An Open Letter to Windows Mobile by Osiris

[adamz]

Some one named Osiris has posted anopen letter to Windows Mobile (http://austechreview.zoomshare.com/files/Open_Letter/An_Open_Letter_WM.htm) which begs Microsoft and it's partners to properly improve upon Windows Mobile and finally get it into the public's eye. It's certainly worth a read. Feel free to pass it along to any one who may have influence in the development and marketting of the Windows Mobile operating system.


Furthermore as should be apparent now, encourage a closer and more importantly, public, strategic collaboration between the hardware vendors and Microsoft. Both of your futures are tied to this platform, it’s a robust hardware device with many software features and a tonne of uses, but these must be enhanced, visually and functionally.

Secondly the platform must be promoted. You have a technologically advanced and highly convergent device rivalled by no other platform. The devices despite being geared for enterprise have many features consumer users could gain from them, particularly since the cost of many of the devices has become comparably affordable (aka HTC Touch). Its time consumers were made aware from joint marketing between the hardware and software vendor.

The IPhone has done a good job (as was expected from the hype and the eye candy interface) of capturing the consumer market. Now despite a consensus that the IPhone isn’t ready for business use, don’t be naïve enough to think this will always be the case. I don’t want to give Apple any ideas, but it strikes me if they were to buy up Pocket Breeze or Agenda Fusion etc and adapt it to the IPhone platform, maybe add some functional word, excel and pdf viewing capabilities, and correct some limited (and quite fixable issues) with the interface, you would surely have a sleek stylish well known business rival to the Windows Mobile platform.

Apple has the easy job here, it’s the only face behind the iPhone, its not HTC producing a device and then powered by Windows, its just apple and its iPhone; it doesn’t have to worry about collaborating with a partner, only telecommunication carriers that are dying to supply the device to consumers.

It stands to reason that if Windows Mobile can do this and more, and without the restrictions of the iphone, it should be the HTC Touch et al, that carriers are dying to sell to consumers, yet its not is it?

[Brandon Miniman]

Hum -- who is Osiris, and where did you find this?

I don't agree with this guy. Strategic collaboration would result in slower product releases and more similar devices. The Windows Mobile world is glowing with new releases being announced every few days. There are about a dozen form factors now available to us, and most of the choices are solid devices with high reliability. This argument may have flown a few years ago, but WM has matured recently.

And promotion? Is he serious? I see ads in newspapers, magazine, and TV DAILY for WM devices. AT&T is screaming 8525, T-Mobile loves the Wing, Verizon is obsessed with the Q9m, and that's just in the US! Now, more than ever, are WM devices becoming consumer products, rather then just enterprise devices.

[Pony99CA]

Hum -- who is Osiris, and where did you find this?
I believe this was originally placed on MTekk (http://www.mtekk.com.au/Articles/tabid/54/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/802/An-open-letter--Windows-Mobile.aspx), and was making its way around the PDA sites (I heard about it through a Google News alert). I don't know who Osiris is, but he's not a very good writer (as I mentioned in my MTekk forum comments (http://www.mtekk.com.au/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/5/postid/77679/view/topic/Default.aspx)). The first three paragraphs are totally craptastic with run-on sentences, and the rest isn't much better.

However, I think his points are decent.

I don't agree with this guy. Strategic collaboration would result in slower product releases and more similar devices. The Windows Mobile world is glowing with new releases being announced every few days. There are about a dozen form factors now available to us, and most of the choices are solid devices with high reliability. This argument may have flown a few years ago, but WM has matured recently.
In what way? Osiris wanted a strategic collaboration between hardware vendors and Microsoft. How will that result in more similar devices? I'd think that if various hardware vendors had more say, we'd see more diversity in the devices, not less.

I don't think Osiris was talking about some sort of long process, but more along the lines of getting OEM input about what would make their devices better. (But maybe Microsoft does that already and Osiris doesn't see that, hence why he wanted it to be public. I doubt Microsoft will go that far, though.)

In fact, I'd also like to see more end user collaboration. I believe I've seen both you and Adam complain about features being removed from (like the flexible E-mail download settings) or changed in (like the Reply softkey in Messaging) in WM 6. Maybe more user input would have adjusted Microsoft's thinking.

