Microsoft gets mobile to make up lost ground
Ballmer was making his first appearance at the world’s largest cellular technology showcase in Barcelona last week, and drew a capacity crowd of operators, handset manufacturers and software developers anxious to hear Microsoft’s plans to dominate the sector.
“I hear a lot from mobile operators, ‘are you friends or foes?’ We come as friends,” he said.
“We have learnt over the last several years how essential it is to have the right partnerships with people who build chips and devices and with operators.”
As cellphones evolve into power-packed replacements for computers, Microsoft has been left behind. Desktop computers are losing importance as people do more of their work on a mobile device.
Smart phones, not PCs, are becoming “the fundamental source of entertainment, productivity and information in their lives”, Ballmer acknowledged.
“We see so much of the growth potential for our business in mobility.”
Microsoft is so convinced that mobile devices provide a bigger growth opportunity than computers that Ballmer now spends more time meeting fixed- and mobile-network operators than with any other technology providers.
Microsoft is pinning its hopes partly on the Windows Mobile operating system, which had an inauspicious start three years ago when only one device was using that software. But its aggressive focus on mobility has seen 47 manufacturers, including Hewlett Packard and Samsung, install the software on more than 100 devices.
More than 18000 additional applications have been developed for Windows Mobile over that short period, creating stiff competition for rivals Nokia and Research in Motion.
Microsoft is still appealing against a March 2004 antitrust order from the European Union after bundling together software applications to muscle out other players. But it is promising better behaviour in the mobile world.
Ideally, it aims to provide all the software and services that operators and handset manufacturers could possibly want, but Ballmer promised that its software would run equally well with rival technologies.
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