Even
In an interview with business Web site Bnet, Gates recalled when he
first saw the iPhone, he said, “Oh, my god,
On Monday, the company hopes to regain some footing with an announcement at the World Mobile Congress trade show in
“It can’t be incremental improvement; it’s got to be something bigger,” said
of progress in the mobile-phone business, now a hot pot of app
development, is having a black-hole effect, sucking the rest of the
company’s reputation for innovation down with it.
No matter what bells and whistles
“Even the people at
mobile group, said in a statement Thursday: “The market for powerful
phones has shifted dramatically over the last three years, reflecting
changes in the customer, the technology and the competitive landscape.
We’re excited about the current generation of Windows phones and the
experiences they bring to life today.”
At this point, just catching up would be a leap forward.
From 2008 to 2009,
slice of the smartphone operating-system market shrank from 13.1
percent to 10.7 percent. Meanwhile, Apple grew from 9.1 to 14.4
percent, and
By the end of this year,
Over the last three years,
In
A month earlier, Apple had overshadowed every other
player in the mobile market with the iPhone. The touch-screen with
pinch-and-pull interaction changed Web browsing on a phone, and the
iTunes-like application store attracted thousands of developers.
“I think the iPhone kind of caught them (
In fall 2007,
The company was on track to produce about a dozen
devices — all carrying the brand names of mobile phone carriers — by
the end of 2009. Then in January, it introduced its own branded phone,
the Nexus One.
Last October, more than two years after the launch of Windows Mobile 6.0,
released an incremental update, Windows Mobile 6.5. It also re-branded
phones with a slightly more consumer-friendly name “Windows Phones.”
The update had new features, such as the ability to
back up contact information online, and a new marketplace for
applications. Reviewers panned it.
subsidiary Danger, lost their contacts and other data for several
weeks. They publicly ranted about it on Twitter and other social
networks for just as long.
Observers say
still has some advantages, such as its strong ties with corporate
customers through its other businesses. Phone users tend to replace
their handsets every two to three years, giving any company room to
reinvent.
has also differentiated itself from competitors by neither building a
device from soup to nuts like Apple nor going the open-source route
like
Some have suggested
The last time
IDC’s Stofega doesn’t think
As
“There’s a lot of people that have counted them out,” Stofega said. “I don’t. I think they have work to do.”
—
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