNERS!

Mind you, that still doesn't explain Vista...

Re:Here's how you fix that Steve...

[manekineko2]

I think you're joking, but Ballmer's original insight actually holds up pretty well here in the mobile arena. Having played around with the different mobile platforms, the biggest problem with Windows Mobile 6.5.1 is the lack of modern developers.

All of the software on the iPhone is modern, and finger-friendly.

On Windows Mobile, most of the the software applications still look like Palm applications from circa 2001 with tiny drop down menus and radio buttons. It's not impossible to design good applications, but most of the best developers are no longer developing on Windows Mobile. The number of apps may be somewhat similar on the iPhone and WinMo but the quality is leagues apart, even taking into account the 1,000 fart apps on the iPhone.

While maybe not as much so as on a desktop, for a mobile OS, the apps are still a large part of the success of the OS, and Windows Mobile despite its openness to development is basically terrible when it comes to attracting the developers to make them.

Re:Here's how you fix that Steve...

[Buelldozer]

Oh I don't know, the quality of the Google Voice app on my WinMo phone seems to be far better than the one available for the iPhone.

Re:Here's how you fix that Steve...

[manekineko2]

Really? Which one is it? I've been using OneDialer, but it's really incredibly slow and awkward.

Re:Here's how you fix that Steve...

[Buelldozer]

Same here and it works fine on my Samsung I760. I punch numbers and it dials. Takes about 8 seconds or so to launch and exits within two.

Of course my comment was part trick and part jerk, there IS no OneVoice client officially available for the iPhone so by contrast anything is superior.

Re:I knew it

[ClosedSource]

"How much longer until we see MicroSoft Linux 1.0?"

About as long as we have to wait until RMS starts endorsing personal hygiene products.

Then he...

[jj00]

grabbed the closest Windows Mobile phone, threw it on the floor and smashed it with his foot!

Re:Then he...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's like the Mad-Money guy, except his only targets of agression are competitor products. His primary ammunition is office chairs, not his foot.

Re:Then he...

[Anonymous Coward]

context for parent: http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/09/ballmer_spots_microsoft_employee_with_iphone_at_company_meeting.html

I only read the headline...

[Hurricane78]

...it blotted out before the last word.

But I still agree. ;)

Ballmer

[awitod]

I still can't believe the board of directors hasn't fired this fat-ass clown. He sucks and his management team sucks too.

Of course they screwed up Windows Mobile

[mewsenews]

The iPhone is doing gangbuster sales with a chopped version of OS X. Windows Mobile has been around much, much longer yet it was blown out of the water.

The latest Zune doesn't run Windows Mobile since Windows Mobile is crap. The latest Zune doesn't have an app store because Windows Mobile is making an app store and they don't know how it's going to turn out!

Seriously, Apple caught them asleep at the wheel.

Re:Of course they screwed up Windows Mobile

[TheRealMindChild]

Windows Mobile and "Desktop" Windows are completely different products/code bases. The only thing they share is a name and some user space libraries.

Re:Of course they screwed up Windows Mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprise, Zune HD does run Windows Mobile! They just don't make a big deal about it.

Re:Of course they screwed up Windows Mobile

[rplst8]

The Zune runs a chopped down version fo Widnows CE, which is the basic underpinnings of WinMo. The Zune is basically Windows Mobile with a really really really good media player and fast hardware with lots of eye candy acceleration. The Zune is proof you can make a mobile version of Windows usable. Don't confuse the OS with the UI.

I miss Windows Mobile

[fat_mike]

I had a Palm Treo 700wx with WM 5 and was forced to switch to a Blackberry due to corporate changes and I completely miss it. Yeah I had to reboot it once a day but with the SBB Tools package installed it was quite stable. I thought the Today screen (with SBB installed) was the best "Home" screen of any smartphone I've used. Yes I know I can get similar products for my Blackberry except that security doesn't allow us to install anything. Not even the apps that came with the phone.

Re:I miss Windows Mobile

[ColdWetDog]

. . . security doesn't allow us to install anything. Not even the apps that came with the phone.

Really? I suppose that would be the ultimate wet dream of a security team. You can do nothing. Nothing at all.

I suppose you still get paid though. Is it OK to ask where you work? Are they hiring?

Re:I miss Windows Mobile

[langelgjm]

Yeah, i still use my old Fujitsu Loox 720 with WM 2003 SE. I mostly use it for taking notes now (paired with a bluetooth foldable keyboard), but it's pretty capable in a pinch. I've got SSH, SCP, RDP and VNC clients on there; a Cisco VPN client, and several foreign language dictionaries.

Re:I miss Windows Mobile

[PRMan]

I have a Treo 700wx and I reboot it about once a month. I don't use the SBB tools package. Coincidence?

What really happened.

[jellomizer]

Apple came along and raised the bar very high. Fan of apple or not. In terms of Mobile OS they raised the bar very high for mobile app developers of competing products and sadly Windows Mobile was just trying to be good enough for blackberry users.

Re:I knew it

[TheBilgeRat]

Or we see "OpenDirectX 11"

So he knows there is a problem ...

[Old97]

but does he understand what the problem is? I can think of two big problems with Windows Mobile

1) Microsoft wants to sell it when their competitor O/Ss are free.

