From BlackBerry To Windows Phone
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With the launch of the K1 Blackberry has risen from the dead. Yes...i said Blackberry. Now don't misunderstand, I'm not suggesting that BB will surpass iphones or Galaxy's in terms of sale volumes. All I mean is that they've managed to produce a phone that is being received VERY well by enterprise and consumers alike (due to its excellent hardware and software). For yrs BB fans, like us WP...
On the software side of things, I was ok with using Windows Mobile on all of these devices. Most of us, including Mac converts (and even Mac loyalists), have a decent amount of Windows experience from using PCs throughout our lives, which brings a certain familiarity to using a Windows phone that makes them relatively easy to figure out (not necessarily a friendly nor intuitive experience, but you can work your way through it!). The out of the box experience in some cases leaves a lot to be desired, but it's hard not to know what things like Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer are to be used for when you see them. If you spend enough time clicking and tapping around a Windows Mobile phone you'll eventually figure it out. My biggest issue with these previous devices wasn't so much the software as it was the hardware. The AT&T Tilt was a brick of a device (especially compared to the Curve 8310 we reviewed that year) with battery life that wouldn't last past noon if you turned on 3G. And the Fuze's resistive display simply hated my fingers and even after a week of use I still couldn't comfortably navigate around the phone without cursing. Aligning these phones up on my Smartphone Hierarchy of Needs, though Windows Mobile does a decent job of filling in the pyramid both of these devices we're epic failures for me personally at the everyday usability level. No matter how much they could do, they simply were devices I wouldn't be able to use as my primary smartphone.
The Treo Pro on the other hand was actually a pretty decent phone for me. Featuring a form factor more akin to a traditional BlackBerry, on the Treo Pro you could essentially ignore the touchscreen and just use the navigation pad to get around and the physical front-facing keyboard for entering text. It was a much more usable device, though like the Tilt and Fuze from time to time required you to pull out the stylus, a process I find highly hilarious and annoying (and dangerous... OUCH, MY EYE!). With a multitude of Windows phones available, these three units may not be an accurate representation of what's out there, but at least for me looking at Windows Mobile in past years, coming into this year's Round Robin I had hopes for better hardware.
That said, a BlackBerry user who loves to tinker with stuff might enjoy the hackability offered by the Windows Mobile platform and they might find desirable form factors offered that they just can't get on BlackBerry. But I think you'd lose a lot too (other than just BlackBerry Messenger) in going from BlackBerry to WinMo. I sort of think that BlackBerry just works for you, whereas with with Windows Mobile, you need to make it work for you. There's a difference. BlackBerry definitely reigns supreme in the stability and battery life departments and I'd argue is doing a better job of bringing all of the pieces together. Though BlackBerry Smartphones are not known for their outstanding media capabilities, they are very media capable, as well as entertainment capable and productive. And to me it seems RIM is doing a better job of bringing all of those things you can do on a smartphone together into a unified experience out of the box. Windows Mobile seems more pieced together. Maybe it all goes back to having one to many cooks in the kitchen (hardware and software) vs. just having one master chef who gets everything right. Not to mention while a company like RIM only focuses on smartphones, Microsoft seems to treat their mobile division as an afterthought. It's something they have to do, but don't seem to put much passion into it. At least that we've seen so far. Though there are a lot of Windows Mobile apps out there, the Windows Mobile Marketplace is still an embarrasment. At least it can only gget better!
Last year during the Round Robin we knew Palm was in a position of sink or swim. Microsoft is more like a continent than a boat, so it's doubtful it'll sink anytime soon, though it's pretty clear that they need to do something if they want to be a real contender in the Smartphone market for the long haul. A company like RIM has its core competencies in enterprise (an area you'd think Microsoft would have been able to give RIM a real run for their money but just never was able to) and in being the ultimate communication tool, that give it a strong foundation - they can maintain brand recognitition and drive big sales while they work on improving some of the features that consumers are wanting at the top of the hierarchy of needs. And whereas a licensed platform like Android is gaining momentum - from developers, manufacturers and consumers, Windows Mobile is dying.
