Microsoft Mobile Strategy In Danger
Danger, Microsoft's mobile handset subsidiary and maker of the popular Sidekick phone, has lost data stored on its servers, such as contacts and pictures. This issue goes beyond the incredible inconvenience for a million or so customers who use (and trusted) the Sidekick, and speaks to Microsoft's commitment to mobile devices in general -- or lack thereof.
Microsoft acquired Sidekick in 2008, presumably to kick-start its moribund mobile business. Windows Mobile is an also-ran to the also-rans of the mobile world, trailing Nokia's Symbian, Apple's iPhone, Research in Motion's BlackBerry, Google's Android and even Palm's WebOS (which didn't have any share as recently as February 2009). There was, in a sense, nowhere to go but up -- except that the company seems to have all but given up. It makes you wonder why they're bothering with Windows Mobile 6.5 at all. More to the point, this Sidekick to the stomach puts Microsoft's reputation for probity to the lie:
The Sidekick's remote data storage feature was ahead of its time and served as a selling point for the device. It meant that if someone lost a phone, the contents could easily be downloaded to a new one. But the Sidekick didn't complement the remote storage with a convenient way to save all data locally.Not only did Microsoft make no effort to integrate Windows Mobile and Danger into a coherent strategy (never mind integrating the actual technologies), but is now also apparently snuffing nascent plans for a new device (the much-rumored Pink project) in the cradle. Maybe Microsoft realized too late that Danger's technology was based on Java, had nothing in common with Windows Mobile, and could only be integrated with Windows Mobile at great cost.
It could have gone very differently indeed, as Danger actually had a terrific App Store model, including operator billing, that could have encouraged more developers to create applications for the platform. Playscreen CEO William Volk notes that Danger's Sidekick Store "was decent -- far better than the current Android and [Nokia] Ovi storefronts."
Microsoft clearly suffers from a combination of not-invented here syndrome combined with a failing but entrenched management group that won't cooperate with other parts of the organization and won't admit to failure. Not only does Windows Mobile have a significant installed base to lean on, but management has probably deluded itself into thinking it has a future thanks to the deal it made with Nokia to distribute mobile versions of its Office applications to Symbian. But the Nokia deal points to the end of Windows Mobile rather than a new opportunity; Microsoft leadership is essentially conceding a significant portion of the market, recognizing that for the Office franchise to survive the jump to Web-based services, it's going to have to survive in alien environments like Symbian and, one day soon, Webkit and HMTL+.
Danger and Pink may have been, as some have suggested, an incredibly expensive way of creating a sense of urgency inside the Windows Mobile team, but the exodus of Danger leadership over the past few months (which probably made the explosion of Sidekick over the past week inevitable) has made this threat a hollow one.
More hollow still are Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's words promising a commitment to Windows Mobile.
[Image source: drp via Flickr]