It is true that Microsoft can put itself in a position to create a good cross-platform OS that allows the platform to control very important products on their smartphones. I agree there is a lot of potential for WinMo, but they've lost a lot of momentum from a lot of carriers - HTC which was big on WinMo has halved its support for Android. BlackBerry devices are the entrenched device for business professionals, and the iPhone is seen as the catch-all for good music/application suites.

Because of those things, I think that what MS is doing may be a case of too little, too late. I could be wrong, but I think that they've lost favor with the big handset makers - its not a matter of appeasing the public, as much as it is appeasing the handset makers.

I am unsure how the licensing structure is for Microsoft and WinMo on phones, but I would think that Microsoft could do a lot to entice more handset makers - MS, if they played their cards right, could steal some of Nokia's market share, time will tell if they do.

As I said, WinMo, given current trends, will be dead in a few years. Microsoft could easily fix that with some key changes to get more handset manufacturers onboard.

@Darth
Bad words such as "synergy" apart, you seem to be relying on features and lock-in.

Take the iPhone: it never won on features. It won marketshare because it offered a focused, polished, pleasant experience. It did less than other smart phones, but it did what it did way better. Then came the centralized appstore, of course, taking a page from other OS's book and that again was focused on the user.

Android is following in its footsteps and it offers interfaces focused on user experience and interaction, and a more open version of the development environment.

I have several friends who develop for mobile devices, and that's where most developers are moving to. Very hastily, I might add. Users will follow where the better apps will be born.

Also, synergy with Office and Windows has a lot less value in the days of web applications and -finally!- usable mobile browsers than it had six or seven years ago. Nowadays, it's not MS anymore to dictate what is the must-have service integration.
Today it's gmail, google maps, facebook, twitter, exchange, google apps; tomorrow it might be totally different services but the point is that the game has changed to those development environments that rely on interfacing with many different and changing services and data sources and treat them as first-class citizens. That's basically what the Android OS is built around.

So it seems to me that it will take MS more than leveraging synergy or adding features, it will require them a change of focus with the OS itself, a change of philosophy with the platform. Which are way harder.

Devs are indeed flocking to mobile devices.

I remember a quote from a co-worker of mine, who was the manager for the Torque Game Builder (TGB) which is a 3rd party gaming engine similar to UE3 and Unity.

Her quote was this (about developer interest in certain platforms):

This is for a major gaming engine that supports multiple platforms. It was a very interesting quote, given how big GDC is. I'll continue to say it, as I have been for the past 6 months: In 10 years, handheld devices from Nintendo and Sony will cease to exist as we know them. Mobile phones will surpass them as the primary handheld gaming device.

WereKitten, I would say the entirety of MS is moving to a services based infrastructure. Their cloud and Live offerings are the tips of what is to come. As for smart phones, the most popular apps are lightweight frontends consuming web services. These apps are quick and easy to build. Once WinMo 7 is out, all the big a0ps will quickly be available. Zune software will be a big deal as well. It will be the app store, movie store, music store with subscription option, and it directly ties to Xbox Live services as well. MS also has a set of services rolling out for their office suites. They already have a photo service available. So yeah, MS is very ready to have a device and OS with a very nice set of services to tap into and an environment for developers to tap into whatever services they would like to as well.

@Mrstickball: Yes. That's why PC:s drove consoles, DVD players, CD players and phones out of the market. And that's why PS3 is dominating the sales charts.

Let's go 20 or 25 years back in time and look how much future consoles had back then, because of all the things you could do with a computer. The current interest in smartphones is because there's a growing market for applications. And because everyone is flocking there, in a few years they are starting to get burned because the market doesn't grow as fast as the developer interest and the budget of the projects grow.

Because of smartphones, things we don't have after a decade:
Phones
Portable music players
Cameras
GPS navigation devices
PDA's
Calculators
Calendars
Etc.

And after two decades, we don't even have PC's anymore, because they are replaced by smartphones.
After three decdes, smartphones do your laundry and makes your coffee, so that's the end of washing machines and coffee makers. Also the gas stations cafe personnel will be unemployed because of this.

@bdbdbd
What are you talking about? PC's didn't drive those things out of the market.... And the PS3 isn't exactly dominating any sales charts other than the short term HD sales... Unless that was sarcasm in which case I fail to see the relavency of that to what mrstickball said...

As for the rest of your arguments, it seems you and Mrstickball agree on where things are going? I agree as well. In the future you will have one handheld device that does everything and can even replace the standard home PC/laptop for the most part.

@Mrstickball: Yes. That's why PC:s drove consoles, DVD players, CD players and phones out of the market. And that's why PS3 is dominating the sales charts.

Let's go 20 or 25 years back in time and look how much future consoles had back then, because of all the things you could do with a computer. The current interest in smartphones is because there's a growing market for applications. And because everyone is flocking there, in a few years they are starting to get burned because the market doesn't grow as fast as the developer interest and the budget of the projects grow.

Because of smartphones, things we don't have after a decade:
Phones
Portable music players
Cameras
GPS navigation devices
PDA's
Calculators
Calendars
Etc.

And after two decades, we don't even have PC's anymore, because they are replaced by smartphones.
After three decdes, smartphones do your laundry and makes your coffee, so that's the end of washing machines and coffee makers. Also the gas stations cafe personnel will be unemployed because of this.

^24 minute delayed double post?

Of course they are going to follow the trend when it comes to - say - offering collaborative web-based office tools and file serving, or many other services. What I'm saying is that the world of service comsumption is opening up. As such the unique benefit of synergy with a proprietary service is progressively diminishing and the real benefit is going to be the flexibilty of the platform and the quickenss to adapt to the web offering and variety of services and standards.

That hasn't been the forte of MS in the past, because they almost always had total control over the factors that drove forward the OS or the software. They could choose the speed of the treadmill when it came to their users having to upgrade their OS or their Office suit or their development libraries.

When they could not choose these factors, they haven't been quick nor agile to react - see the mess they did with Internet adoption over proprietary networks, see their resistance to every standard they could not control.

I'm not saying they can't do it, I'm only saying that Google has demonstrated they can flow with quick changes where MS' record has been spotty at that. Google's phylosophy has been incarnated very well in Android, whereas the developers' perception is that Win mobile is a relic of a past era, too slow to change according to the web and media pace.

Sorry for the double, i hit refresh and the post got posted again.

@nightsurge: The sarcasm ended where the post ended and started where the post started (except for the part where it was looking at the past).

All the things mentioned in the list are what smartphones are supposed to kill, if we look at various predictions made.