Windows Mobile…the road ahead
Windows Mobile 6.5 is the latest release from Microsoft .This is seen as a stop gap release meant to fill the void till windows mobile 7 is officially released, sometime next year.The current release is frankly, a couple of years behind the technology curve.The capabilities or rather the lack of it are already well known and i would not like to repeat it here.People are already sounding the death knell for Microsoft’s mobile OS plan and some even go to the extent of suggesting that Microsoft should get out of the OS market completely.
I disagree…
Microsoft isn’t just another startup which needs to come out with something revolutionary to make the right kind of buzz and capture market share.They just need to get it right once and Microsoft has the marketing muscle to pull it off.Microsoft has to be realistic though, given the state of the mobile OS market they cannot possibly expect to get more than 10-15% of the market share.Going ahead the OS market will increasingly get fragmented and no single OS is going to see the kind of dominance that was enjoyed by symbian OS.Some may argue that this is too less and it would be much better if Microsoft spends it’s time and resources on something else.That according to me would be foolish,smartphones are increasingly going to be the gateway to future innovation & services and Microsoft needs to have a presence in this market and be in a position to shape and react to the future trends.
So what can Microsoft do?
Microsoft has existing relationships with OEM/ODMs. They work with players like HTC,Samsung,LG,Sony-Ericsson among others.The smartphone market is too important for any of these players to just ignore .What Microsoft need to do is listen to these OEMs, they understand the market and the needs of users.Microsoft should avoid a one size fits all approach while making its new OS.OEMs make devices for all segments and different segments have different needs.Microsoft should come out with a bare bones implementation of the OS on the device and build features on the cloud.This way it will create flexibilty for the OEMs and allow them to tweak it as per the requirement of the segement at which a smartphone is targetted.
In conclusion,Microsoft needs to adapt to the changing market and come out with a more focussed OS in order to stay relevant in the smartphone OS game.