My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: Microsoft and Windows Phone 7 - Love Potion Number Nine

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Microsoft and Windows Phone 7 - Love Potion Number Nine



God how the dead men
Grin by the wall,
Watching the fun
Of the Victory Ball.

Alfred Noyes, A Victory Dance

People, the rains are an incredible force of Nature, thus the lateness of my latest commentary to my adoring fans in the International Press. At about 4:30 pm on Tuesday October 19th 2010, it began falling so heavily, that I and my mother had to scurry home back to Milk River, Clarendon in our 2005 Nissan Sunny motor car at Crichton Automotive Limited

If the water gathers up in sufficient volume on the roads at Parnassus, just outside of York Town, we would be sleeping in the car in May Pen, Clarendon a good fourteen (14) miles away from Milk River, Clarendon, my home.

Already, up to that time yesterday, the bridge in Gravel Hill was inundated with water, rendered impassible; more evidence of poor road and construction engineering in Jamaica, I’m afraid. Oh Jamaican politicians, what have we done to thee, to deserve thy neglect?

Every time it floods we are blocked in Milk River? Even Race Course, a community of people who vote regularly, has their Kemps Hill escape road blocked. And yet Milk River Bath is on the map, Google Earth style, a bonafide tourist attraction! Today is Sunday October 10 2010 AD.

Thankfully, we are safe, high and dry, the vehicle is safe, no alternator damage and best of all, my computer is safe, so I can continue writing my article about Microsoft and their smash hit phone.

Which, from the looks of it, hardware and Microsoft Windows Phone 7 OS with its “live” tiles and excellent hardware, will be a success!

Magnified by nine (9) smashingly good smart phones from handset makers Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, LG Electronics Inc, HTC Corp and Dell Inc (Dell makes smart phones? Who knew?) on multiple carriers, as per the article “Microsoft new phones win favourable reaction”, published Monday October 11, 2010 7:09 pm ET By Bill Rigby and Sinead Carew, Yahoo! News.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appears to be wearing his three (3) year well researched Love Potion No. 9 (1992) charm very well, and thus my bestowed congratulations on something that finally will be a success, guaranteed.

But first, a strong dose of reality.

Effectively,  Microsoft is fighting for scraps, as the “Microsoft is fighting for third place” comment is a tad too generous a parting shot in the excellent research note by Wells Fargo analyst Jason Maynard.

But, straight up, this is the best showing for the Microsoft OS I have seen in years. Guess good comes to those who wait on Microsoft? What am I gushing over, you ask?

John Public puts on his tech geek hat, delving into smart phones yet again. The first thing that I love about the phones is their brand: LG, Samsung, HTC and Dell. These names already have brand name recognition.

The hardware that these smart phone makers have produced so far, all based around a common 4” AMOLED or OLED screen, at least a 1GHz processors, 1 Gigabyte of onboard RAM, SD Card support, USB support, and support for at least 720p video playback and HDMI, is reminiscent alone in the phones they have already sold.

As per example the Motorola Droid, the HTC Evo 4G and the HTC Droid Incredible and the Samsung Galaxy S series of phones and the Dell Streak, thus far a strange success story, itself worthy of its OWN article.

Short sentence: geek gadget phones, as per my prognostications back in 2009 AD to a bunch of brain-dead Shurpower Generator Engineers in 2009 AD. Need I say more? Thus, on brand name recognition and hardware alone, the phones are already a hit.

Throw in Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS, and you have effectively a meeting of old partners from the past in a bar, drinking, reminiscing on the past and pondering what now appears to be a future driven by a word I love to hear bandied about in the smart phone market, a crossover from Biology: biodiversity.

You see, folks, I, John Public, love the new large “live” tiled OS, the productivity software support and how it integrates well with Microsoft Windows and their productivity software, making the phone a true work phone as opposed to the fun loving Apple iPhone 4.0. I should assume that the real competition should have been BlackBerry, business enterprise is their domain, but I leave it at that.

Throw in the fact that the phone supports the Zune player, which early reports have suggested is now being ported to Apple 10 OS [Snow Leopard] on Macs and possibly the Apple iPhone and Apple iPad.

Thus we can all proclaim and bear witness to the fact that this may be a sure fire indication that Hell has indeed frozen over, rock solid too, as per the report by Brian Tong in The Apple Byte, aired Friday October 15th 2010 by Senior Editor Brian Tong, CNET News and the sarcastic comment by Jeff Bakelar on CNET Loaded, aired Wednesday October 13th 2010 by Senior Editor Jeff Bakelar, CNET News.

Best of all, the phones sport Microsoft popular Search Platform Bing, now on the rise as a household name and a verb in common lexicon of Americans and the colourful English, like “Google”.

Which is not surprising, as “Bing” is a sound unique to a Microsoft Windows PC computer as stated in the article “Microsoft's Bing is Gaining share”, published May 20, 2010, 5:00PM EST By Dina Bass, THE INTERNET - BusinessWeek

The popularity of is set to rise even more on the announcement of a deal inked with the young Turk cum Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as per the article as stated in the article “Microsoft's FaceBook stake: Maybe not so crazy”, published October 13, 2010 2:01 PM PDT by Caroline McCarthy, CNET News - The Social.

