Robbie Bach is the President of the Entertainment and Devices at Microsoft. He spent yesterday addressing analysts at the annual Financial Analyst Meeting but didn’t talk too much about Windows Mobile 7. Windows Mobile 6.5 is now slated for October and he admitted that Microsoft had fallen behind rivals in comments to CNET..
“If your point is we haven’t advanced Windows Mobile as fast as we like, I think the answer is that’s true…You are going to see that change. The next thing we are going to show people is Windows Mobile 6.5. There’s plenty of innovation in the pipeline.”
Although Microsoft now admit that they have lost ground, there’s still no real response from Windows Mobile other than to invest heavily in the Windows Phone “brand” and bring the obvious business success to the consumer space. They’ve also indicated that choice needs to be maintained – “one phone is not going to build volume”.
Even CEO Steve Ballmer stated yesterday…
“It was a tough year on succeeding with phones. Mostly our own issues frankly.”
We’re still a little worried though. As months pass and 6.5 still isn’t available, Windows Mobile 7 seems to be an even more distant hope. Investing heavily into the “Windows Phone” brand seems to be counter-productive as phone manufacturers are doing their best to hide the fact that you’re using a “Windows Phone”. Robbie Bach was also quoted as saying that the increased push into the consumer space “is going to play out over the next 3 to 5 years”. This is an insane timeframe – Windows Mobile is being shot at from every angle, even firing bullets at itself at times. Make this 3-5 months and we have a chance. 3-5 years is simply ridiculous. In the mobile world it’s months, not years. To make matters worse, and following on from our Motorola story yesterday, there’s further evidence that Motorola may have completely dumped Windows Mobile in favour of Google Android.
Links – CNET.com – Washington Post – Gigaom.com