2) Window's Mobile has earned itself a bad reputation both in terms of ease of use and reliability. There were 7 WM users in my work unit a 18 months ago. Today there are zero. Five went to iPhone, 1 to Pre and one to RIM. The Pre guy has iPhone envy because using the keyboard is not what he hoped and because the Pre software being 18 months younger than iPhone's is also noticeably slower despite similar hardware. (He'll probably get over it when the upgrades arrive.) Of these 7, 5 of them were Microsoft fanboi's but even they were fed up with the bugs and the clumsy interface.

(None of these guys develop for these devices so they don't' care about any of those issues.)

So what makes him think Microsoft has time to recover from this especially if they expect to continue to charge for the O/S? What is the value proposition for the device manufacturers especially 9 months to a year from now when the free O/Ss and their tools will have had even more time to evolve and mature?

Re:So he knows there is a problem ...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Microsoft wants to sell it when their competitor O/Ss are free.

It's funny in a sad way that you say this and go on to mention both Apple and RIM in practically the same breath.

Re:So he knows there is a problem ...

[Bert64]

Apple and RIM aren't trying to sell an OS, they are selling a hardware device that just happens to require an OS in order to function, and selling services around the devices.

Re:So he knows there is a problem ...

[Christophotron]

I recently switched phones and providers, and I could have had my pick of basically any smart phone out there. I could have stuck with AT&T and got an iPhone, but I went with Windows Mobile-- specifically the Sprint (HTC) Touch Pro 2.

I was using AT&T and I decided that their network sucked and my "high-speed" data phone really did not achieve any kind of usable speed when I wanted to use it most. I remembered how Verizon always had great signal with their CDMA network, but they were way too expensive and their phones all sucked. So I went with Sprint (and what an awesome decision that was!). Sprint's network is leaps and bounds better than AT&T where I live-- I get EVDO speed in places I never even got an EDGE connection before. I actually have usable RDP over wireless now 3

Anyway, back to the phones. Sprint has Blackberries, WM phones, and the Palm Pre, among others. My wife went with the Pre and she loves it, and I sprung for the more mature hardware on the Touch Pro 2. Compared to the Pre, the keyboard and screen are simply amazing, not to mention the speaker is louder and clearer and the signal strength is better than the Pre. From a hardware perspective, the HTC TP2 stomps the Pre, the iPhone, the blackberries, and maybe even Nokia. This really is the finest piece of pocket-sized hardware I've ever used, bar none. The software may not be quite as slick as the competitors, and the app store doesn't exist yet, but overall I am VERY happy with this phone (with a bit of app envy).

Actually if they made this exact hardware configuration with Android OS on it, I would try it and probably like it even more. This phone is good IN SPITE OF Microsoft. HTC made the hardware, and HTC customized the software to make it tolerable, and Opera made a sick web browser for it. But I wouldn't count out the Windows Mobile platform just yet... I think MS is going to wise up soon. The app store is coming. They better get with the times, because if they don't, we will all be welcoming our HTC/Android overlords with open arms.

The thing about WinMobile is

[wiredog]

It's really easy to write apps for. You use all the same tools, APIs, and libraries you use for regular Windows development. Many times porting from desktop to mobile is a matter of redoing the UI and recompiling. All the backend stuff stays the same.

It was easier to write software fro WM 5 years ago than it is to write for iPhone today. There should be thousands of apps out there. But there aren't. Because WM after version 3 began to suck more and more.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[Anonymous Coward]

The same can be said about OS X -> iPhone porting.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[dingen]

It was easier to write software fro WM 5 years ago than it is to write for iPhone today. There should be thousands of apps out there. But there aren't. Because WM after version 3 began to suck more and more.

I think there aren't so many apps for WinMo because there's no infrastructure for distribution, payment and updating your application. Sure, it's easy to create some application, but how do you get it to your users and (more important) how do you get them to pay for it?

You could stick it on your website and pray people will find it, but the reality of course is that most people won't find it. And if you want people to pay for it, you will have to figure out a way of doing so.

It requires a lot of effort from the developer to get things started. And even when he figures out how to get his infrastructure set up, it remains hard to get your application onto a user's phone. And then you release an update and it's even harder to get people to get the update on their phone.

All in all, it's a mess and no sane developer will get into it, no matter how easy it may be to create the application itself.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[cowscows]

At a technical level, you're probably right, but be careful not to trivialize the effort involved in "redoing the UI". For any software of even moderate complexity, it's not just as simple as resizing buttons and moving things around a little bit. The way a user might want to interact with a program or a particular set of data on a small portable device is often quite different from how they'd approach it on a desktop computer.

Although we're talking about windows development, I'm going to steer us a little bit towards Apple, because I know more about that. The iPhone uses similar tools, API's, etc as Cocoa apps for the MacOS, so we've got some similarities to what you've said. Yet despite this, there are a number of developers who've attempted to port successful mac apps to the iPhone, and have ended up with less than stellar results.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[UnknowingFool]

I think there aren't so many apps for WinMo because there's no single infrastructure for distribution, payment and updating your application. Sure, it's easy to create some application, but how do you get it to your users and (more important) how do you get them to pay for it?

There fixed that for you.

