Neil Enns - What is Microsoft's SmartPhone pitch to developers?
- Posted: May 21, 2004 at 1:44 PM
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Why develop software for Microsoft's new SmartPhone operating system? Plus, how well is Microsoft supporting cell phone standards? We wondered what what Neil would say, so we asked him "what's your pitch to developers?" He gives what he thinks are the strengths of Microsoft's SmartPhone operating system.
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I wish I had a Windows-powered phone, but my carrier only offered a Palm-based system as their hybrid pda/phone. I ended up getting an i730, which is a cool phone, but it's strictly a J2ME (Java) platform.
It seems to me that mobiles/pda's should be more like home PC's where you buy a product and pick from an array of network providers.
Right now, the type of phone you want is dictated largely (entirely) by your wireless carrier (at least in the US).
Sure, there's always a way around this. I know a guy who bought a slick high tech phone in London and got his American SIM card to work inside of it. But he had to pay some guy to 'circumvent' the SIM card's block to make that happen. Apparently, SIM cards issued here in the US are modified to prevent people from swapping them around from phone to phone.
The vast majority of people will not do this. It seems to me that as long as the wireless carriers dictate the phones that you can use on their networks, growth in this area will be slow.
How is it in the rest of the world? I can't imagine European & Japanese consumers putting up with that kind of nonsense.
Microsoft has enough power to pressure the US wireless carriers to open up the market. Work on that!
Maybe I'm ranting, but I've got all the .NET tools now for mobile device development and can't use them.
It's called .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 1: Base Class Library and Extended Numerics Library. The ISBN is 0321154894.
You can check out a sample chapter at http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321154894. It's a great read! Brad and a bunch of the other members of the CLR crew talk about the different design decisions made for each of the classes. The best part is reading all the places where they don't think they did a good job.
Neil
Unfortunately not that I'm aware of. Ori and I did an MSDN TV spot though where we showed how to do webservices from a Smartphone. You can watch it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/episode.aspx?xml=episodes/en/20030808NETCompactFxOA/manifest.xml.
In general with mobile operators, you can use your SIM card in any cellphone. The SIM card itself does not have a lock, and your mobile operator really doesn't care what phone you use. All they care about is that you use their minutes.
What does happen frequently, including in Europe, is that the phone itself will be locked to a particular network. This is because the mobile operator has actually paid a portion of the cost of the phone for you, and they would prefer that you use their minutes with that phone.
You can buy 'unlocked' phones on the web, even Smartphones, but they always cost more than the locked versions. That's because there's no mobile operator involved to help offset the cost.
Also, there are some countries in Europe where the subsidy of a handset purchase is prohibited by law. I believe in those countries locked phones are rare.
Neil
I've still got the standard OS, Smartphone 02
There's no update available at the moment. AT&T did flash some phones for MDC attendees, but that's not something we have access to. The updates have to come from the mobile operator.
Neil
I didn't buy my phone from any mobile operator
i bought it completely free without any contract. i even also see during starting a screen that says 'Mobile Operator Logo', where my operator's logo should be if i'd purchased the phone over one.
Will the phones with Windows CE 5.0 have support for the european UMTS?
And which windows mobile version does the Whidbey CF target? Windows03 SE?
In your case you'd have to get the update from Motorola. As with Pocket PCs, all updates have to come from either the operator or the manufacturer.
Reagarding our next release I don't believe we've made any specific announcements around UMTS functionality yet.
Good question on the Whidbey release, I'm not sure. Ori's at TechEd, but I'll ask some of the other VSD guys and see if I can find out.
Neil
Thanks for your help
looking forward about Whidbey CF
Can also tell me which features the smartphone version of WinCE 5 will bring us?
I can't really comment on features in future releases. The PR guys would have my fingers
Neil
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