Mitchell Ashley analyzes the challenges Microsoft faces in revitalizing Windows Mobile.
Microsoft’s upcoming mobile apps store faces big challenges, says our “Converging on Microsoft” blogger Mitchell Ashley. The biggest? Creating a sense of excitement among developers for Windows Mobile.
As Ashley notes, the pending-but-announced 6.5 release of Windows Mobile is a big improvement, including the new Web browser for the platform, Internet Explorer Mobile 6. But almost as soon as it was announced, some pundits and bloggers were wondering if it was “obsolete already” especially with Windows Mobile 7 looming on the horizon.
And the new mobile browser plan hasn’t gone over too well, either.
Yet Microsoft is, with RIM’s BlackBerry OS, one of the few mobile platforms that offers the control, management, and security that many enterprises require. In Spring 2008, the company released the 6.1 version of the OS with built-in hooks to System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008. MDM is a new server application that is the first major effort by Microsoft to make its handhelds as manageable and secure as its PCs.
Ashley writes: “While Windows Mobile 6.5 is needed, it’s not the platform the iPhone is for creating the next generation of mobile user applications….WM6.5 is a big improvement in some areas. But we’re still many months if not a few years away from a revitalized Windows Mobile OS that could spawn the kind of Oklahoma land rush that the iPhone has created.”
What do you think?
