One of the mysteries in technology for me right now is how the very, very bright sparks at Microsoft can know in their bones that something is deeply wrong, but consistently identify the wrong issues and solutions.
I keep thinking that Bill will turn round one day and say “Aha, you all fell for my cunning plan! When I was talking about Google, we were secretly developing our strategy for mobile and it’s this! We’re merging with Nokia!”
Or some such thing.
So, when I read the headlines on Associated Press today about a leaked Gates’ memo talking about a “sea change”, my first reaction was “Here we go; Microsoft and mobile at last. What’s the little tinker finally going to do?”. (In passing, I wonder if Mr Gates has ever been called a “little tinker” before?).
But it doesn’t even mention mobile, but focuses on web services and how Microsoft is being out-innovated by the likes of Google and SalesForce.com.
Now, yes, web services are vitally important, but only because the market is moving to thin client models, with the grunt work of applications happening over the network. BUT it’ll be mobile phones that’ll be the thin clients, as the day of the desk top is rapidly coming to a close. Unless you understand that bigger picture, Microsoft will remain steering their ship in the wrong direction in the wrong damn sea.
Microsoft’s mobile strategy is to focus on the terminally sick PDA market, where the players remind me of bed-ridden men fighting over disco tickets for tonight. It doesn’t matter who wins as none of them will make the party.
two bald men fighting over a comb, surely!
Ahh…well
And what exactly is so important about mobile? There are exactly two important uses for mobile: payments and location-based services. I think it was this blog that stated there is not much demand for tv on your cell-phone beyond breaking news and sports. I think some sort of archos/770-type device will fill the niche of mobile entertainment device, not cell-phones, and I don’t see this being a big market beyond music. Most people don’t want to watch video on a small form-factor device when they can just go home and sit in front of their 50″ HDTV. Also, video-on-the-go doesn’t have the near religious devotion that people have to music-on-the-go. I suppose I can find the justification for the importance of mobile by digging through your generally well thought-out posts but I’d like a quick justification. btw, Gates knows what he’s doing when it comes to the big picture of mobile at least.
It’s funny that the exactly two uses you see for mobile are two areas that time and time again have failed to take off. The most important use of mobile, obviously, is communication.
And what’s so important about mobile? To start, compare the number of phone users to the number of people with computers, or that use the Internet.
Then, compare the number of those phone owners that always have a phone with them to the number of people that always have a computer (or any other electronic device, really), with them at all times.
Mobile is important because of its ubiquity and as a network connection — not just to the Internet, but to the human network.
And…. Look at how mobile has changed the way we communicate with each other. Look at the way mobile is changing the way we consume various bits of entertainment. Look at how it’s affecting something very niche like the aviation industry with regards to letting people communicate via mobile on airplanes. All of that is just the tip of the iceburg. Noooo, it isn’t important for software and media companies to establish a foothold in mobile at all.
Regarding some of your comments, the fact that payment and location services have failed so far is not much of an argument against them. I’m sure all the flickrs of the past failed till digital cameras and broadband became more prevalent. As for the importance of mobile, let’s be clear here: I’m defining mobile as the cell-phone, which you rightly point out is practically ubiquitous. I just think that other mobile devices with different form factors will eventually provide the services that everybody is currently trying to shoehorn into the cell-phone. People will start carrying tablets like the nokia 770 to play games or listen to music or watch movies on the go. To the extent that these devices are nonexistent right now, it IS NOT important to be in mobile yet. To the extent that nobody wants to do more complicated tasks on the tiny form factor that mobility requires, mobile will NOT soon unseat the existing computing infrastructure.