Microsoft 'ZunePhone' in Jan 2009?

[Arthur]

Rumor: Zune Phone Is Coming to CES 2009

After years of rumors and brusque denials, it appears the Zune phone is the real deal.

According to Trip Chowdhry, an analyst at Global Equities Research, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will announce a Zune-style mobile device during his keynote address at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, on January 7, 2009.

... more

Earlier rumour here.

While you're about it, read why Wired recommend the Zune 2 over the iPod.

 

[BeVonk!]

I would expect a huge company with so may resources to come up with stuff like this first ... but they follow others like Apple ... trying like hell to catch up. WinMo is a perfect example ... in my opinion its never been the product that Microsft should be capable of producing. They should have customer needs/wants/preferences tied down like no-one else ... but they haven't ... and now we are told that they know what is wrong with WM 6 and will fix it in versions 7 and 8 ... BUT where will Apple and Symbian be by then?! They're chasing instead of setting the pace.

 

[BeVonk!]

Desperate people/companies come up with brilliant ideas. Microsoft isn't desperate, so they just follow to capture market share. Why can't Microsoft come up with iPod and iPhone ideas? If I was the CEO I would have demanded answers ... and fired the fat off the company.

 

[Rouxenator]

This will be interesting. Another start-up to be put to shame by the almighty N97.

 

[R13...]

microloss should give it up already!
the zune is a humongous failure as it is & that's their 4th attempt at making inroads into the portable music business & they keep failing. i mean the only thing msloss got right (or monopolised successfully) is desktop and they shud stick to that.

 

[broken1]

Is this just not another Windows Mobile Cellphone?

 

[dlk001]

Is this just not another Windows Mobile Cellphone?

Yeah, I would also like to know what will be special about this phone?

 

[Arthur]

Sigh, here we go again with the MSkeptics and MSlaggers.

Sure, WinMobile's exterior is long in the tooth now -- maybe even a spandex granny -- but there's much more to the OS story than appearances. Not too long ago Windows Mobile (or Windows CE, its predecessor) was by far the richest embedded/compact OS in town, though not the most widely adopted owing to licence pricing. Later, in 2000, a version for smartphones and PDAs was released. It's origins lie in the early PDA days when hardware manufacturers inter alia demanded an OS that used cheaper volatile memory so that they could drive device costs down. WinCE is still unmatched in functional richness and sophisticated power management to mention just two arenas. WinCE is a true modularised multitasking OS with deterministic interrupt latency, multithreading and a very rich set of APIs. It has an outstanding development platform. You should not confuse the rather old-fashioned UI and core app set with the underlying operating system, which is widely hailed by operating system designers as a remarkable piece of engineering. Because MS has in the past said it won't compete with handset manufacturers, it has introduced largely invisible enhancements to make implementation easy. But that may be changing - I have no inside info. And as new more powerful hardware at lower price points comes out and other compact platforms become more viable, MSFT is sure to respond. WM7 will up the ante considerably, you can be sure. And above all, you want to leverage the massive applications base and development expertise out there. After all, it's app and solution developers that enable real function.

Now that the mobile space has reached a critical point in global revenues, you can bet your bottom dollar MS is going to respond aggressively, just as it did in the gaming console space. Any upcoming "ZunePhone" or whatever it's called, will follow the usual Microsoft trajectory:
1) Toe in water to get a placeholder and learn (already done with WinCE/WM)
2) Refinement and enhancement - ongoing cycles based on lessons learned - where we are today
3) Leverage key technology change for marketshare leadership - next 12-24 months

Zune was a test, not a strategy. Still, some geeks like those at Wired, reckon it's the best portable media player.

The mobile space is beginning to hot up. By next year this time things should be cooking, with an all-out war. It should be fun for us users. And you can be certain MSFT will leverage desktop-LAN/WAN-enterprise connectivity and data transparency & portability, which is where the market is going.