When you buy an iPhone and you want an app, you go to iTunes and get seamless integration. Even though the developers are 3rd party, Apple manages it. Yes Apple has been rather inconsistent with their approvals and the like but for the most part people can easily get an app. You buy a WinMo device and it's not easy. Where do you get an App? You could get it from the carrier, or the phone maker. But then again some developers have their own site. Getting the app on the device involves usually multiple steps like downloading on your desktop, then connecting, then copying files. It's not rocket science but in the eyes of an average consumer, there's too many steps.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[shutdown -p now]

It requires a lot of effort from the developer to get things started.

It does?

1. Buy Visual Studio 2008 Professional.
2. Start it.
3. Go to File -> New Project -> (C++ |C# | Visual Basic) -> Smart Device -> Smart Device Project
4. Write code.
5. Press F5 to build it and run with attached debugger. It will ask you if you want to run in emulator, or on a real device that's attached to your PC, and take care of the rest.

Gee, that was hard!

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[chartreuse]

Yes, but it wouldn't be true. The iPhone OS is based on but not the same as OS X, there are important frameworks that are iPhone-only. It's not just a recompile.

Furthermore, the UI constraints for a touch-based interface are such that a simple port would never work except for the most trivial application, you'd have to completely re-think the interface to make it usable at all.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[dingen]

If you had actually read my reply, you would have known I am not saying that creating the app is the hard part. But now you've done what you've said and you've got an application... then what? How do you get your app to people and businesses? How do you get them to pay for it? How are you going to make sure they keep your app up to date? The short answer: you don't.

Microsoft provides no help at all in getting the investment of creating the app back. That's why there aren't a lot of WinMo apps out there and that's why MS has screwed up.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[shutdown -p now]

If you had actually read my reply, you would have known I am not saying that creating the app is the hard part. But now you've done what you've said and you've got an application... then what? How do you get your app to people and businesses? How do you get them to pay for it? How are you going to make sure they keep your app up to date? The short answer: you don't.

No, the short answer is: exactly the same way as you do for desktop Windows applications - stick it in a box and put it on the shelf; or, offer it for download.

Re:The thing about WinMobile is

[dingen]

Indeed. And since nobody actually purchases software for their phones this way (how many apps for your phone have you bought from a store recently?), you make absolutely nothing with your app.

This is precisely my point. There is no realistic way of making money with your WinMo app because there is no infrastructure. Therefore not a lot of developers get into the game and therefore WinMo is a barren wasteland.

Asleep at the wheel

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is very often caught "asleep at the wheel" (eg: the internet) but when they wake up and rejoin the race, they usually overtake and keep the lead permanently.

Re:Asleep at the wheel

[mewsenews]

Microsoft is very often caught "asleep at the wheel" (eg: the internet) but when they wake up and rejoin the race, they usually overtake and keep the lead permanently.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but we're all sick of reading stories about how expensive and proprietary the iPhone is. When Microsoft wakes up and really nails what Google's Android is flirting with, ie. non-proprietary iPhones with sexy hardware and standard, user liberated software, it will be a huge win for customers.

It really took Apple to put everything together in one package so that wireless carriers saw "oh yeah, mobile internet", but now it's time for commoditization.

Re:Asleep at the wheel

[phantomfive]

It really took Apple to put everything together in one package so that wireless carriers saw "oh yeah, mobile internet", but now it's time for commoditization.

I halfway agree with you, but I don't think it is really as easy as you make it sound. Apple was able to do it because they have an extremely capable team experienced in every area of what they are doing, and it all flowed together smoothly. Not many companies are capable of doing so, as Rim and Palm have shown. It's easy to get some of the components right, but Apple has done well with it. They've gotten everything except the freedom.

Can Microsoft do it too? They should be able to, they have the resources, but so far they have not shown themselves up to the task. Consider even the ipod: it isn't really that complicated, all it does is play music. You should be able to match it pretty easily, and even add an FM tuner to beat it, right? And yet no one has been able to even come close. Why not?

Maybe Microsoft can do it, but I'm not betting on them.

Re:Asleep at the wheel

[mewsenews]

Can Microsoft do it too? They should be able to, they have the resources, but so far they have not shown themselves up to the task. Consider even the ipod: it isn't really that complicated, all it does is play music. You should be able to match it pretty easily, and even add an FM tuner to beat it, right? And yet no one has been able to even come close. Why not?

Excellent point. I would say that the iPod phenomena has been a demonstration of Apple's traditional strengths: integration of software and hardware, industrial design, "simple" interface.

With the App Store, Apple has entered the arena that Microsoft has traditionally dominated: software platform. We already have a few revisions of the iPhone with different processor speed, in several years there will be warnings pasted all over iPhone apps "only compatible with x86 iPhones manufactured 2012 or later". This is where Microsoft thrives, creating a common platform for disparate hardware.

Ripping off Apple has also been a traditional Microsoft strength.

In the end, I don't disagree with you, neither of us can predict the future. Watching Microsoft flail around unsuccessfully is going to be just as enjoyable for me as if they were to build the perfect iPod-killer. Either way, it will be fun to watch :)

Re:Asleep at the wheel

[Buelldozer]

WinMo Phones:

Non-proprietary - Check, and been that way since day one. Light years ahead of Apple on this.
Sexy Hardware - Nope...but then Microsoft doesn't make the hardware now do they?
Standard, user liberated software - Check and been that way since day one. Smashes Apple in this regard.