The big take away from the chart above is, of course, that all operating systems and ecosystems rise and fall. Of the clutch that heralded in the smartphone era, Symbian's S60 interface was massively dominant, with over 60% of the market at one point. Symbian's UIQ and Series 80 interfaces were dropped, Palm OS never really made the transition from PDA to smartphone as successfully as it perhaps should have done, while Microsoft's Windows Mobile was never able to fully shake the feeling that it was a stylus-centric PDA with phone features added in as an afterthought. Meanwhile, S60 sold by the many tens of millions per quarter by pretending to just be a 'phone', a trend that now sees the smartphone as ubiquitous in 2013 and outselling low end 'feature' phones.
Windows Phone, Microsoft's reinvention of the smartphone, tried to learn lessons from the iPhone and iOS (capacitive touch, superlative UI response, normob-friendly pseudo-multitasking, anything tricky - like a file system - hidden away from the user) and from Android (customisable start screen) while integrating the Internet even further into its core, with the aforementioned file system effectively manifesting in the cloud as SkyDrive.
In that light, it's no surprise to note the news from this week that Blackberry's long run is coming to an end - it, like Symbian, had survived well beyond Rafe's 'six years', but in each case it was with a certain number of reinventions and writhings towards the end. Blackberry had evolved into a smartphone platform after years as just a heavily message-centric device, but its reinvention (OS 10) came a couple of years too late.
I've deliberately talked in general terms above, in line with the diagrammatic nature of the chart, and I've also happily mashed together devices in with platforms and ecosystems, but hopefully the broad brush strokes ring true to you. Quoting from no less than the Old Testament: "For everything there is a season". Blackberry's is now over, so is that of Symbian, Palm OS and Windows Mobile, leaving just three current mainstream smartphone operating systems.
Windows-powered smartphones made strong gains in the US market in early 2013, capturing third place, with Android and Apple at the top, a survey showed Monday. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1449240174198-2'); }); Android, the free operating system from Google, remained the top platform with 51.7 percent of US sales in the three months to April, up from 50.3 percent a year earlier, according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.Apple's iOS was second with 41.4 percent, up from 39.1 percent a year earlier, the survey found.Microsoft's Windows, boosted by the Windows Phone 8 introduced last year, boosted its share to 5.6 percent from 3.8 percent.The gains for the three platforms came at the expense of BlackBerry, which had a minuscule 0.7 percent of US sales compared with 5.3 percent a year ago.The Canadian firm unveiled its BlackBerry 10 platform earlier this year, but the handsets have been rolling out gradually.The survey found some positive signs for Windows, which is capturing customers upgrading from feature phones and from Android devices."It's not just about capturing the market that is yet to upgrade," said Kantar's Mary-Ann Parlatto."When looking at those who changed device, between 2011 and 2012 Windows was more successful at capturing older consumers aged 50-64. But when looking at those changing now and in the last year, we're seeing Windows now gaining share among those aged 25-34."Other surveys have shown gains for Windows smartphones, which appear to be pushing BlackBerry to fourth place in the US market.Android had a commanding 75 percent global market share in the first quarter, according to research firm IDC. © 2013 AFP
In four years' time, Canalys projects in its report, Android will remain the dominant smartphone player, with a 67.1% share of the market, compared to 67.7% in 2012. Shipments of Android smartphones will climb to over 1 billion units annually from 470 million in 2012. Apple will drop from 2012's 19.5% share to 14.1% but it will still stay in second place.
"Apple's growth will be curtailed by the fact that momentum in the smartphone market is coming from the low end, and Apple is absent from this segment," said Canalys analyst Jessica Kwee in a statement. It appears, however, that Canalys did not factor in the possibility of Apple releasing a cheaper iPhone later this year in its forecast. "Android's continued dominance is due to the scalability of the platform," continued Kwee.
The Chinese firms will lead in releasing affordable Windows Phone devices that will be Microsoft's engine of growth in emerging markets where millions of customers are just beginning to upgrade from feature phones.
"Windows' strength appears to be the ability to attract first-time smartphone buyers, upgrading from a feature phone. Of those who changed their phone over the last year to a Windows smartphone, 52% had previously owned a feature phone... with over half of the US market still owning a feature phone, it's likely that many will upgrade over the coming year, which will ultimately contribute to more growth for the Windows brand," noted Kantar Worldpanel ComTech analyst Mary-Ann Parlato in a recent report, according to Computerworld. 2b1af7f3a8