The underlying OS in WM is elegant, fast, modular and functionally rich. Before you write off WM as antique, remember that many or even most of today's non-MS operating systems trace their genesis to the 1960s, starting with Multics which became Unix. Of course they've been enhanced, with a myriad new UIs and adapted kernels and such, but the architecture for Linux, MacOS/OSX and other is 1960s vintage. Android, the Linux-kernel based OHA opsys, was a small start-up firm acquired by Google over 3 years ago, and it's taken them 4 years to get here, with one phone on the market. It's early days yet, and we're in for fun.

 

[anathema]

Desperate people/companies come up with brilliant ideas. Microsoft isn't desperate, so they just follow to capture market share. Why can't Microsoft come up with iPod and iPhone ideas? If I was the CEO I would have demanded answers ... and fired the fat off the company.

As Steve Jobs once said in an interview: He is not here to make money but to innovate and innovate Apple has done with him at the helm.

 

[Rouxenator]

Arthur, everything you say is true bit you are forgetting one small thing. Symbian. It is is the biggest smartphone OS out there and its history is as rish, if not richer, that that of CE. They share some similarities if I am not mistaken, but in terms of performance nothing can match Symbian.

 

[Arthur]

Arthur, everything you say is true bit you are forgetting one small thing. Symbian. It is is the biggest smartphone OS out there and its history is as rish, if not richer, that that of CE. They share some similarities if I am not mistaken, but in terms of performance nothing can match Symbian.

Yes, you're right. I was going to mention Symbian but the post was getting too long. Symbian is the titan in smartphones today. Outstanding performance, and highly optimised for the handset market. My very first PDA in the mid-80s was a Psion Organiser, later models of which ran an opsys that eventually became Symbian. Yes, Symbian is an outstanding handset operating system, the market leader by far.

As I see it, the longer term threat to Symbian is the fact that it's now owned by Nokia (as of last week). Why is this a threat? Because when hardware and software companies become vertically integrated they tend to close up the systems in order to protect profitability (usually of hardware). Even if they don't, other handset makers become more reluctant to support the software because they see it as adding revenue to their hardware competitor. This is a serious strategic challenge for Symbian, as its longer term development is closely tied to the success of Nokia. This is the main reason why MSFT has avoided doing generalised hardware.

Still, Symbian is the 900lb gorilla that everyone else trails.

 

[Rouxenator]

Nice to deal with someone that knows what they are talking about

Yes - Symbian is mainly backed by Nokia, but there are also other manufacturers that use and contribute to Symbian, like LG and Samsung. The new Samsung INNOV8 is a pretty awesome Symbian phone and it just goes to show how good Symbian can be. Once they get their hands on V9.4 and V9.5 with its optimized touch interface support I am sure the Koreans will churn out a few amazing handsets with it.

Open Symbian is also another move from Nokia to keep them from smothering their own creation.

 

[BeVonk!]

I've done the Psion to Palm Pilot to CE to Symbian journey that started in the mid 90's. I remember the early Palm vs CE battles well ... and was in the midst of a corporate decision to go either way. The CE route was chosen as it offered more muscle on paper ... but we learned a hard lesson soon after this decision ... the end user determines the success or failure of the solution and the end users in this case hated CE so much that they never used the Compaq/HP handheld devices (and could not be "forced" to do so). The Palm OS did not have the muscle and bells and whistles, but it was simple to use, and that is what people want. It's truly unfortunate that Palm slumped the way it did (thanks to Microsoft's aggressive push of "feature rich" but hard to use CE).

 

[Arthur]

The Palm OS did not have the muscle and bells and whistles, but it was simple to use, and that is what people want. It's truly unfortunate that Palm slumped the way it did (thanks to Microsoft's aggressive push of "feature rich" but hard to use CE).

Yeah, I know what you mean. It was sad to see Palm shrink and divide to irrelevance, but they really had only themselves to blame because they failed to timeously recognise the shift in platform from handheld organiser to "pocket pc" to smartphone/PDA. They also held PalmOS too close and too closed, especially when users wanted better desktop integration - a classic error of countless tech innovators trying to protect early-gained marketshare. Palm/Handspring itself eventually capitulated at the high end, and brought out a WM-based Treo.