And what about the long-standing confusion about Calendar appointments and time zone changes? Microsoft still hasn't made it easy to use the Calendar correctly.

If they don't do it already, I think running early Windows Mobile prototypes by MVPs would be a good start. And by "early prototype", I don't mean something like a beta where it's probably too late to change function, but early concepts where functional changes can be made, not just bug fixes.

And promotion? Is he serious? I see ads in newspapers, magazine, and TV DAILY for WM devices. AT&T is screaming 8525, T-Mobile loves the Wing, Verizon is obsessed with the Q9m, and that's just in the US! Now, more than ever, are WM devices becoming consumer products, rather then just enterprise devices.
Yes, but those ads are promoting devices, not the platform. How many of those ads really mention Windows Mobile as a main focus?

I think Osiris wants Microsoft to build up demand for Windows Mobile, so people going to stores will say "What Windows Mobile devices do you have?", not "What smart phones do you have?"

And how many times have users of WM devices been asked "Is that a Palm Pilot?" or "Is that a BlackBerry?" I think Osiris wants to turn that around. How is that a bad idea?

Steve

[Brandon Miniman]

If hardware OEMs and MS did some strategic collaboration, MS would be likely to set forth certain criterion that must be in place (sort of like they do now, but to a greater extent). For example... minimum battery life, minimum processor, location of hard keys, etc. There would have to be close cooperation from the part of the OEMs in order to keep up in a "strategic" collaboration.

MS likes us to believe that they do a lot of end-user collaboration (esp with their Windows products) but in reality they don't.

And, regarding advertising - don't remember if you recall, but MS launched a HUGE ad campaign focused around WM 5.0. Bus stops, magazine ads, etc...remember "Outlook in your pocket"?

[Pony99CA]

If hardware OEMs and MS did some strategic collaboration, MS would be likely to set forth certain criterion that must be in place (sort of like they do now, but to a greater extent). For example... minimum battery life, minimum processor, location of hard keys, etc. There would have to be close cooperation from the part of the OEMs in order to keep up in a "strategic" collaboration.
Like you said, Microsoft spells a lot out already. Remember when Pocket PC ran on three processor classes (Hitachi SH, MIPS & ARM)? In Pocket PC 2002, Microsoft cut that back to just ARM (even though Windows CE still supports multiple processor types). Pocket PCs had to have IR ports (at least until recently, I think) and other characteristics.

I view the collaboration as being the other way, though. OEMs would tell Microsoft what kind of devices and functions they wanted, and Microsoft would make some of those available in future versions of the OS.

Microsoft does some of that now, or at least sees what devices come out and adds the popular features. That's probably why there's a Microsoft Bluetooth stack, WiFi support, VGA support and GPS virtualization in Windows Mobile now.

But what about more? For example, I'd like a device with more buttons. Or what about built-in biometric support?

While it's true that more vendors might then adopt those features, making them more "me-too", a lot of them won't. That's obvious because not all Windows Mobile devices today have WiFi or GPS or VGA screens.

But let's assume that all vendors did implement those featues. Why is that a bad thing? It would just reset our expectations higher and raise the bar on innovation. That's got to be a good thing. :)

MS likes us to believe that they do a lot of end-user collaboration (esp with their Windows products) but in reality they don't.
Which makes me wonder why they have the MVP program at all sometimes. If you're not going to listen to the people you think best represent the Windows Mobile community, what's the point?

And, regarding advertising - don't remember if you recall, but MS launched a HUGE ad campaign focused around WM 5.0. Bus stops, magazine ads, etc...remember "Outlook in your pocket"?
I can't say that I do remember that. I don't ride the bus, so I don't check out bus stop ads, and I rarely read any magazines any more.

I did hear a Verizon radio ad today for the Q 9m that specifically mentioned Windows Mobile 6, but it focused on the device, not the OS (which makes sense here).

Even if Microsoft did those ads, maybe they need to do more. Make people aware of the things that Windows Mobile can do, both for personal and business uses. ("Who needs an iPod Nano when you can have 1000 songs on your Windows Mobile phone?")

Just some thoughts....

Steve