Gartner Research’s recent announcement (the iPhone has outsold Windows Mobile) caused waves all over the blogosphere – after all, Windows Mobile has been on the market for more than 8 years now. The end of Windows Mobile is coming closer, etc etc – as if we have never heard this before. Yikes!
For me, it was completely clear from the start that the iPhone would outsell most business smartphones: as it is NOT a business smartphone, but rather a media player/converged device targeting fashionable customers and not businessmen. This means that the device has a much broader target demographics (similar to Palm’s Centro) – it can be sold to fashionable folks, teenyboppers, teenagers, gangs of thugs, etc.
This makes the iPhone very easy to sell: as its target demographics are very wide, running TV ads is an option (did you ever see an ad for a Windows Mobile device?). Furthermore, the “Apple reality distortion field” kicks in, making sure that every Mac user on the world goes for such a box instead of a more capable Microsoft device.
IMHO, the Windows Mobile ecosystem must accept that the times of standing in the flashlight are over: Windows Mobile is a place where businesses thrive due to Exchange/MDM, and developers get by due to technically savvy customers buying their quality wares.
I personally think that the iPhone and J2ME phones are much more similar than one might think at first glance: in there arenas, quick product development (and low quality) is the key to success. If Microsoft would try to follow suit with WM, most of you would be more than unhappy…
What do you think?
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