So according to you they have two out of the three and for the two they do have they absolutely SMASH Apple and the iPhone. That leaves us with the sexy hardware problem. Since Microsoft doesn't build the hardware this is a real issue for them.

Of course it also means, according to your theory, that the REAL reason people are buying the iPhone is because it's "sexy", or to use another word it's fashionable.

So where we conclude is that either your theory about what it takes to build an awesome phone is wrong or the real reason the iPhone sells so well is because it's viewed as a must have fashion accessory and not based on any technical merit or software openness.

I'm personally in the fashion accessory camp. If it was about technical excellence and software openness then Android would be doing much better than it is.

Re:Asleep at the wheel

[smoker2]

It really took Apple to put everything together in one package so that wireless carriers saw "oh yeah, mobile internet", but now it's time for commoditization.

So the fact I was using WM on my HTC trinity, at up to 7.2Mbps on HSDPA several years before the iphone was released means it's all thanks to apple ? My tethering contract with T-mobile is older than the iphone.

I'm still using that trinity now. Running WM5 with the Spb mobile shell it works fine. No reboots needed, runs tomtom fine, runs google maps fine, decent touch screen, bluetooth2, etc etc. The only thing it's missing is a g-sensor but that's not WM5s fault. I can program for it, the tools are free including simulators. Sure IE is a pain, and opera is not much better, but the device only has 60 MB storage and 50 MB RAM. But it has 25 MB free RAM at the moment and I rarely stretch that much further, even running several apps at once. I install all my apps on a 2GB SD card, so the device memory doesn't get blocked up, as I found running with the device storage full definitely slows things up. I bought this phone sim free, so maybe it's not locked down as much as others, and there are free tools available to unlock and edit the registry. I've never had the need to reflash with a hacked firmware, never saw the point.

Seriously they screwed it up a long time ago

[wastedbrains]

I got in early on the PocketPC and PocketPC Phones before it was called windows mobile. They were off to a great start with, wireless, web browsers, open development tools (the embedded visual studio was free for years), open development anyone could publish an app, GPS, etc. They worked hard enough to kill Palm, and then just got buggier and worse every year. It was the same as Netscape and IE they built IE until Netscape was dead and then just quit. Windows Mobile became so bad that after years of using and developing on the platform I bought a standard phone and got rid of my Windows Mobile at the time because it had become so unstable it was unusable. Losing calendar entries, failing syncs, crashing often, dropping voice calls... Then I saw everyone with the iPhone and at first said yeah been there and done that everything on the iPhone I had on windows mobile and more for a long time... The iPhone just worked though, no fighting it, yeah it wasn't open to develop on, but I had less reason to develop my own solutions anyways because it did what I wanted out of the box. Windows Mobile, had streaming video, flash players, GPS navigation, and many things before the iPhone ever got around to it, but MS let it fall apart to crap and die once they killed the only competitor in the market Palm/Handspring.

Re:Seriously they screwed it up a long time ago

[rm999]

I actually think the *way* MSFT killed Palm was the problem.

Palm provided exactly what a lot of people wanted 12 years ago: great battery life, an intuitive touch screen interface, and a closed but well-functioning set of standard programs.

Microsoft came in and made your PDA feel like a desktop. They increased Palm Pilot's CPU speed 10-fold, but replaced the lightweight OS with a monster so everything felt slower. Everything became less stable, and the battery life went down to less than a day. Still, people bought it because it felt more like a computer in your pocket.

I believe this has been the unfortunate path of mobile devices since, until Apple reverted everything. The iPhone was built on the same principles that made Palm great: a controlled environment, simple interface, and lightweight but functional built-in applications that are highly integrated with each other.

Re:Seriously they screwed it up a long time ago

[loudmax]

but MS let it fall apart to crap and die once they killed the only competitor in the market

Yeah, makes one wonder what corporate desktop computing would be like today if there were serious competition in the market. There have been great strides made in hardware, cell phones and consumer electronics and the past decade. The typical corporate desktop computer doesn't crash as much as it used to, but there's hardly been the revolution you see in other fields.

Blame Game?

[mpapet]

Mea culpas like this are a way to soothe customers and not do anything about it.

'New talent' claims are especially suspicious because the problem, typically, is a more global work environment issue brought on by the executive staff who, coincidentally, never change.

Two years from now it will be the same speech. 5 years from now, same speech. Why? culture won't have changed.

Re:Blame Game?

[Antiocheian]

You seem to be a bit personally affected by this kind of speech. Do you feel that your job is in danger because of a "new talent" prospect ?

Re:Blame Game?

[mpapet]

You seem to be a bit personally affected by this kind of speech.
I've never seen it work out well. Now, I'm only one person with limited experiences. Otherwise, I have a great job and no immediate job stability worries.

Re:I knew it

[Randle_Revar]

Actually...

http://www.ende-der-vernunft.org/files/joern/20090221-gnufragranceg.jpg

Is that true?