One of the interesting things to watch is how platform builders span the inevitable segmentation in handheld devices. Can anyone deliver a scalable platform from low-cost small footprint simple phones all the way to the 'palm-top' phone / media / camera / navigation / access / client omni-terminal with enterprise apps? At the moment Symbian is best placed in the low-end and middle segments (by far the largest in numbers if not revenues), with WM a distant second though a little stronger at the top. Android is not even on the radar because they can't address the much larger entry-level and mid-range device market. There are two countervailing forces: device-makers want differentiation to protect margins (otherwise this business becomes a pure price game, which after a brutal war leaves only a handful of players), and users who want fuller function to ever lower price points.

Back to the ZunePhone topic: I'd be rather surprised if MSFT did anything other than an exemplar device. It would certainly signal a departure from the traditional MSFT strategy of driving platform APIs onto other people's hardware. MSFT has long known that hardware commoditizes over time, with price and margins ever lower. When I was there ('retired' 12 years ago) the only reason for doing hardware was to enable or control the software. Perhaps the gaming console market provides a parallel parable. What drove the company into gaming consoles was the recognition that the game software market was massive, that gamers were IEUs (influential end-users, ie they influence other people's purchases), and that other vendors controlled the platform and hence developers. New-generation consoles were threatening to encroach on traditional and new PC areas, particularly as media terminals, and so MSFT felt compelled to enter the console market to protect its APIs from being eroded in the PC space and perhaps to take share in the console space. The same ideas might well be behind the "ZunePhone" (I doubt it will be called that).

If there is indeed a MS-Phone in the works, MSFT faces a much bigger challenge than with Xbox in the console space, in which 3 vendors had 95% marketshare: there are many more handset vendors, with many more established MS relationships, and a much larger scalability requirement. Interesting times ahead.

 

[BeVonk!]

I hear talk of a "Nano" version of the iPhone. Apple wants a chunk of the lower segments too.

Arthur, where do you see this going? If you had to invest in one of (1) Apple, (2) WinMO, (3) Symbian, (4) Google (Android), who will it be looking 3 to 5 years ahead?

 

[Arthur]

Arthur, where do you see this going? If you had to invest in one of (1) Apple, (2) WinMO, (3) Symbian, (4) Google (Android), who will it be looking 3 to 5 years ahead?

Hehe, good question, BeVonk!. I'm not a seer. Five years is a long time, and new technologies can be game changers, as can older technologies at new price points.

Based on past experience, much depends on how the various players execute not just the technology but especially the critical relationships (handset makers, integrators, developers, channel, network providers, etc).

Some random comments:

(1) To put it gently, Apple don't have a great track record of opening up their platforms to other players, prefering to market their own stuff with narcissistic appeals to 'coolness'. I can't really see that changing much in the next few years. They'll still be around, with plenty of hype from Oupa Steve, but volume-wise only marginal. But if Apple changes strategy, opens OS X to the general Intel market, or licences OS X Desktop and iPhone OS/"OS X Mobile", things can change quickly. One key will be how they can manage relationships with IHVs, an area in which they have zero experience and track record.

(2) Microsoft is not about to disappear. It has established relationships with handset makers, developers, users, and the channel. And it has the desktop, which is still where most ornery people interact with their data. If it sticks to the software knitting, brings the WM UI into the 21st century, successfully leverages its desktop dominance, and continues to deliver excellent dev tools to ISVs it can ratchet up marketshare significantly. Just like in the PC space, there's a large middle body of 'appliance' users who just want their stuff to work seamlessly with their other devices. In the medium term MS will fight into Symbian's territory in the middle and fight off Symbian's assault at the high end. For PC-centric users who see their handset as a mobile extension of their desktop, Microsoft will deliver good capability and integration. For mobile-centric users who see their desktop as a feeder for their handset, the field is wide open - and if a newly aggressive Microsoft finds the will, it has the technology and market muscle to dominate. Its biggest strategic threat is its own success in dominating the markets it goes after ... people don't like dominant players and sooner or later turn against them, blaming them for just about everything that goes wrong.

