I think it would be healthy for mobile competition if Microsoft’s new mobile platform turned out to be compelling, and a lot of the media around the user experience of phone OS has been quite positive, but this article does not make a case for disruption. The author argues so poorly in favor of MS and Nokia that it becomes amusing.
Ecosystems: the author says that iPhone and Windows Phone have strong ecosystems (MacOS and Windows respectively) and Android does not. On the contrary, I think all of the phones share one enormous ecosystem (the web) and a few smaller ones (the desktop OSes)
Security: the author says “Because it runs the most heavily virus targeted OS, Windows knows how to deal with malware. It has done it for years. Add in the fact that it runs a more closed ecosystem, more similarly to Apple’s than Google’s, and you have a platform that will be secure.” That quote has a lot of embedded assumptions that are not supported. And I thought the author just argued that Windows was a huge ecosystem (which happens to have an open marketplace by the way)?
About Android, he says “many people view the OS and ecosystem as lacking in security (since they are so open) and you have an OS that doesn’t suit everyone, especially not business users”. And that’s why business users have shunned Windows for years, right? No, I assert that business users really have no different attitudes about security than consumer users. IT does care more, but not the users.
“Microsoft really has all of the things that it needs in order to become one of the top 3 players in smartphones”. But the author has only listed 4 players (Apple, Google, RIMM). I think passing one of those three hardly qualifies as “disrupting” the market.
Finally, the author adds this at the end: “Disclosure: I am long NOK.” Yeah, like we couldn’t tell from the article…
Originally shared by Dare Obasanjo
2012 is when it all turns around.