The mPhone: The answer to Windows Mobile's woes?

Microsoft gets a lot of flack for Windows Mobile [1]. Many tech journalists (yours truly included) have given the folks in Redmond a hard time for the mobile OS's UI, its cluttered home screen and the company's perceived indifference to ease-of-use. Sure, Windows Mobile might be an enterprise product, but does that mean that it has to be a pain to use?

The answer is no. As we've seen, Apple is gearing up to take the iPhone into the enterprise this June [2], and the company is certainly betting that there are a few disaffected Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Palm OS users out there that are itching to jump ship. In fact, many have pointed to the iPhone when decrying Windows Mobile's lack of user-friendliness, as if to say 'If Apple can do it, why can't Microsoft?' As you and I know, however, the logic behind this statement is flawed, to say the least.

Microsoft, unlike Apple, is a mobile software company, not a hardware manufacturer. As such, Windows Mobile is built to run on a wide range of devices, CPUs and networks. For this reason, it's a challenging OS to update and while the company is doing its best to improve Windows Mobile--with the 6.1 update [3] and the more distant versions 7 and 8 [4]--it's going to take them a while to get those updates out the door. In the meantime, the iPhone OS--which only needs to maintain compatibility with one device, one CPU and one type of network technology--will probably see a number of revisions, as it has during the past year.

So, what's the solution for Microsoft? Some have suggested that the company should consider manufacturing its own devices, in order to benefit from the sort of tight-pairing of hardware and software that the iPhone does. While we'll probably never see Windows Mobile become a closed ecosystem like the iPhone (after all, Microsoft's willingness to license Windows Mobile to just about anyone is what has allowed the company to dominate the U.S. enterprise market), it might make sense for the company to create a few "showcase" devices that demonstrate the full power of Windows Mobile, for users who are willing to shell out for that sort of premium experience.

And that, in fact, is what some are suggesting that the company's recent purchase of Sidekick manufacturer Danger [5] is all about. As you'll see in today's article on Windows Mobile 7, some are already saying that the forthcoming OS is doomed to be a case of too little, too late--not because the OS is lacking in improvements but rather, because it's probably still more than a year away. The only way that the company could get it out faster, some have suggested, is on Microsoft hardware... which is why they bought Danger.

Personally, I think that this is a bit far fetched. Yet, everywhere you look in the mobile world, it seems that device manufacturers increasingly are moving toward a tighter pairing of hardware and software. Today Apple announced that it has acquired P.A. Semi, which will allow the company to be just about the only mobile device manufacturer that fabricates its own CPUs. Meanwhile, Palm is still hard at work on their proprietary next-gen OS [6] and RIM, as always, is keeping things tightly integrated. Is a Microsoft-produced device the answer to Windows Mobile's woes? Hit me up in the comments and let me know what you think. - Mehan [7]