(3) Symbian will continue to develop technically and deliver outstanding function and performance. But because it's now wholly owned by Nokia, it runs the risk of scaring off Nokia's handset competitors. Symbian recognise this of course, which is why the Symbian Foundation (SF) was established. Much depends on how Nokia deliver to the SF and the extent to which they listen to and incorporate member proposals and requirements; if they run SF with a heavy hand the SF will fall apart because Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG, and NTT are fighting for the same users as Nokia, and there's no way they're going to tie their market penetration to their largest competitor's technology (other SF partners like AT&T and Vodafone are agnostic). Apart from this, another weakness is in the emerging mobile enterprise apps space; if this segment turns out to be Quite a Big Thing they'll have a tough time because the Symbian dev workbenches/SDKs don't much recognise the existence of the Windows desktop to develop hybrid / portable / platform-spanning apps. Still, whichever way you look at it, Symbian is and will continue to a major of not the major player in volumes if not revenues. Nokia has an aggressive technology path and it will continue to be a tech leader for many years to come.

(4) Despite being in the works for more than 4 years, Android is an unknown. There's still a lot of criticism from potential partners, integrators and developers, especially with regard to its non-standard Java, the fact that it's not really open source, and that it's bug-ridden and poorly documented. I'm sure Google are working hard to address these shortcomings. Assuming they fix these issues over the next year, I don't think they'll initially play in Microsoft's WM sandpit but rather go after Nokia's Symbian partners at the high end. Of course everyone will do a few Android handsets, but the real test comes in sales volumes not column centimeters. Google still has a certain geeky coolness factor, in part because it's a hope against Microsoft the Evil Empire. However, I believe that at some point people will start reacting to Google's SE dominance and it will lose a lot of shine, just as Microsoft did. Already influential voices are openly saying Google must die. I'm personally quite excited by Android, but mainly because of the hope that it will attract wide support from app developers.

Bottom line: I'm largely agnostic about the technologies and brands. Symbian and Microsoft will probably emerge as the leading players, with the others having their segments. Of course no-one can be all things to all people, and thankfully there'll be many players with many options addressing the wide range of user needs. Some want cool. Some want geek. Some want price. Some want speed. Some want power. Some want compatibility. Some want media. Some want web. Some want omni-function. Some want function-focus. Some want simple. Et cetera. Speaking personally, I still live in a Windows desktop, and while that's the case (it can change), I want my PDA phone to share data, media and apps with my desktop and with as many others as possible. It's far from perfect today, and it probably never will be. But it is getting better each year. Which is why I'll probably stick with WM - not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But good enough-ish.

 

[BeVonk!]

Thanks Arthur! Really a joy to read your posts. You clearly know this business and you must forigive us for asking so many questions (you should have your own blog ).

1) Can Palm recover at all? What strategy can/should they use? Is there a future for their own OS?
2) Do you know if there is an OS newcomer with huge potential that could threaten the big players in years to come?
3) Where do you see RIM/Blackberry in all of this?

 

[Arthur]

No Zune phone at CES, says Microsoft

Microsoft has officially silenced speculation that it will launch a Zune phone at the Consumer Electronics Show next month.

In a short but sweet statement, Brian Seitz, MS' Zune chief, told US website Gizmodo that it won't announce a "Zune phone at CES”.

I'm not surprised. This is much more in line with traditional MS strategy to push software onto other people's hardware.

 

[Arthur]

Is Android Really a Threat? Will Google Get Any Love?

This was quite interesting:

Is Android Really a Threat? Will Google Get Any Love?

February 12th, 2009 at 05:39 AM

With Mobile World Congress just around the corner--be sure to tune into pocketnow.com to keep abreast of all the news--it seems that Android is not getting much love...

...So with all the hype and buzz behind Android and its maker Google, is it really a threat? Windows Mobile did well last year, outselling the iPhone despite earlier concerns and delivering over 20 million handsets--to hopefully happy customers. Despite the platform being a bit long in the tooth and in need of some serious overhauls coming in Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7, Windows Mobile still delivers. Unless something serious is coming from the Do No Evil company, perhaps Google will be best served if it abandoned Android and develop compelling mobile applications for mainstay platforms like Windows Mobile. Can Android really compete with the big dogs in a dog-eat-dog world for smartphone dominance?

More here.