[OpenSourced]

Is the Windows Mobile situation caused by an inferior platform? I always had the idea that WM was/is failing because mobile manufacturers don't want to go the way of the PC manufacturers and end up like commodity makers with razor-thin margins, leaving all fat profits, control of the complete experience and user-locking to Microsoft. They somehow, for estrange reasons, seem to mistrust Microsoft and won't put its software on its handsets. It's not a technology reason. Am I wrong? Does WM suck when compared to other mobile development platforms?

Re:Is that true?

[manekineko2]

Yes, it basically is in an inferior platform. It's got great underlyings relative to the competition, such as multitasking and an easy development environment, but the interface is unstable, sluggish and outdated, which makes the whole thing painfully unhip. Consumers don't want anything to do with it, so modern developers aren't bothering to target it.

Re:Is that true?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great developer tools - fucking awful system that has stagnated for years, and the innards of which have been pretty much the same since Pocket PC 2000, with slightly tweaked shells.

I will admit bias - I'm an ASP.net developer who's last 3 phones (including the current one) have been Windows Mobile. The easy sync with Exchange, and the ease of development has always been the thing that made me come back, even when I've wanted to spank my phone like a naughty monkey. I can get both on other platforms now... so either Windows Mobile 7 delivers (and I will try it before I buy it), or you can shove WM as a platform.

Word of advice to Microsoft - I know what the competition is capable of. If Windows Mobile 7 is the same again, you can keep it. I might be a self-confessed Windows Mobile user - but there's only so much torture I can take before my balls hurt and I whimper for mercy.

Re:Is that true?

[Bert64]

Multitasking is a strength relative to the competition? What competition are you comparing it to?
The iphone, android, the pre and the n900 are all unix based, a system which was multitasking many years before any version of windows could.
I would say windows mobile' underpinnings are actually very weak compared to other systems, it has a proprietary kernel thats not compatible with anything else and seems to suffer from major stability problems compared to the competition. Also, is it even a proper multiuser system? Even if you just have one user, you still want system processes/files to have a higher level of privilege so you can't screw with them.

Re:Is that true?

[manekineko2]

The two big players in the market, Apple and RIM both have no ability to multitask on their devices.

Re:Is that true?

[manekineko2]

Actually, I'm mistaken, you can multitask on a Blackberry. Still no full multitasking support in the iPhone though.

Re:Is that true?

[chartreuse]

Whether there's "no ability to multitask" or "no full multitasking support" in the iPhone/iPod Touch, it does somehow manage to play music and run an unrelated program, even a game, at the same time. Mail processes continue even after you've gone to the home screen, to judge from the notification sounds. I suppose it depends on how you care to define "full".

Re:Is that true?

[Bert64]

The OS is fully capable of multitasking...
Third party apps developed through the official SDK and made available through the App Store are not allowed to multitask, this is an artificial limitation imposed by Apple.
The built in apps, and third party apps written using the unofficial SDK installed in a jailbroken iphone are capable of multitasking.

Re:I knew it - MS Linux is out

[flyingfsck]

Microsoft Linux shipped in 2003 already: http://www.mslinux.org/

No......

[Anonymous Coward]

No Shit, Fatman!! Microslop screwed up every version of Windows since 3.0, so this is hardly news!!

Re:No......

[Anne Thwacks]

every version of Windows since 3.0

You obviously never used Windows 1.0

Time to buy another company?

[operand]

Personally, I think Microsoft should seriously consider buying a company like SPB Software or another Third Party company to continue the development of Windows Mobile. It's clear that Microsoft dropped the ball years ago and didn't realize the potential of Mobile devices and I am not sure Windows Mobile 7 will leap frog or even compete with the iPhone and/or Blackberry.

As opposed to Mac fanboys

[cvd6262]

The old one was crap but the new one is perfect - just like every other Microsoft launch *ever*.

It's the opposite with anything Apple. The *current* version is perfect... until the next version comes out... then the older version was crap.

PS - I'm a Mac user too.

Re:As opposed to Mac fanboys

[gilesjuk]

Any fan boy will say that, regardless of the platform. A fan boy is someone with an irrational brand loyalty.

I don't class myself as an Apple fan boy, I didn't get an iPhone until it was developed enough to meet my needs. I'm not sure I will get a 3GS when my contract ends in Feb 2010.

Perhaps if Ballmer spent less time criticising Apple and criticising his own product then things would be better for Windows Mobile?

WM7 is only late because it probably started life as another rehash of Windows Mobile and needed a drastic rethink when the iPhone appeared.

Re:As opposed to Mac fanboys

[Jesus_666]

Actually, real Mac users will tell you that the latest OS X version greatly annoys them because of [insert list of resons here] but it's still awesome. Hey, Stacks not following symlinks in all display modes is a big deal!

Re:As opposed to Mac fanboys

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no. no. With Apple, the current version is even more perfect that the last.

DGF

OMG!

[macbeth66]

Outside

OMG! You mean where the sun shines? I am afraid. Very Afraid.

Hey, that's our job

[CopaceticOpus]

Microsoft bashing Microsoft? This smells like step one in their plan to take over Slashdot.

Re:Hey, that's our job

[Anonymous Coward]

embrace, extend, toll.

Re:Hey, that's our job

[sorak]

Microsoft bashing Microsoft? This smells like step one in their plan to take over Slashdot.

