Microsoft Tells Enterprise Mobile Customers To Stuff It

(MoneyWatch)  Just a few weeks ago, Microsoft (MSFT) seemed poised for a mobile resurgence, particularly among corporate users, with Windows Phone 7. However, as it has so many times in the past, the company is about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. How? By making all current Windows Mobile phone applications incompatible with the newest version. That includes every corporate app that companies have bought or tailored for the platform.

First, a tip of the hat to a reader who noted the problem in a comment on another post:

Windows Mobile users are now fleeing to other platforms, because Microsoft has introduced a new consumer-focused platform called 7-Series. Enterprises have lost their current applications, and must migrate to a new platform.

I was surprised when I first heard that Windows Phone 7 wouldn't run Windows Mobile apps. Microsoft threw out everything it had done, supposedly in response to demand from developers:

For us, the cost of going from good to great is a clean break from the past. To enable the fantastic user experiences you've seen in the Windows Phone 7 Series demos so far we've had to break from the past. To deliver what developers expect in the developer platform we've had to change how phone apps were written. One result of this is previous Windows mobile applications will not run on Windows Phone 7 Series.To be clear, we will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come, so it's not as though one line ends as soon as the other begins.

Translated, that means organizations -- whether third party developers or corporate IT departments -- that had developed Windows Mobile apps are at the end of the road. The new platform is completely different and older apps won't run.

Microsoft has just turned Windows Mobile into Internet Explorer 6, which gives corporations a reason to avoid a Windows 7 upgrade if their IT departments based in-house applications on the older browser. As corporations face greater user demand for iPhone or Android interfaces, they will eventually realize that they must port their applications. Once you make that choice, there's no longer a barrier to changing vendors.

I realize that Microsoft's choice was likely difficult and that sticking with the old platform was impossible over the long run. But without a grip on corporate customers, Microsoft has more difficult time explaining why anyone should buy its products.