Comments on: Why Microsoft May Lose Mobile Market to Google

By: HackersWisdom

HackersWisdom — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:25:45 +0000

I believe, we can do a bit of inference by comparing the search engine approaches of msn and google. One is only a part of a web page with full news and pictures, the other one is as simple as possible, which implies its first aim is searching. Yet combining this capability with advertising industry is to me what makes Google so powerful. I guess they plan to transport this mechanism into the cellphone industry. Thus they may be able to have more influence than expected by Mr. Gates.

By: Gurijala

Gurijala — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 04:45:33 +0000

Quite interesting.

By: luis abreu

luis abreu — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:31:49 +0000

“Answer:
1. Because the battery technology has not reached a point where this scenario is viable.”

Actually it has, not on all cellphones, but I recently set up a HTC P3600 to use MS Push Mail, the phone is connected all day checking for emails. It needs to be charged at the end of the day but this is an extreme situation, you wouldn’t be connected full time to use the web app.

“i seem to remember a prediction around 1995 that everyone in the world would have high speed ubiquitous internet access by the year 2000…i’m still waiting for it.”

I’m not, Vodafone Portugal provides this for a very low cost, we have 3G coverage on 90% of the country and hsdpa(up to 7.6mbit) on the major cities.

By: rob

rob — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:36:57 +0000

“just a couple of years ago we didn’t have web apps”…

i seem to remember a prediction around 1995 that everyone in the world would have high speed ubiquitous internet access by the year 2000…i’m still waiting for it.

in the meantime, i run my software locally and offer empathy to the web apps users i meet on airplanes.

there is a happy middle ground that microsoft seems to be leading in the industry. it is that of software + services that will enable the next 10 years of innovation. ozzie uses apple as a prime example of connecting a device that runs offline (iPod) to a computer that has software (iTunes) that connects to an online iTunes service that supports a massive database of songs/video that you can purchase for download and playback on your computer and portable device.

how difficult is the leap from this model to that of the entire computing paradigm? in this light, running purely web apps sounds downright silly.

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:18:03 +0000

I agree that we shouldn’t get worked up over Google, but we shouldn’t overlook that technology will advance and a web solution will likely be more practical. Remember, just a couple years ago we didn’t have web apps.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:04:17 +0000

For web-based phones to work, we’re going to need phone data plans that are 1) much faster (on the AT&T network, iPhone’s web performance reviews range from ‘dissapointing’ to ‘nearly unusable’) and 2) much cheaper.

Gates is right. Creating a lot of hoopla over the gPhone, *sight unseen*, is premature.

By: templar

templar — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:04:08 +0000

“Why would we want to run lots of software on a cell phone, when bandwidth could allow us to simply access it as a web solution?”

Answer:
1. Because the battery technology has not reached a point where this scenario is viable.

2. The term “web solution” somewhat implies that it can only use features that are “lowest common denominator” because it has to be platform-independent. Unlike PC, features in phones vary greatly from one phone to another.