It's called embrace and extend.

Summary Title

[FatdogHaiku]

I think the Summary Title would have been better with some of Blamer quote...
Ballmer Admits "Didn't get the full release desired."

Microsoft and Innovation

[manekineko2]

Okay, strike the word innovation, which actually wasn't what I was looking for anyway and insert improvement.

Regarding your point though, I do strongly disagree, unless you define innovation in terms of only large ground-breaking break-throughs and not small-scale advancement.

Their R&D labs produce a large amount of interesting research.

In terms of the small-scale, Surface is definitely neat, the Office ribbon bar is (regardless of your opinions on its merits, as it does have its fans including myself) as far as I know a wholly new UI approach. They've been advancing the state of tablets and hand-writing recognition continually over the years. Their Bluetrack mice seem to be a solid improvement over the status quo. I could go on, but they've made a huge number of fairly innovative developments, both large and small, over the years.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[jipn4]

Surface is definitely neat

But not new.

the Office ribbon bar is

It's new alright, but so is H1N1.

They've been advancing the state of tablets and hand-writing recognition continually over the years.

Really? As evidenced by what?

I could go on, but they've made a huge number of fairly innovative developments, both large and small, over the years.

You haven't named a single innovation yet, not even a small one.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[Loomismeister]

Those all seemed pretty new and innovative to me. They certainly have improved the tablet market and handwriting recognition technology also.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[bigman2003]

Their tablets and pda's do have good handwriting recognition. Use one- they're good.

But for real input, handwriting recognition is eclipsed by having a keyboard, so it's not that big of a deal really.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

Their R&D labs produce a large amount of interesting research.

Only if you call marketing R & D. It`s enough to fool some people.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[jipn4]

Their tablets and pda's do have good handwriting recognition. Use one- they're good.

Good relative to what? Microsoft has driven anybody else building handwriting recognition systems for the mass market out of business.

(And most of that technology wasn't created at Microsoft anyway.)

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[bigman2003]

Sorry you aren't very good at using the Internet.

But if you 'Google' the term, "handwriting recognition" you will find many other devices/products/software packages that allow for handwriting recognition that are NOT produced by Microsoft.

But if your contribution to the conversation starts and ends with, "Good relative to what?" then I am guessing that the whole purpose of looking up information is lost on you.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[bigman2003]

Whoops!

In my rush to beat you at being an insufferable jerk, I forgot to make a good point.

When I said that their tablets and pdas do have good handwriting recognition, I mean exactly that. I mean, it is good. I've used it, it works. It understands what I am trying to write.

I'm not sure why it needs to be relative to anything, but if you NEED a comparison, how about: "It is very good compared to not having handwriting recognition."

Kinda like how 'light' is good...I guess you could say relative to 'dark', but sometimes dark is good too. But I still stand behind the statement that 'light is good.'

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[jipn4]

handwriting recognition" you will find many other devices/products/software packages that allow for handwriting recognition that are NOT produced by Microsoft.

Yes, you can find lots of devices that purport to do handwriting recognition. And Microsoft is probably good relative to them.

But if your contribution to the conversation starts and ends with, "Good relative to what?"

But that is the right question to ask.

Comparing Microsoft against the leftovers after Microsoft butchered the market only shows that Microsoft is currently better than the competition. In many cases, they achieved that not through innovation, but simply through killing anybody who was better than them (and in some cases buying the people or companies).

I have seen nothing that would suggest that Microsoft has innovated in handwriting recognition. They seem to be using the same technologies that were there 20 years ago: HMMs and statistical language models, and they don't seem to be getting any better results than those old systems (accounting for more powerful machines and more training data).

Microsoft Research is not a bad place and they do publish some useful stuff (and also a lot of crap, like any research lab). But in terms of actual products, Microsoft is innovating very little.

Sorry you aren't very good at using the Internet.

Sorry, but you aren't very good at using the Internet. It isn't sufficient to just type "handwriting recognition" into Google, you need to understand what the results mean. Obviously, you don't.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[jipn4]

When I said that their tablets and pdas do have good handwriting recognition, I mean exactly that. I mean, it is good. I've used it, it works. It understands what I am trying to write.

That doesn't mean it's innovation.

I'm not sure why it needs to be relative to anything, but if you NEED a comparison,

In order to be innovation, it needs to be good relative to what was there before. Otherwise, it may be a good product, but not an innovative product.

how about: "It is very good compared to not having handwriting recognition."

Yes, how about that. Particularly, since Microsoft is largely to blame for killing commercial handwriting recognition and tablet computers the first couple of times around.

Re:Microsoft and Innovation

[bigman2003]

Somehow you are mistaking me for someone who used the word, 'Innovation.'

I didn't.

I said that their handwriting recognition was, 'Good.'

Microsoft needs to start listening again...

[argent]

And not just in the Windows Mobile arena.

Microsoft did one really smart thing in the Windows Mobile / Pocket PC arena, back in 2000. They invited a bunch of Palm loyalists to Redmond, gave them Pocket PCs, and spent two years doing followups. AND they actually paid attention to the results. I was one of the "Palm Enthusiasts" they picked and I was absolutely amazed how much of our input went into Pocket PC 2002.

