The past few months have seen several new smartphones get headlines with their releases, and every new version of the iPhone's software makes waves, so it can be easy to forget Windows Mobile. The OS isn't flashy, but it has a solid place in enterprises. The question is, can it hold onto this place in the face of fierce competition?
The Windows Mobile Phone
Windows Mobile's main advantage is its ability to integrate with Exchange. While its competitors have been making strides in increasing their compatibility with Exchange, they lag behind Windows Mobile. For example, before the 3.0 software upgrade, iPhone users couldn't send meeting requests.
Beyond Exchange integration, a fully Microsoft mobile ecosystem gives you some other advantages. System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM) is a good example of how much the company's products work together. SCMDM integrates Windows Mobile 6.1 or later phones into a company's Active Directory (AD) infrastructure. Aimed at the enterprise market, SCMDM gives administrators control over the company's smartphones similar to what it already has over desktops and laptops.
With SCMDM, smartphones get enhanced VPN functions and optimized connections. SCMDM also provides extra security, letting you use AD credentials on phones and providing a remote wipe function to destroy sensitive data on a lost phone. (See this article for an in-depth look at SCMDM)
If you don't mind getting your mobile management software from companies other than Microsoft, this advantage might not be so important for you. In fact, several companies have capitalized on the trend toward businesses with multiple types of smart phones and are now offering multi-platform smartphone management, allowing a company to have users on several different smartphone OSs but still manage all the phones.
Another strength of Windows Mobile is also one of its weaknesses. Unlike the iPhone OS (or, to various degrees, other smartphone OSs such as PalmOS), Windows Mobile devices are manufactured by many different companies and available on many different kinds of hardware. This means Windows Mobile phones can be found on many different carriers and at many different prices, but it also means that two different Windows Mobile phones might not be able to run the same software, will each have different quirks, and may have UIs that look very different from one another.
Market Research Firm Canalys reported in August that 3.4 million phones with Microsoft Operating systems were sold in the second quarter of 2009, 9 percent of smartphone sales. In the same quarter, Apple sold 5.2 million phones (13.7 percent), RIM sold 8 million (20 percent) and Symbian was on 19.2 million smartphones (50.3 percent). Canalys reported Microsoft's share of the market is down from 14.3 percent in the second quarter of 2008. In an earlier release, Canalys reported Microsoft had 12.2 percent of the market in the third quarter of 2007.
The Future
Phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 were set to be released by October 6, so they should be available by the time you're reading this. There are a few new features this version, but the general opinion of those who've used it is that 6.5 isn't much more than an update to the UI. The new UI is designed to work better with touch screen devices. There's also a new web browser, said to be a substantial improvement over the old one, and Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a way for Windows Mobile users to purchase. See
Paul Thurrott's preview of Windows Mobile 6.5 for more.
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