BRIAN LIVINGSTON: "Window Manager" from InfoWorld.com, Monday, April 1, 2002

So - Microsoft going to try to do a "Netscape" on the mobile phone
manufacturer are they !   Vultures !   ;-)

...Neil

----- Forwarded by Neil Palmer/DPS on 2002/04/01 15:15 -----


WindowManager@bdcimail.com



        To:     NeilP@DPSlink.com
        cc:
        Subject:        BRIAN LIVINGSTON: "Window Manager" from InfoWorld.com, 
Monday, April 1,
2002


========================================================
BRIAN LIVINGSTON:     "Window Manager"     InfoWorld.com
========================================================

Monday, April 1, 2002

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MICROSOFT'S HANDSET WAR

Posted March 29, 2002 01:01 PM  Pacific Time


I WROTE LAST week that major players such as Nokia and
Sony Ericsson are coming out with "smart phones" based
on Symbian rather than Windows (see "
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/03/25/020325opwinman.xml
," March 25).

Now another handset leader, Samsung, is making Symbian
phones, too. The company has issued no formal
statement, but its executives are clear. "You can see
that we've been using the Palm operating system,"
spokeswoman Denise Clark tells me, "and we're going to
be using Symbian."

This is significant because Samsung was the only one of
the five leading cell-makers to sign up for Windows
Smart Phone software. Microsoft made much ado about
this last year. But no such models shipped. When I
asked Samsung product planner Byung-Jik Jaegal whether
or not his company's line will include Windows this
year, he answered, "Maybe, but it's not decided yet."

Microsoft is intensely interested in the cell-phone
market. In the handheld PDA world, vendors of
Windows-powered Pocket PCs are easily persuaded to
design new models that add antennas and voice
features. Several such hybrid Pocket PCs are already
prepped to appear on the market this year.

But cell phones are different. Consumers expect them to
be cheap and tiny, so they can carry them everywhere.
Perhaps as a result, worldwide sales of PDA-format
handhelds were only about 12 million units in 2001.
That's nice, but compare it with cell-phone sales in
the same period: 400 million.

Microsoft wants Windows to be in that number of
devices, but it has been rejected so far by the major
cell-phone makers. So the software giant has changed
its strategy. It's now going to try to run the bigger
mobile manufacturers out of business.

I realize this sounds preposterous. But we're talking
Microsoft here, so stay with me. This is not an April
Fools' joke.

Microsoft has made deals with Intel and Texas
Instruments to build a reference design chipset so
that any sweatshop can snap some plastic around to
create a working handset. (With Windows built in,
you'll be able to crash your phone without actually
dropping it on the floor.)

Microsoft is persuading cellular-service carriers to
label these "clone phones" with their own logos, then
give them away rather than sell the major makers'
brands. This campaign uses that old convincer: money.
The European edition of The Wall Street Journal
reported on March 14 that Microsoft is sharing its
Windows-powered wealth from MSN and other services
with Deutsche Telekom, the German parent of
VoiceStream, and presumably others.

In the future, will you be able to get any cell phone
you want, as long as it runs Windows? I believe the
mobile-phone leaders will avoid being "Netscaped" by
Microsoft. Nokia has already inked its own
reference-design deal with Texas Instruments, based on
an open-software platform. Let freedom ring.

Send tips to brian@brianlivingston.com. He regrets that
he cannot answer individual questions. Go to
http://www.iwsubscribe.com/newsletters  to get his
Window Manager column and E-Business Secrets e-zine
free via e-mail.



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MORE WINDOW MANAGER
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QUOTE OF THE DAY:
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fun with their computers reduces burnout and improves
morale. Such intangible benefits might seem less
important in the current economic climate, but things
will turn around. Contented employees stay put longer
and lure talented candidates by telling friends how cool
their workplace is."

--"Enterprise Strategies" columnist Tom Yager.

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/04/01/020401opestrat.xml?0401mnlv

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