Microsoft’s Mobile Hail Mary

In an effort to escape my abyss of obscurity in the mobile software market, if I were Microsoft, to distance myself from my embarrassing mobile past I would commit at least a thousand developers to perfecting the next release (including one or two who are actually on the payroll and not some random ugly website with Paypal donation links), I’d commit a whole lot of marketing geniuses to the project as well to help me come up with better ideas, I’d give it another name, I’d copy everything I could get away with copying from Apple including making it finger friendly and not multitask. That’s right, no more multitasking. I’d get it on different types of devices including phones, music players, mini PCs and tablets. I’d blend such devices into one device and call it Zune something and I’d blend its functionality into Windows 7 particularly with respect to music management like Apple and like Google I would tie in my company’s other services into it like Hotmail, Bing and whatever Microsoft’s now calling their imitation of Google Maps (isn’t it interesting how even MSNBC doesn’t use Microsoft’s Virtual Earth?). To give my reputation a clean slate, I’d prevent all backward-compatibility whether or not it was necessary in my implementations of a beefed up NetCF and Silverlight. I bet about 3% of my customers among the 4% of my share of the market even know what a cab is so who cares — no more backwards compatibility. Like it never happened. Record expunged.

I heard the Xbox has done well so I’d tie it into the Xbox somehow too and its online service if there is one. Makes sense considering all those iPhone advertisements I saw with people playing games with the g-sensor so I’ll support that as well, I’ll go all-out with g-sensor support. I’ll get my guys to discover another axis, we’ve got the money. I’d keep quiet, mostly, about the project in order to build up the hype and because I don’t want to dilute my number one pony’s presence in the media with something that has failed so stunningly in the past, my company’s mobile operations, particularly now that the mobile market share is a decked so heavily stacked against me. Just in case the operating system actually achieved noteworthy success, might as well wrap it up in Silverlight as much as possible as force feeding my answer to Flash and HTML5 to the world with one angle is about as if not more valuable than making this mobile operating system less of a joke for the sake of becoming a contender in that market. And that is why I won’t even include Flash support. Like both Apple and Google I would put a stop to this community hippy cab free-for-all nonsense and lock the OS into this Microsoft Marketplace thing which while I’m at it I would rename as well because we ought to be able to come up with name that’s more similar sounding to App Store that flies with the legal department.

According to all the rumors I’ve read that’s all more or less accurate unless everyone’s just making this up. The rumors are consistent with each other, mostly. However, Microsoft has done a good job remaining mute about this and the closest thing to first hand information that I found was a vague and poorly translated statement by some Italian man who didn’t understand the nondisclosure agreement and a tweet, both of which were very positive. Many said Google had no shot of breaking into the mobile market as it was way too late. Most consumers had already had fallen in love with their iPhones, Blackberries and Symbian phones and you can’t just shake that up because you’re Google, but the nay sayers were wrong. That said, I’m a nay-sayer against Microsoft making a significant presence in this market (and a Google shareholder) no matter how hard they recently started trying.

I’ll tell you another thing, on a more personal note: If they take away all my old cabs or my ability to multitask, I don’t care if it has all the eye candy in the world — byebye WinMo and hello Android.

Doug Simmons