Windows Mobile 6.1 vs. the elephant in the room

At the CTIA Wireless 2008 trade show last week in Las Vegas the hottest new phone was, as you might expect, Sprint's Instinct, apparently the closest thing yet to an iPhone. And still the farthest thing from an iPhone? That would beMicrosoft's changes to Windows Mobile 6.1.

The news from Vegas was that the iPhone continued to be the elephant in the room in the mobile space. There were predictions that the success of the iPhone would lead to smartphones beginning to replace simple cellphones this year.

And increasingly, "smartphone" and "iPhone" mean the same thing. The hottest new phone announced last week was the Instinct, developed by Samsung for Sprint. No surprise at all, the Instinct looks very much like an iPhone and even works a lot like it. It's loaded with features -- touchscreen, built-in apps, hardware GPS, and comes with an unlimited data plan -- surely the wave of the future for smartphones as they become primarily Web browsing devices.

Also not surprisingly, the Instinct doesn't run Windows Mobile, but customized, Java-based software developed by the German design house, iconmobile group.

Web browsing was a centerpiece of Microsoft's announcement of a new version of Windows Mobile, with the software giant promising it would deliver "desktop-grade Web browsing" by including features from Internet Explorer 6, including industry standards such as H.264, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. Look for it in phones by the end of 2008.

"Desktop-grade" may not be exactly the connection Microsoft wants to create. The biggest problem with Windows Mobile and Mobile IE, in my experience, is that they work as if they're still running on a desktop PC. The advantage of the iPhone, with its multitouch interface, is that it makes browsing not just possible, but actually effective on a mobile device. That's why the iPhone is already far and away the leading device for mobile browsing.

I recently reviewed the RedFly from Celio, a device that links to a Windows Mobile phone and gives the operating system what it needs to run well -- an 800x480 screen, full keyboard, and mouse.

The meat of the 6.1 version appears to be not in features that would challenge the iPhone, but in management tools for enterprise customers -- a good market, to be sure, but small compared to what might happen if smartphones do indeed take over the consumer marketplace.

Microsoft has always insisted it intends to be a major player in mobile device OSes, and it's already made some moves to try to stay in the post-iPhone game, like its purchase of Sidekick designer Danger.

The Microsoft press release announcing 6.1 included the obligatory analyst quote, and this time the job fell to Ben Bajarin, who came up with, “Microsoft is taking the necessary steps to broaden its consumer appeal while also addressing the complex mobile needs of the enterprise.”

Sorry, but I don't think so. To me it looks almost like Microsoft is pursuing a strategy that splits the market, leaving the consumer side to Apple at least for the time being, while it pushes Windows Mobile where it has the most traction, with businesses that run Microsoft Exchange email and want total control of employees' phones.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Danger's Hiptop OS for mobile devices is also Java-based. It was far too soon to expect to see any impact from Danger (which Microsoft just bought in January) on the company's presence at CTIA 2008, but I suspect we'll see a retooled Windows Mobile for consumer devices -- maybe as soon as CTIA 2009. The question is how much -- or how little -- it will look like Windows.

Microsoft has always claimed that the advantage of the Windows interface on mobile devices was its familiarity. But familiarity doesn't seem to have strong consumer appeal. Consumers seem to be voting for something else.