Microsoft's Windows Mobile division released their earnings report today, and amongst the dull financial statistics is a startling product trend: the number of Windows Mobile powered phones grew by 90% in the past year. There are now more than 100 Windows Mobile phones shipping, from 47 device makers, in 55 countries. Popular Windows Mobile phones here in the USA include the Motorola Q (shown at left), the T-Mobile SDA and MDA, the Palm Treo 700w, the Cingular 2125 and 8125, and the Sprint/Verizon VX-6700/XV-6700. (You can find reviews of all of them and a Windows Mobile buyers' guide here.)
The boom in Windows Mobile devices here in North America has impressed me, too. While a lot of them are made by the same Taiwanese company, HTC, they appear under all sorts of different brand names and on different carriers. Windows Mobile is clearly shaping up to be the dominant smartphone OS in North America in 2007, as Palm OS seems to be restricted to one Treo at a time and Symbian remains an exotic European import that US consumers and businesses never seem to know quite what to do with.
The biggest competitor to Windows Mobile may come from Blackberry, of all things; Blackberry maker RIM has been churning out an extensive line of new handhelds catering to individual consumers and RIM execs have been talking about putting cameras and multimedia features into the 2007 Blackberry line.
Microsoft's triumph stands in sharp relief to the fate of Palm OS, which seems to be lost wandering in the wilderness. Palm OS has a lot of appeal because it's quick, responsive, easy to use and has a ton of third-party applications. But there hasn't been a new version of the OS seen on a device in years, and Palm told me point-blank a few months ago that Palm OS 5 can't handle the UMTS networks run by Cingular and many European operators, because it can't multitask voice and data conversations at the same time. Access, the new owner of Palm OS, promises an ambitious Linux-based new version ... uh ... sometime in the future. Hope it's before everyone switches to Windows, guys.
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July 21, 2006 11:04 AM
We need to hear more of Sasha and the gang. I'm telling you this becasue your "once a week" podcasts are not helping me with my 5 days a week traffic jams on the I-95. Seriously, I love the work your guys are doing and you are really inspiring me to do my own podcast. Thanks for also exposing that Sidekick 3 as the crappy device it really is.
July 21, 2006 2:24 PM
Are there any plans to release the treo 700w (windows version) for sprint?
July 21, 2006 4:03 PM
Among the other problems with Palm devices, at least in my experience, is that it's so incredibly hard to upgrade or add new integrated features to some palm devices. Device A comes with Palm OS version X, and Device B comes out later with version Y, but there's no way to update or upgrade Device A, even if they're very closely related. To me, that's a significant downfall, although I don't know if Windows Mobile suffers from the same fate. I do know that many Blackberry devices can have the Blackberry Handheld Software upgraded and updated with service packs and upgrades downloadable from Blackberry's website; I only wish, for example, I could upgrade my Tungsten T3 with a newer version of Palm OS. :(
July 21, 2006 8:20 PM
Will there be a Q for Sprint users?
July 21, 2006 8:51 PM
Verizon bought six to nine month exclusives on both devices, for a considerable sum of cash. Expect them on Sprint by Christmas.