Palm responded by inviting us to join the "Palm Influencers" mailing list. Boy was that list mis-named If Palm had actually been listening to their customers for those two years, instead of flushing the company and product line down the drain in an attempt to come up with a Palm OS on steroids that was similar to Windows CE (and failing, twice) they would STILL own the handheld market.

On the other hand, we have Windows Vista and Windows 7 and more and more restrictions on what users can do on their own computers. Does ANYONE go to Microsoft and say "hey, I want you to lock me out of my computer"? No, it's just like Palm's vision of Garnet or Mudstone or whatever they were calling their new OS.

Ballmer: you need to go back and find Beth Goza and Derek Brown, the people who ran that event, and pay them WHATEVER IT TAKES to get them to take over from whoever you have dealing with your Windows customers now. Seriously.

Re:Microsoft needs to start listening again...

[Peaker]

The death of Microsoft as a prominent software company will be good for the world at large.

Re:I knew it

[symbolset]

4Q 2009. Intel will be bringing the vitality of the Windows Mobile Experience to Mobile Linux (Moblin) by porting Microsoft Silverlight to it. We may all anticipate the usual robust stability, inherent security, device and application compatibility and outstanding performance we've traditionally seen from mobile Windows products.

An Intel spokesperson might say:

We look forward to a durable and productive partnership with Microsoft on the Linux platform. Based on the long history of Microsoft product partnership successes and their long-term commitment to driving adoption of Linux from the palmtop to HPC, Microsoft has shown itself capable and well motivated to help us achieve our goals with Moblin.

Tweet

[pckl300]

Did he tweet that from Windows Mobile?

Re:I knew it

[gbarules2999]

And then when people start calling it "perfume" then he says, no, it's GNU/Perfume, you bastards, you ain't got nothin' without RMS' contribution.

Ya think?!

[geminidomino]

*Looks at his old Moto Q*
*Looks at his Palm Pro*

Yeah, Steve. I really fucking needed you to point that out to me.

"We screwed up Windows Mobile"...

[mmell]

Stevie, you need to end all your sentences one word earlier.

How are Windows desktop apps any different ?

[alphabetsoup]

The same argument you made can be made against windows desktop apps, in that there is no infrastructure for distribution and payment of applications on desktop. Yet there is an overabundance of windows desktop apps. Which leads one to believe the troubles of WinMo is elsewhere.

Re:How are Windows desktop apps any different ?

[dingen]

There is a huge infrastructure for distributing and payment in the desktop scene, because software for those platforms are available in regular stores. Software for mobiles however is not avaiable through such channels.

"I'm going to be modded down for this"

[Anonymous Coward]

it's spelled "cue", you fucking idiot.

Re:I knew it

[selven]

Just wait a few years, Windows 9 will probably be a ripoff of Wine/ReactOS.

Isn't this fairly standard MS practice?

[Lemming Mark]

I thought Microsoft had been being honest about their products' flaws for decades - once they've got a new one lined up to sell. Any company is going to keep product flaws quiet until they have a new one. I did have the impression MS had historically put more emphasis than many companies on the old product being *bad*, as well as the new one being good. Which would mean this announcement is somewhat in keeping as they're coming out with WM7 at some point...

What did they screw up?

[mollog]

I don't understand what Ballmer means. What did they screw up?

Sure they're running late (and I see he blamed the coders), but Microsoft's model - you make the hardware, we'll make the O/S - is a tough one to implement. Apple's product is in their control from soup to nuts; they have complete control of the hardware, the O/S, the applications, where the applications get sold. It's easier to get it right when you have that much control.

I think Microsoft is overreaching. They're trying to make a one-size-fits-all O/S. I think they need to partner with a platform maker, or buy a platform maker, and apply their talent to making that work. Of course, they'll be starting from behind.

Re:What did they screw up?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have. It's called the Xbox.

Re:What did they screw up?

[Dun Malg]

I don't understand what Ballmer means. What did they screw up?

It's screwed up by being byzantine and awkward. It may be that they're trying to be too one-size-fits-all with Windows Mobile, but the real problem is that it's completely incoherent. I've struggled with four WM phones over the last several years, starting with WM5. I stoically put up with it until recently, when a freind of mine showed me his Developer Preview model Google G2. The Google Android OS is everything WM should be, but isn't. Perhaps WM is a bit hobbled by the necessity of backwards compatibility, but that doesn't explain it entirely. I think there's too many people working on it. Like the old saying goes, "put three teams to work on a compiler and you'll get a three-pass compiler". Break the OS tasking into a bunch of modules, each with a different team, and you get a bunch of modules elbowing each other trying to do stuff.

Learn from Blizzard

[ruewan]

Maybe Microsoft should take a lesson from Blizzard and take more time to make sure that a product is good before they release it.

Re:Learn from Blizzard

[NuShrike]

Problem is Blizzard isn't doing that anymore. They don't want their programmers pulling Duke Nukem 3Ds anymore, so instead they just do Agile development and ship it as soon as possible. Then, follow-up with a "horde" of patches.

I agree !!

[0ld_d0g]

Yeah they raised to bar really high. They mercifully allowed users to only run only one app at a time. After all who needs more than one really? Not only that, the users would need to ask Apples permission to install applications without voiding their warranty.

