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What Microsoft Must Do To Save Its Mobile Business

Posted by kdawson on from the take-two-cyanide-pills-and-call-me-in-the-morning dept.

GMGruman writes "Microsoft has tossed out its mobile management team (without admitting to doing so), but is that enough to make Microsoft matter in mobile? InfoWorld's Galen Gruman argues that a lot more is needed than a management change if Microsoft hopes to have a future in the emerging mobile world. In his blog, he lays out a tough five-point prescription for Microsoft to get back in the game. For starters, Microsoft has to get out of its well-established cultural mindset that it's OK to ship crap that it might fix later on."

3 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Or maybe not by TheKidWho · · Score: 4, Informative

    They certainly don't use iPhones to bill your credit card for purchases anyway

    Yes, yes they do. When I went there to purchase my iPad, the entire sale was done via an iPhone. They have little printers underneath the tables that print out your receipt too.

  2. Re:Symbian is not the problem by JanneM · · Score: 3, Informative

    "the next generation Symbian will have Qt as user interface."

    Qt isn't a user interface, it's a UI toolkit. The interface is almost completely orthogonal to this. Almost - you need a toolkit that can easily support the UI you want to build. But Qt, or GTK, or the Windows or OSX toolkits are all made for producing windowing user interfaces. Which is the cause of much of the trouble for Microsofts phone and PDA business, which doomed previous Linux-based mobile devices and which pushed Apple and Google to start from scratch with new systems specifically for mobile devices rather than trying to adapt existing stuff.

    A heavily customized Qt - as in, forget source compatibility with desktop apps - may possibly work for a tablet-sized device. Qt for mobiles is likely dead from the start. If Nokia does make a serious go of it, it will have little but the name in common with the desktop toolkit.

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  3. Re:Or maybe not by StuartHankins · · Score: 3, Informative
    My understanding is you can use ad-hoc distribution for internal apps with no minimum number of employees. They also specifically have another level of distribution (the base level) which allows internal distribution to up to 100 devices.

    Ad Hoc Distribution Share your application with up to 100 other iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch users with Ad Hoc distribution. Share your application through email, or by posting it to a web site or server.

    http://developer.apple.com/programs/iphone/distribute.html#compare