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Confirmed Windows Phone 7 Devices
Please note that this list is subject to change as more information about the devices is available.
A chart containing rumored and confirmed WP7 devices. Clicking on a phone name provides more detail. There are seven confirmed devices so far.
Does the iPad Have Competitors? No. Alternatives? No. iPadversaries? Um, ok.
I cheerfully admit that I’ve defined the term “iPadversary” loosely.
I've written about how tech pundits are itching for the iPad to have competition even as they must acknowledge it does not. Articles on the subject have taken to calling them "alternatives" instead of competitors. Now Technologizer's Harry McCracken has gone further, calling them adversaries in a clever take on the name.
I kind of like it.
This isn't a critique of McCracken's piece. Indeed, I appreciate his admission that there's really no rhyme or reason for items included in his list. If we applied some rationality, there's a number of reasonable criteria we could use to toss many of these out:
- Already on sale before the iPad? Then they've got to go, since obviously no one knew, or cared, or bought.
- Pure vapor? I don't mean "just" vapor, as most of these are, but there are some with so few details it's beyond the realm of reasonable thinking to include them on anything but a fun adversaries list.
- Android OS too old? C'mon, is it really anyone's contention that Android 1.5 or 1.6 is a viable competitor to even iOS 3.2, let alone the 4.x coming to the iPad in a month or so, especially long-term?
- And, if you really wanted to be serious, all the vapor devices would go, so 25 items drop off the list.
It seems clear McCracken is just having some fun with all the possibilities, while also providing a nice summary (as much as possible) about these devices. There are 32 of them, and one wonders how many will ever get to the mainstream market.
What's interesting is that if the iPad had even one real competitor—a device where one could make a reasonable case that a meaningful number of consumers would seriously compare the two and pick one over the other as a tablet—then none of this expanded definition of the playing field would be possible. (And the first commentor to point at some 1" thick, 3 pound netbook with the keyboard snapped off as a "real competitor" has lost the concept of the iPad entirely.)
Lacking a legitimate competitor, everyone's free to point out as contenders a number of devices in wildly varying form factors, even though we know the criteria being used is faulty at best. It makes for a fun write up, even fun reading, but can't be taken seriously.
Bottom line is that yet another article of this type serves to prove the only non-vapor and actual fact that we know: there is no iPad competitor right now.
In Apple's footsteps, Microsoft to introduce their own touch mouse.
The mouse is the result of a Microsoft Research program dubbed "Mouse 2.0".
Great name, as in "We need our engineers to 'Mouse 2' Apple's web site and discover the hardware they'll make next."
I guess we'll see an Arc Trackpad in 2011.
FYI, though I joke about Microsoft following Apple, I do own an Arc Mouse and Keyboard and like them both.
Microsoft Mobile Still Can't Fit Text To Screen
Some interesting detail from Engadget on early WP7 units. I see Microsoft's still lopping off the "e". You'd think after a year this would be fixed by now.
Now don't get all bent out of shape. Honesty, it seems too early to judge WP7 because it's not ready for prime time—opinions are all over the map. I just thought I'd point this Zune-ism out for some fun.
To sum up, it is NOT a review, but it IS scathing.
The Kin: Poor Sales? Seems to me this was all Microsoft.
It seems that after doing some initial work on these phones based around Danger's proprietary Sidekick OS, Andy Lees -- the SVP of Microsoft's mobile division -- instructed everyone to go back to the drawing board and rebuild the OS based on Windows CE. It appears the company didn't want a project that wasn't directly connected to its Windows kernel. This move allegedly set the release of the devices back 18 months, during which time Redmond's carrier partner [Verizon] became increasingly frustrated with the delays. Apparently when it came time to actually bring the Kins to market, Big Red had soured on the deal altogether and was no longer planning to offer the bargain-basement pricing deals it first had tendered. The rest, as they say, is history -- though we don't think even great prices could have accounted for what was fundamentally a flawed product.
No company with a serious strategy and belief in a product kills it just seven weeks after launch, no matter how poorly it initially sells. A smart company might hold the line a little longer, spin a press release, or maybe tweak their strategy.
But this was Microsoft:
- It's just like Microsoft to decide the Kin must be Windows-based, and ignore the IP they'd bought in Danger.
