Microsoft Enters the Cell Phone OS Market 279
PuZZLeR writes: "Today, Microsoft unveiled a new operating system for mobile phones (named 'Windows Powered Smartphone 2002') and plans to fully enter the wireless data devices with voice capabilities by utilizing both cellphones and PDA devices. TI already created a reference design for the Ms powered phone. While this sounds like Microsoft is going after Handspring, RIM or Danger, cellphone OS manufactures, like Nokia and OpenWave are expected to counteract to the announcements. Today, Nokia announced it will offer mobile phone makers its own development kit and OS."
I can see it now... (Score:1)
Re:I can see it now... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I can see it now... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of the top five cellphone manufacturers, only Samsung Electronics has said it would use Microsoft Windows-powered Smartphone 2002 software.
From the looks of things Nokia has a decent shot of keeping Microsoft out of yet another business.
Finns vs. Microsoft (Score:2)
Yes.. Finns fighting Microsoft in the server & desktop OS area (Linux) and Finns fighting Microsoft in the mobile space (Nokia)..
Re:I can see it now... (Score:2, Informative)
If they are still honouring this deal microsoft is going to have tough time getting their Os into phones as Nokia/Ericsson/Siemens probably have more than 80% of cell phone market, here in europe at least...
Neat! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh. Wait a minute...
Re:Neat! (Score:1)
Re:Neat! (Score:1)
Also, I thought that my Nokia already took too long to boot up...
And on the other line... (Score:2, Funny)
More Microsoft "Innovation" (Score:1)
-JB
Re:More Microsoft "Innovation" (Score:2, Informative)
WinCE is far too fat/slow/power hungry to run as a cellphone OS. This means that either you need to go with something like Intel PCA (essentially once CPU to do the phone part and another CPU to run the WinCE PDA part) or you can achieve a sigle CPU solution by using a really tight little OS to run the phone part and use WinCE to do the PDA stuff. Even Symbian phones do this and Symbian is much more efficient than Wince.
I don't think the WinCE PDAphone will win any friends through its nice UI. Start buttons just don't work nicely for phones. In Europe the Symbian phones outsell all other PDAs.
Likely though M$ will make some inroads through .NET FUD. Big mobile operations (eg. the army of Cocacola sales reps) could easily go for this kinda thing.
Also of interest is Microsoft getting in the sack with Qualcomm with their BREW phone application achitecture. Again, this could likely lock people into a proprietary Microsoft back-end. Depressing stuff....
Woo Hoo!!! We get viruses easier!!! (Score:5, Funny)
"Hi, How are you? I send you this call in order to have your advice"
Yeah!!!
Re:Woo Hoo!!! We get viruses easier!!! (Score:2)
*sigh*
Re:Woo Hoo!!! We get viruses easier!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
I have a Nokia 9110 Communicator, which sometimes can be very annoying.
Half a year ago almost half of the calls would simply halt the phone. So I had to disconnect the battery every time. This behaviour simply disappeared after a few weeks.
Microsoft isn't responsible for all bugs in the world...
Re:Woo Hoo!!! We get viruses easier!!! (Score:2)
BSOD (Score:2, Insightful)
Man that is going to suck when your trapped out in the wilderness, flat tire, and no food.
Where is the hotswap redundant PHONE?!!!
Re:BSOD (Score:2)
Crash (Score:1, Redundant)
"familiar Windows environment" (Score:2)
Re:"familiar Windows environment" (Score:2)
Maybe it's just me..
Re:"familiar Windows environment" (Score:2)
In fact, with the picture up against Kicker (the KDE menu/task bar), the icons look *really* close, just angled left instead of right. The gear is also a KDE motif, and neigh-identically mirrors the SuSE KDE menu button.
--
Evan
Re:"familiar Windows environment" (Score:2)
I'm surprised as hell that there are so few, considering how nice the existing Qtopia (the base Qt palmtop) is, and how it's been shown that KDE apps are easily portable to it (next step: kdelib ported to Qtopia). It's also one of the slickest, most professional interfaces I've seen on a palmtop.