I wonder if Apple fanbois realize they're fanbois..

Easy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Click n Run works, for free stuff and also paid for stuff. How much easier and user friendly can something get besides one click? You cruise the menu by topic or search, make selection, click, it downloads and installs. If you have made an account, it pays for the app if that is necessary, most of the apps are free like most are in linux. Is apple's app store better/easier than that? (never used it myself) And synaptic and various other GUI front ends for apt and .debs and on the rpm side are about as easy for that matter.

"We Screwed Up Windows Mobile"

[Anonymous Coward]

and that ain't all!

"Whoo-hoo! In your face, Ballmer!"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now apologize for Vista!"

Re:I knew it

[ClosedSource]

So Windows 9 will be a nested ripoff of Windows 95 (except it won't run all windows apps because it's based on Wine).

Let me fix it

[JustNiz]

Let me fix it:
Ballmer said the company had 'screwed up Windows'

There.

Decode (BIN to ASCII)

[Anonymous Coward]

0111 0111 0110 1001 0110 1110 0110 0100 0110 1111 0111 0111 0111 0011 0010 0000 0110 1101 0110 1111
0110 0010 0110 1001 0110 1100 0110 0101 0010 0000 0101 0011 0101 0101 0100 0011 0100 1011 0101 0011 0010 0001

Don't want to reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

The one thing I don't want to do is reboot my phone. With Windows Mobile 6 or 6.5 I find myself doing so at least once a week. It's really pathetic.

Freedoms

[bruce_the_loon]

I guess Apple would kick-ban any app that did that on the iPhone, wouldn't they.

Re:Freedoms

[johanatan]

Yep, and I bet their software architecture would probably not even allow such (without even more serious hacking at least). MS' software is surprisingly 'open' in this sense.

Dump DirectDraw/Direct3D if you're serious Balmer

[NuShrike]

Another reason nobody wants to seriously develop for Windows Mobile is because its the off-platform for graphics that has only be highly successful in holding the platform back. Thank you Don Couch.

Most graphics developers doing cross-platform have settled on OpenGL as the lowest-cost and highest portability API to use. But, Microsoft continues to push DirectDraw and Direct3D where 90% of their Window Mobile ODMs don't even bother hardware-accelerating by not shipping drivers like HTC (HTCClassAction.org), or ship inferior 3D in-house hardware with crappy or expensive drivers (Samsung/Qualcomm), and no FPU support in the OS even when the shipped CPU has one.

So, combined with the fact Windows Mobile is basically Windows 98 graphics-wise, WinCE5 IS Win98 (32MB max ram per process for instance), you have an ancient platform that doesn't support any advanced hardware, and cannot do so no matter how much you beat it.

Then MS goes on the anemic .NETCF push that is not only performance-sapping as writing your game apps in HTML on WebOS, but avoids the much needed rearchitecture for a high-performance modern GUI. Even Qt4 is more functional with more capability than .NETCF. I am beginning to believe at least a major portion of the Windows Mobile's software being based from India as a reason for all this lazy, low performance.

WM6.5 is Copeland -- WM7 will be Rhapsody.

These are serious fundamental, architectural problems that shipping a new OS and/or skin is NOT going to solve especially after ramping up development 5 years late.

Balmer, DUMP DirectDraw/Direct3D/.NETCF/WinCE5 and move forward from your current utter fail!

There is no Windows that is the Release you want

[Murdoch5]

Come on here, he's actually admitting the failed attempt from his own company. It's not just windows mobile that for lack of a better term sucks.

There has only ever been 2 Windows versions which have ever even come close to meeting the bar for good OS design. The first one was Windows 98 SE and the second was XP. Both were the only ones to ever not have serious flaw in the low level design and even more so in the user interface.

Anything up from XP is just a horrible experiment in just how bad code can be written and design can be screwed up. Lets not even talk about Vista which is now used to show first year C students in Colleges and University how bad unplanned software can end up. Windows 7 well improving most of the flaws from Vista still carries with it the over secure frame work that makes people want to rip there hair out. Not being able to install 3 party drivers which haven't been "signed" or really "We don't know how to make a stable kernel / user space so were going to stop you from being able to use your computer". Still lack of file system built in support. I don't care that people will come here and talk about how MS shouldn't be supporting EXT and ZFS etc... There real file systems that should be built into at least the user space but more so kernel.

Our old friend blue screen is back in full force in Windows 7, data pool errors seem frequent and having to edit the registry just to get a nice boot with unsigned drivers almost seems required. Sound cards are broken, Tunner cards don't work and even video problems. I'll give them this thou, the start bar is nice, if you don't turn the graphics enhancement off because it really does nothing to help performance.

We better not tell Ballmer this, he might break down and cry again, but this time we know to have tissue ready. Your company makes a broken OS that unfortunately run's most of the worlds computers. I wonder what would happen when they get any of there implementations of Windows right, a world with out broken windows and with out a need for us to pick up the glass.

I hate this

[V!NCENT]

It's a sign of healthy business. I want Microsoft to go down faster :(

"hopefully have an App store"

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah ... well, the Zune HD looks acceptable compared to the iPod touch and only offers apps which require you to watch 30 second commercials before you can use them, so ... meh.