This of course confirmed by the article “Facebook partners with 'underdog' Microsoft to make Bing more social”, published October 13, 2010, 12:33pm PDT by Sam Diaz, Between the Lines - ZDNET.

Throw in a push for Social Gaming using already brand recognized game titles Halo: Reach,  currently the ONLY success story in the lackluster sales of the Gaming Consoles as stated in the article “September another rough month for game industry”, published October 15, 2010 9:01 AM PDT by Don Reisinger, CNET News - The Digital Home.

Apple may have something else to worry about, other than Google Android, as Love Potion No. 9 (1992) (great 90’s romantic comedy, do watch!!) begins to have its effect on the geek gadget crazy males in the United States of America and International customers!

A simultaneous push towards International customers is another first for a Microsoft OS. Did I REALLY forget the Microsoft Flight Simulator fanatics?

Fanatics who are finally getting a new title since the last launch of the franchise in 2006 AD with the coming of Microsoft Flight Simulator as per the article “Microsoft makes a return to Flight”, published August 18, 2010 4:00 AM PDT by Ina Fried, CNET News - Beyond Binary.

I am an Apple iPhone fan and also the person who suggested the idea for the Apple iPad and the Apple iPhone’s recent upgrades, including the contentious External Loop Antenna.

Yet like Stephen Fry, I too, and I quote, will state emphatically: “I'm not a monotheist. I want biodiversity in this market and all of us that love it should welcome that too” as per the article “Microsoft new phones win favourable reaction”, published Monday October 11, 7:09 pm ET by Bill Rigby and Sinead Carew, Yahoo! News

The simplicity of the interface, not to mention it being less app driven, is a thing of beauty, like the innovative deck-of-cards Palm WebOS that appeals to me greatly

This is an example of the kind of biodiversity that is needed, a Biology term that hearkens to a more balance smart phone industry of the future, as opposed to the one now currently dominated by one species of OS, namely Google Android OS.

The oddball problem of cut and paste, strange as it may sound, may be a jab for market recognition akin to the “AntennaGate” or the more recent “Glassgate” as stated in the article “Does the iPhone 4 have a 'Glassgate' problem?”, published Friday October 8 2010 by Ben Patterson, Yahoo Technology Writer, Yahoo! News that is getting Apple plenty of Press Time

Ironically, by virtue of these issues, may be the true source of the amazing US$20 billion in sales of Apple Products, this last Third Quarter, more than Google will make this ENTIRE 2010 AD as stated in the article “Apple: More revenue in one quarter than Google will do in a year”, published October 18, 2010, 1:48pm PDT By Sam Diaz, Between the Lines - ZDNET inclusive of Macs, now in the crosshairs for yet another “one more thing” refresh from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

That’s enough to make anyone act crazy on stage – a second time in a row, as the last time he acted like that was back in 2008 AD, and this that time it had to do with the Apple iPhone 3GS, another set of upgrade ideas of mine, this time sent via email while at the University of the West Indies in the Fall of 2007 AD.

Hopefully Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in his statistics laden diatribe against industry rivals, has not lost focus of the fact that the Integrated vs Open Source debate is really all about Biodiversity in the smart phone OS ecosystem

Microsoft, with their offering of Microsoft Windows Phone 7 smart phones with significantly improved brand recognized hardware, are on a path towards success

As after all, it really is what the customer wants at the end of the days that will determine if their product rides the “Fail Whale” or may spark another customer rush for their products and component shortages, just in time for Christmas 2010.

John Public, secretly, knows it will be a success, as an early sign, the price on a two (2) year contract on Telecom Provider AT&T of US$199, is already a promising sign, in a race described best by Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at research firm Gartner: “This is a marathon, not a sprint. They are not going to change their position today or in the next month; but they've established themselves as a credible player”.

All that is left to make their profit year, riding on expectations of a bumper crop of US$19 billion for the last Quarter in Christmas 2010 on the basis of their excellent smart phone offerings, is a Good Tablet and Microsoft will be back in the Computer game.

Despite the naysayers as per the opinions of John C. Dvorak in the article “How Apple's iPad Succeeded where Microsoft Failed”, published Tuesday April 6, 8:00 pm ET by, PC Magazine, Yahoo! News.  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the standardized ARM9 chipset Qualcomm gives these guy real puts phone vendors in hard position. I feel that if a phone company were able to create a resistive touchscreen smartphone for less than 80USD prepaid, they would set of a revolution in the world cell phne industry, as it would allow them to reach more poor and middle income customers around the world.

Oh, and excellent blog. You are obviously on of the more technically sophisticated on the Jamaican side of the Internet. I got the link to this blog from TechJamaica, and that was probably one of the few good things I got from that forum.

Keep up the good work