I'm usually not a big fan of Steve Ballmer, mostly because he doesn't seem to have a real clear handle on what I think Microsoft needs to be doing to stay competitive and lead consistently instead of react. But, while speaking in Tokyo about Google's Android announcement, I do have to agree with him.
After being asked about what he thinks Google's impact will be in the mobile phone OS market he replied:
"So we have great momentum, we've brought our Windows Mobile 6 software to market, we're driving forward on our future releases and we'll have to see what Google does," said Ballmer. "Right now they have a press release, we have many, many millions of customers, great software, many hardware devices and they're welcome in our world."
Windows Mobile is making significant inroads in the mobile device space but are facing real competition from RIM with the Blackberry. RIM has a head start since they focused on one thing and one thing only (push e-mail) while the early days of Windows Mobile were trying to be a bit more of all things to all people. It's only now that Microsoft has realized they need to lock down the enterprise market that RIM has been scooping customers from for some time.
Others may disagree but I think the whole Google announcement is being over-hyped and way premature. Microsoft is NOT the leader in Mobile OS, Symbian is via Nokia. Nokia is the king of the hill at the moment and all companies, Microsoft included, are chasing that crown.
By bringing it back to the present, Ballmer has underscored my reaction to the Google Android thing. RIM, Nokia and even Apple all have (or should have) the same or similar reactions: "we are here now, we have customers and devices on market now, Google will have to play catch up sometime in 2008 to be relevant. And we are not going to sit still and wait for them."
Here's what the head of Nokia said about the Google announcement:
"One of the reactions is, it's another Linux platform," said Nigel Clifford, the CEO of Symbian. "There's 10, 15, 20, maybe 25 different Linux platforms out there. It sometimes appears that Linux is fragmenting faster than it unifies."
Because it is Google, it has everyone's attention. But right now, they are no different from anyone else saying they are going to release a new OS that is going to be the greatest thing since the iPhone.
Not to discount that Google will probably bring something to be used on the market, they, and we, are a far way from knowing exactly what that is and how it will be implemented across the disparate mobile phone manufacturers and across the various carriers. And, experience with Google would suggest it will be more "feature" phone focused to tie together their product line in a way they would like to see it happen as opposed to hoping others will take care of it for them.
There are still far too many questions floating around to start looking at this as the salvation of the Mobile OS and mobile phones. And chief among them is implementation on handsets.
I still believe prudence would be best at this point until we see what this new "open" platform will provide. Just because something is "open" doesn't mean it will be "better."
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