by Frank McPherson, author of How To Do Everything With Windows Mobile

 
When I write an opinion piece on my weblogs, it's nice to get some feedback that generates dialog. Therefore after I posted my piece yesterday on the Zune phone, I sent am email to my friend Todd Ogasawara asking for his opinion, and Todd posted his thoughts on his blog.

Todd's first point is that a Zune phone, if it exists, is not a reaction to iPhone, but rather a competition with Windows Mobile. Todd may very well be right, and if so Microsoft is in serious trouble because chances are such a Zune phone will not reach the mark in competition with iPhone. Clearly Apple has been working on iPhone for several years, remember that according to Newsweek, the iPhone project started as Apple's response to the Tablet PC and not Windows Mobile.

I think it is an interesting question of whether Microsoft currently has a "Zune phone" in the works. Todd's point is that with the long cycle time to develop a phone, if Microsoft hasn't already started it will take years for them to respond with a Zune phone. Personally, I don't think a Zune phone has been in the works because Zune is about addressing Microsoft's gap in music players, and I believe them when they say that they don't see a music player as a driving force behind selling mobile phones. People won't buy iPhone thinking of it as an iPod, but rather as a mobile phone.

My main point about Voice Command is that to me the big deal about iPhone is the touchscreen user interaction, and the over all user interface. How a person interacts with the device is what is going to set it apart. I think if Microsoft just provides a "me too" response by changing touch screen interaction with Windows Mobile, they will miss the mark. Voice Command provides an opportunity to be different. Is the issue that people will never use voice commands, or that the software has to become better and provide more features? I think that with the increase in the number of people willing to wear Bluetooth headsets (and that has increased) people will be more open to using voice commands, provided that it works very well.

I agree with Todd's point in his third bullet that Microsoft has ceded the consumer market with Windows Mobile and focuses on the enterprise market. This will be a differentiator between Windows Mobile and iPhone, because to date most of the iPhone reviews have bemoaned the lack of enterprise features like synchronization with Outlook or Exchange. So, which market is larger, the enterprise wireless data market or the consumer wireless market? Personally, I think the consumer market is bigger, and at the same time, I don't think it would take much for Microsoft to make Windows Mobile more consumer friendly. Doing so may mean that the trend towards making Smartphones and Pocket PCs look and work the same is wrong. Perhaps Windows Mobile Standard ought to be the consumer-focused version of Windows Mobile, while Windows Mobile Professional is the enterprise (err, professional?) focused version of Windows Mobile?

Labels: opinion

posted by Frank at 11:46 AM 

2 Comments:

I agree with your point that the potential leverage of speech interface in Windows Mobile is under utilized. Microsoft has made an investment in speech interface that few other companies can claim, and it ought to be able to leverage that investment to set the bar with an innovative UI. Voice Command would be killer if it did more (mapping, turn by turn directions, better email integration, better calendar integration) and if it were extensible so ISVs could use the speech interface

By ebadger, at 11:56 AM  

The speech interface goes beyond Voice Command. Microsoft Research has been developing something called Speech Server that enables even greater interaction. I am pretty sure they plan to integrate this with Exchange, so that you can maniupulate your Exchange information with any phone. I've seen demos of people using Nokia phones to add items to their calendar all via voice. (This is part of Microsoft's Unified Messaging plans.)

The problem with Speech Server is that it requires a network connection to use. Whatif there was integration between Voice Command and Speech Server, so that Voice Command could interact with things on the device, while Speech Server interacts with things on a server?

By Frank, at 12:11 PM  

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