--
Evan
Re:"familiar Windows environment" (Score:2)
Lots of blue, and Teletubby-ish theming.
Great Naming Again! (Score:2)
WinCE
This one is just as bad...
Winmps
Re:Great Naming Again! (Score:5, Funny)
Banning driving with a Microsoft Cellphone (Score:1, Funny)
Mattel, SLAPP terrorists intent on destroying free speech. [barbieslapp.com]
what a name for a phone (Score:3, Interesting)
lol, why not call it "super-great windows CE awesome gnarly future-smart-phone 2002"
I mean, seriously.. why not call it like "Smartphone XP" or just throw an XP at the end of a decent brand name (nokia 7100XP)?
ok, I'm done my ignorant comments.. time to read the article and see how far off I really am.
not new (Score:1)
Ciryon
Good thing it's February... (Score:1)
---
It will be way too big! (Score:4, Funny)
Most cell phones don't have that much data storage... right?
... but what about IE? IE can't be separated from windows so they will have an extra 20M there...
Right...
Re:It will be way too big! (Score:2)
In short, there isn't a memory limitation on these. In fact, you can almost certainly save some memory by not having the text recognition; just use the number keys like you do for SMS.
Bil''s "Road Ahead" (Score:5, Interesting)
His vision, then, would be that you turn on your phone, log into the Hailstorm cellphone server, check your hotmail and sms in one, perhaps unfold your laptop running XP and download the messages, go home and turn on your TV running a microsoft-style tivo, put on your MS Stereo running off an XP music server, and so on. Total saturation, with total control from Redmond.
Re:Bil''s "Road Ahead" (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody paid attention until it was too late. (Maybe that's yet another similarity between the two...)
(If you feel the need to flame this post -- you're taking it too seriously -- get a life!)
The Wandering Hermit
Re:Bil''s "Road Ahead" (Score:2)
It is control of OEM channels and predatory illegal monopoly actions that has made Bill Gates a billionare; it has nothing to do with consumer choice.
The strategy for Microsoft will be this; for any mobile phone manufacturer who doesnt agree to use MS software on their cellphones, the price for their desktop OS will suddenly be renegotiated. Oh, and they'd better be prepared for a quick tripling of Exchange licensing fees if they use that.
Then Microsoft will ensure that only cellphones running an MS OS are able to communicate with Exchange calendars and MS messaging products, as well as corporate directories and other areas where they can use their leverage.
Then there will be only MS OS cellphones. At that point they will start charging traffic fees for the phones.
Rinse, repeat, get into toaster buisness.
Phew (Score:2, Funny)
"Hey, I'm fine but
*Piiiieeeepppp*
"A fatal error occrued at 00x24624, press any button reboot your phone"
Jeeezzz
Re:Phew (Score:5, Funny)
Would you like some hints on dialing your phone?
Did you know that you can change the ring on your phone to 24 gratingly annoying, off-key tunes?
To shut down your phone, please press the TALK button."
Does this mean? (Score:1)
Who cares? (Score:4, Troll)
Why not spend the effort advertising the Sanyo SCP-5150 instead, a very cool, full-feature phone that can meow out of the box, in addition to the normal wireless web, color LCD, blah the fuck blah.
Or maybe we could concentrate on the Kyocero palm-phones, available for sale right this very instant, interoperates with all your stuff, and is a really cool phone.
Let's stop watching MS pull out the same old bullshit, but with a start button, and start advertising products that matter, and don't support monopolies!
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's more a matter of keeping an eye on what the 298.6-kilogram gorilla is up to.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Re:Who cares? mod that up baby! (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen brotha. You know why? More people love to bitch about MS that anything else. So far I have seen about 15 posts talking about BSOD's, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, viruses, etc...not a SINGLE ONE talks about the technology or the phone.
sad ain't it?
