Where now for Windows Mobile?

Reviewing the new Acer neoTouch P300 on Monday brought home to me just how far behind Windows Mobile is at the moment. Since the start of the year I have reviewed a few Android smartphones, a couple of BlackBerry phones and own an iPhone and BlackBerry for daily use. I have also played around with some Symbian phones and out of all the platforms, Windows Mobile is the one that feels more dated than the rest.

The arguments in favour of the platform are that it can do anything the others can, it is highly customisable and that there are many different smartphones available that run it. This is all true, but the fact remains that none of this addresses ‘how’ things are done. Some of you may argue that the HTC HD2 proves that Windows Mobile is worthy, but it is good because of the hardware and the way HTC manages to hide the underlying operating system. With Windows Phone 7 coming this year it makes sense to write off Windows Mobile as it is now and concentrate on what the update will bring.

Windows Phone 7 will bring a solution which goes some way to rectifying what is wrong with the current OS- it will be finger friendly, include a unique (at the moment) icon structure and will be available on the best hardware the likes of HTC etc. can provide. However, if it were released tomorrow millions of people would not suddenly flock to Microsoft’s mobile OS- it simply does not have enough to entice Android and iPhone users to jump ship.

The fact that the release is many months away makes the situation even worse and who knows what else will be released in the meantime. A substantial number of current Windows Mobile users may have already jumped ship and even those that will want to drop back may be locked into a contract that stops them from doing so quickly. Also, the fact the 7 is arriving this year will compromise sales of the current Windows Mobile powered phones, especially because they are not upgradeable. There is no aspect of this that makes sense to me from a business point of view.

In the rush to offer the public the sense of something new on the platform, Microsoft has caused itself many more problems. Demonstrating an OS so early takes away the excitement of a new release. We saw this with the iPhone and Android, but in the case of Windows Mobile it may appear to be old hat before it even arrives. It also offers little wriggle room to Microsoft if Apple, or even RIM, comes up with something spectacular in the meantime. If that happens Microsoft cannot change it too much for fear of being seen to copy (again).

All of the above has probably been written elsewhere, but it is worth considering. I want Windows Mobile to do well because the more competition we have the better, but I just can’t see it at the moment. I also can’t see how the BlackBerry and Symbian platforms will get through the year without major changes (hopefully they will both change substantially), but by the end of 2010 we should be using fundamentally different mobile software than all of us are today. I suspect 2010 will bring more change to the industry than we have ever seen.