Microsoft sings better tune on Windows Mobile
Microsoft Mobile Communications Business SVP Andy Lees has said that future versions of Windows Mobile will improve the music “experience.” In his statement, he acknowledged the successful strategy that Apple has followed with the iPhone: by tying the iphone into the wildly successful iTunes + iPod ecosystem, Apple has managed to successfully enter a market where they have absolutely no proven competence. The other big closed-source player, Research in Motion, has also made moves to bring music and cell phones together. They recently announced a music service much like iTunes in partnership with a Canadian music company called Puretracks.
The addition of music to the cell phone follows recent trends towards mobile digital conversion. Ever more gadgets are being replaced by all-in-one wonders. Rather than carry an iPod, cell phone, and portable internet device, a blackberry or iPhone is now sufficient for all but the most demanding of users. Microsoft seeks to parlay their desktop computing dominance into a similarly-commanding position in the smartphone market. Current iterations of music software on Windows Mobile devices are limited to a stripped down clone of the desktop Windows Media Player. Synchronization between a user’s music library and the mobile device are manual affairs at best. Microsoft also does not offer the feature set found on other devices, such as over the air downloads and a fully-stocked media store.
In contrast, the iPhone offers a full-featured iPod interface for media playback, and RIM’s upcoming Blackberry music service will no doubt offer a slick and intuitive design. Microsoft has demonstrated some capability to build such stores, with minor wins such as the Zune Marketplace and XBox LIVE Marketplace. The as-yet-unanswered question is: Can Microsoft successfully integrate the media efforts across devices, as Apple has? The iPhone, ipod, and AppleTV all share a similar media platform and buying experience; Windows users are stuck using different systems for Media Center, Zune, and XBox. Given the sheer volume of Windows Mobile licenses sold, Microsoft stands to become a significant player in media-enabled smartphones. That’s if it can ever manage to play nice with itself.
Read [Yahoo! Finance]
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