Re:Who cares? mod that up baby! (Score:2)
Talk about vaporware? What's to say? It doesn't exist yet. As for technology, the M$ part of it is well-known. It's the same old M$ stuff so it is easy to talk about.
We can discuss the hardware/tech once it exists...but I'll stick with Motorola or Nokia or...anyone that doesn't have an M$ finger dipped into it. I am proud that not a single penny of my money for the last 6 years has gone to M$ and I intend to keep it that way until the beast is tamed by the courts.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Microsoft is the (currently) largest commercial software producer. (yes thats a period)
When the largest company in any name space announces a new product for a new product space its indicative a (possible) new trend in computing.
So new trend + OS + mobile phone + applications = News for Nerds Stuff that matters.
Also it may also encourage your stock picks on your 6 month portfolio rebalance. I mean I wouldn't bet on any comercial company in a product space to compete directly with microsoft.
So now they want to kill Symbian (Score:2)
XP is to take on Mac OSX
Pocket OS is their attempt to kill Palm
Now they want to take on "Symbian" [symbian.com], a beaut little OS for PDA/cellphone crossover devices developed by little old Psion, the maker of the best PDAs in the world (maybe now past tense), & now taken on by Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, Matsushita/Panasonic & Sony.
Can't they just be happy with owning the PC desktop?
Re:So now they want to kill Symbian (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't they just be happy with owning the PC desktop?
No, because that means they must stop growing. Which means that they'll have unhappy shareholders on their hands, who might finally demand some of those dividends Microsoft has been withholding for years.
And besides, as soon as they stop growing, they stop being a moving target. If they concentrate on owning the PC desktop, then they aren't integrating "new" products all the time anymore. And if they aren't integrating "new" products, then someone else could match their existing feature set. So the instant they stop trying to grab every market in sight, they're dead.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
It was my intention to mention IBM in my original post as being the only exception as an MS competitor
IBM may well be able to leverage open source products to take a strong leadership in the server and mainframe markets, which would also strongly pull all other open source variants into power as well. Once blazened in these markets (2-3 years?) the desktop components may be ready for joe user and have the strength to break the MS stranglehold.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
File an antitrust suit right away?
New Cell phone keys needed (Score:2)
hmm.. that'd be too easy to bug...
Re:New Cell phone keys needed (Score:2)
Over time, all phones will have 14 buttons standard rather than 12. There will be a thriving secondary market for little penguin stickers that people can paste over their Windows button after they load Linux into their phones.
Just say NO! (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's remember the words of Mr. Burke:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke
Go buy someone OTHER than Microsoft's phone, please!
--Grrae
So much for lost signals (Score:1)
Or better still,
"Scandisk has detected that your cellphone was not shut down properly..."
Wow portable technology is advancing fast (Score:1)
But when cell phones are able to run Microsoft software- that will be quantum leap for the power of portable computing.
Yay. More MS on my phone. (Score:2)
Does it come with ctrl alt del buttons? (Score:1)
Really, when nokia, ericsson and sony have problems keeping the phones alive without boot, how is MS supposed to manage it?
Nokia fights back. (Score:4, Interesting)
" Top-ranked mobile phone maker Nokia said on Monday it would offer other mobile handset suppliers a complete design kit for making Internet-ready phones, seeking to stave off a push by Microsoft Corp. into the mobile market.
The move by Nokia, maker of one of every three mobile phones sold globally, takes aim at computer software giant Microsoft, which said earlier on Monday it was offering phone makers a standard kit of software and computer chips to build new "smartphones." "
The article also mentions that out of the top 5 mobile phone manufacturers, only Samsung is coming out with phones based on the Microsoft junk, at the end of this year.
It'll be
Re:Nokia fights back. (Score:2, Insightful)
These include the capacity to offer multimedia text and picture messaging, or simpler access to corporate email or common business software programs, to mention just a few of the growing ranges of functions from such higher-powered phones.