- It's just like Microsoft to not understand an 18-month delay is poison in the mobile market. This isn't Windows or Office, where customers feel there's nowhere else to go.
- It's just like Microsoft for various teams to pull in different directions; even now there's only talk of unifying their mobile efforts.
- It's just like Microsoft to write off tens of millions of dollars spent on the project so quickly because, well, they figure they can afford it.
This product should never have been released. It's clear many in power were ready to kill it—at a moment's notice and with little reason—without even the appearance of trying to make a go of it. Yet for all those who could agree to kill it so soon after launch, they hadn't the guts (or sense, take your pick) to kill it beforehand.
On top of that, Microsoft angered Verizon, the US carrier with no love for Apple since they can't sell the iPhone. A decent Windows Phone 7 on Verizon might have made a good team against the iPhone/AT&T, but instead they're barely speaking, with Microsoft saying they're releasing WP7 phones on GSM first.
The Microsoft Kin should have been another Palm Foleo, an idea that got too far internally, but cooler heads prevailed and avoided the embarrassment of a launch. Sure, Palm was kicked around a little for announcing a product they didn't deliver, but it's nothing compared to the critique Microsoft deserves for wasting years of time, resources, and money for a seven-week stint to prove they're still clueless in the mobile sector.
Adobe Soon is Adobe's most popular mobile product
Adobe's newest Flash Player 10.1 will soon be available on Google's Android "Froyo" 2.2 operating system for smartphones and other devices, and Adobe's Murarka said other smartphones would soon support Flash.
"You're going to see Flash not only on Android. Consumers will see devices from Palm, Research in Motion Ltd's Blackberry, Nokia's Symbian and Microsoft Windows Phone 7 support the full Flash Player," Murarka said.
Emphasis mine. It's always "soon" with these guys.
Microsoft would not be better off with Bill Gates
The article is a critique of Ballmer, and the critique is deserved. However, the stock chart would look this way even if Bill Gates had been calling the shots this decade.
See my previous posts about Gates' failed tablet PC vision. Look at Gates' speeches and "visions" from CES keynotes, see how late they were to the web, etc. (In fact, only their monopoly position pulled them out of the grave mistake they'd made ignoring the web for so long.)
They fumbled around for years, but Microsoft had (and still has) Windows and Office, that's it. There was never anything in Gates' head that was going to change this. Heck, most of his visions are embarrassing. You can plumb Steve Jobs quotes from 20 years ago for nuggets of wisdom, you plumb Gates' quotes for punchlines. The writing was on the wall, so Gates left.
I'm not saying another CEO couldn't do something better for Microsoft–clearly Ballmer is not the guy–but it's ridiculous to think it would be Gates. If he came back it'd be like Michael Dell coming back to Dell. His one way of thinking, and reliance on non-changing conditions (which of course do change), would expose him as having been a good man at the right time back then, but nothing more.
Bill Gates: Still clinging to a failed vision
"We're all trying to get to something that you just love to take to a meeting and use and [the iPad] is not quite there yet. You need to have input. You need to take notes and edit things.
[Gates wants a device] "where I can use the pen, where I can use voice."
This is just proof that, on a visionary scale of 1 to 10, Gates is a -2. After nearly a decade of his "vision" of tablet PCs failing miserably in the market place—in large due to his insistence that no specialIzed OS was needed—he still thinks they need pen input. This for a generation of users who input via keyboard 90% of the time.
Oh, and voice input, because you'll want that in a meeting when taking notes.
Pen input isn't going mainstream, there's little need. Voice will be big, but we're nowhere near that as a practical input method for the masses, so we may as well be talking about flying cars.
Anyone who thinks Microsoft would be better off with this guy in charge is ascribing to him talents he does not possess. He left when he saw where Microsoft was headed. They're a two-hit wonder. Nothing wrong with that, but it's all they'll ever be, and are now at the point where all they can do is milk that out.
Vacation!
I will post and tweet a lot less the next few days as I enjoy a week off. No time for normal news, but if something truly unusual happens (e.g., Google actually does something "open", Adobe goes a week without whining, Microsoft introduces a product or strategy that makes sense), by all means let me know.