Where:
'corp email' == Outlook && 'common biz software' == Office
Which got me thinking, that yes, that would be nice, I wonder why the Java developers haven't done that yet as well with the phone dev kits that are already shipping. The answer, of course, is that none of those protocols are open and thus can't.
Did the proposed anti-trust settlement address this point? This is *classic* Microsoft market-leveraging behaviour. Without this point of leverage, I would expect this initiative to fail because battery life is too precious to waste on the inevitably large memory/processor requirements of this OS. (Of course, I'm assuming bloated code here, does anyone have any idea what the resource requirements are?)
Stephen
Crash (Score:1)
yeesh.
Apologies in advance (Score:4, Funny)
just gave me a good laugh. ;-)
It's been that kind of day, sorry
GPF32 (Score:2)
Re:GPF32 (Score:2)
No, it will be 'Press 1 to Abort, press 2 to Redial, or press 3 to Ignore.'
BSOD (Score:2)
Re:BSOD (Score:2)
Nokia's Dev Kit? (Score:1)
Slashdot Enters the Redundant Posting Market (Score:2)
Sorry, I won't be making a switch anytime soon.. (Score:1)
Why can't these companies work on getting me decent local coverage first? I'm sure I might enjoy using the web, or email over my cellphone if I didn't have calls dropping left and right. I'll take a solid, strong signal anywhere I go over the above.
Haha...just like in the movie "Antitrust" (Score:1)
yahoo! (Score:1)
See, it feautures hi-res color display, slideshows, internet and one-hand operation! Imagine what you can do...
Yes! (Score:1)
liability (Score:1)
Why is this new? (Score:2, Informative)
So what's the news here?
What was that name again? (Score:2)
If nothing else, one had to respect the Microsot marketing department for being able to shovel crap onto the consumer by the pound at the consumer's cost. But after choosing a product name like that...
Semi-duplicate post? (Score:3, Informative)
Gee... if
I refer to this comment [slashdot.org].
I referred to better pictures of the Journada 928,
The interesting thing is that ringtones -- which phone companies want to charge you for -- aren't there. Instead, you can assign .WAV files as ring tones, and specific files for specific callers. Wonder what the motivation for that move is...?
Still... I want one!
Re:Semi-duplicate post? (Score:2)
And I'm not just bashing MSFT when I say that. It really is hard to look at.
Software Quality Essential (Score:2, Insightful)
While consumers tolerate their desktops crashing, I don't think they'll tolerate it in their cell phones. Dropped calls are bad enough.
Of course, as folks have mentioned, virii are also a problem.
Perhaps what could actually happen is that this could cause MS to take a harder look at software quality.
-jbn
Re:Software Quality Essential (Score:2)
Dear Bill (Score:3, Insightful)
Just thought I'd drop you a line about the sort of things I would like on my cellphone.
Some features I don't want
Intro.
Hidden Costs (Score:2)
Antivirus Software (Must be renewed yearly to get updates): $50
Specialized uninstaller Software to properly remove software because Windows is unable to do it right: $50
Time spent reinstalling the OS every few months to keep things working right: variable.
A Microsoft phone... whatever *snicker*
Sounds like a recipe for phone rage! (Score:2)
*Displays the "Who do you want to call today" welcome message
*Hangs for a further 5 minutes
*Refuses to call non MS cells
User hurls phone out of car onto the pavement
:)
Custom cell phone software? (Score:2)
To answer my own question... (Score:2)
Is it possible to develop games for the Nokia mobile phones?
The only phones that games may be developed for are the 9110 and 9210 Communicators. The 9210 has a symbian operating System which is an open platform for developers.
This means that anyone may develop games and other add-on applications for the device. This is the same with the 9110, however it has a different operating system.
Additionally, several Nokia phones support Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), where games and information can be programed for mobile viewing.
For more information on the Communicators SDKs and other Nokia tools, visit the Nokia Forum (www.forum.nokia.com).
Try one more time (Score:2, Insightful)
The real news here are that Microsoft is again trying to conquer that market. This is a big challenge for them, because the OS design there is at the opposite of what they usually manufacture: you can't put a system that crashes randomly, or that eats all the CPU and all the batteries of the device. It seems previous incarnations, that is mostly Windows CE, failed to do that.
They have good designers and the fact that "this is Windows" makes it easy to sell the devices. If they manage to make an OS that stays afloat, they might very well find themselves in a strong position in this market. At least, I think they have much more chances to win here than on the server market.
I wonder.... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder.... (Score:2)
Great..... (Score:2)
Linux based phones also in the works (Score:4, Interesting)
With software like Microwindows, PicoGUI, and Qtopia available, a lot of companies will probably be finding Linux useful on PDAs and smaller embedded devices like Cellphones.
Nokia is not alone (Score:2, Informative)
However, Nokia is in good company as far as cellphone OS-es go: in fact, they use and work on the same OS: which is Symbian. I hope that now the uninformed will start to see the wisdom behind Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Psion, Siemens, Sony, Matsushita ETC. uniting on the issue ofa single cellphone OS that is Symbian OS: not to pay the MS tax. Sure, they had to pay up fronttens of millions of dollars to found Symbian (the company), but that's small potato compared to the money they would have paid Microsoft, if it got hold of the mobile market. That would have been a cut on the revenue on each sold unit! I can tell you for certain, that would have been the nightmare of any cellphone manufacturer.
On another note, I am really glad Microsoft is openly stepping on Nokia's toe. Damn that's a good feeling! Now the big bad bully just picked a decent adversary! Nokia is not only big enough, it's also nimble and potentially dangerous for Microsoft. It also has a brand recognition that rivals Microsoft's.
Question... (Score:2)
Re:Question... (Score:2)
Well, if it's a battery that provides profit to MS, probably nothing. But, if it's a competetively-priced aftermarket battery, or different belt-clip, or one of those candy-colored covers, it may set off the magnesium microcharge inside and burn through the circuit board. On the other hand, it's an MS product, so the charge will most likely not work, so go nuts!
this is an informative post (Score:2)
if you goto the Smart Phone [microsoft.com] site. then click on the Developer [microsoft.com] link. You'll notice that this is a rebranded Pocket PC [microsoft.com].
Which is what it looks like (and i'm 99% sure) it shares the exact same subset of the Win32 API that the current PocketPC/WinCE API does. Which means a relativly sophisticaed OS, capable of real internet browsing (complete with DOM, scripting, GIF animation, etc..). Windows Media player, so WMA and mp3 playback. MSN Messenger (for those who are into that kind of thing). But at the cost of high resources, like 32 megs of RAM min, not to mainstreem with cellphones at the moment.
and i'm not sure, but i'm guessing all of the current pocketpc apps [hpc.net] including Quake [pocketquake.com], which is also shown in the SmartPhone Tour [microsoft.com]. Will be available for it, which would be pretty darn cool.
-Jon
Misnomer (Score:2)
Technically, the phone powers Windows, not the other way around. When they make software that produces energy, let me know.
New excuses to hang up (Score:2)
"Ph33r my l33+ h4x0r 5k!||z wh3n ! p!ng f|00d j00!"
"Could you call back in just two minutes ? I'm in a heated Solitaire round."
Ahh the blasphemy!
New message: (Score:2)
.
This is cooler (Score:2)
Microsoft the company that *must* do everything (Score:2)
Here's the bitch (Score:2)
I write custom web-based information management software. I have a number of products whose value would increase exponentially if they could truly be accessed anytime, anywhere.
I need a phone that
I've seen some that are close. WAP is a joke. My biggest problem is that "deer about to be run over" look when I bring up my needs to just about any Cellular reseller....
Anybody?
Did anyone else notice... (Score:2)
Re:My GOD! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All I want for xmas (Score:2)
Re:Didn't they stop all work to fix bugs? (Score:2)
-Jon