Nokia alliance may spell doom for Windows Mobile

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Windows Mobile hasn't done well enough for Microsoft; Office products used to branch out to other devices

The Microsoft-Nokia alliance plan to put Office applications on Nokia smartphones isn't a good sign for the Windows Mobile operating system.

Could this alliance be the beginning of the end for Windows Mobile? Some observers think so, arguing that the agreement is an admission by Microsoft that Windows Mobile, its operating system for mobile devices, hasn't done well, especially when compared to the Symbian operating system that runs on Nokia handhelds.

Analysts won't come out and say that Windows Mobile is dying, but they came close in comments today.

The alliance announcement is "a tacit admission that Windows Mobile hasn't made the grade and not gotten the market share they wanted," said Nick Jones, a Gartner Inc. analyst, in an interview. "If Windows Mobile were the leading mobile OS, they wouldn't have needed to do this."

Symbian is the world's leading mobile OS and runs on nearly half the smartphones globally, while Windows Mobile hasn't reached above fourth place globally despite strong support and years of investment from Microsoft, Jones added.

Jones said he is becoming "more concerned" about the future for Windows Mobile and added in a blog today that Windows Mobile 7 could be Microsoft's last update of the product. A release of Windows Mobile 6.5 is due later this year.

"Imagine you are Steve Ballmer and in two years time WinMo was still fourth in smartphone market share. How much longer would you keep throwing money at it?" Jones wrote.

Microsoft strongly defended Windows Mobile today, with Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop saying in a teleconference with reporters that the alliance with Nokia doesn't mean Microsoft is conceding Symbian as the dominant OS for smartphones. However, Nokia executive vice president for devices Kai Oistamo also clearly said Windows Mobile won't be running on Nokia phones.

And in an interview afterward, Kirt Debique, general manager of the Microsoft Business Division, said Microsoft remains "deeply committed to Windows Mobile," adding that the alliance was not about the OS, but instead the productivity software running on smartphones.

Stephen Drake, an analyst at research firm IDC Inc., said the alliance won't have a negative effect on Windows Mobile. Instead, he said, it's a smart move for Microsoft, since the company hasn't been able to license Windows Mobile on Nokia smartphones, but will now be able to provide a number of its offerings on another platform without using Windows Mobile.

"It makes sense for Microsoft to port its solutions on other OSes, as it realizes it is a heterogeneous world," Drake said.

While Jones offered the biggest worries for Windows Mobile of several analysts interviewed, there were other voices of concern as well.

Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, said today's deal has him wondering whether Windows Mobile can survive much longer.

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney noted that Windows Mobile is already "weak right now, whether this [Nokia alliance] got announced or not." While Microsoft seems committed to improving Windows Mobile, "they will never be as dominant as they have been on the PC."

And Carolina Milanesi, also a Gartner analyst, said the deal with Nokia won't mean that Microsoft stops improving Windows mobile, but expressed long-term worries. "To me, the deal shows that there are limitations to where the [Windows Mobile] platform will go in the next year or so, and that the Microsoft [productivity software team] might not want to risk waiting for Windows Mobile 7 to come to the rescue, " she wrote in an e-mail.

[javajolt]

Microsoft has recently announced a partnership with mobile phone giant Nokia to integrate Microsoft Office apps into Nokia phones. Some see the move as an admission on Microsoft's part that its own mobile platform is underperforming. Why, then, does Nokia think it can use Mobile Office to lure BlackBerry customers away from RIM? In the mobile market, Microsoft as a name brand doesn't have the kind of influence that it does in the PC world, and for those relatively few users who actually do need an office suite on their phone, the mobile market is already saturated with effective, low-cost Office-compatible options.

The bare reality is that most people don't actually need--or even want to--edit documents and spreadsheets on their phones. People aren't trying to perform mail-merges on their phones. Nor are they creating animated Power Point presentations or clustered-column charts. People want to be able to view documents, which they already can on most devices. In rare cases, some may want to perform the most basic edits. Office compatibility is useful, but the full set of features and branding is not required. While Microsoft Exchange interoperability is nearly critical for a massive number of business smartphone users, people are happy using the mail applications bundled with their iPhones and Blackberries, and there's no crowd of users out there clamoring for Outlook.

Users who need productivity software on their phones already have a number of options. One great choice is Quickoffice, which is only $20 and is supported on a multitude of Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm, iPhone, and Android devices. Then there is Documents To Go, which runs on a similar array of portable devices and gives PDF capabilities on top of the ability to create Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatible files. Other productivity suites for the BlackBerry include eOffice and BeamSuite. Soon Microsoft will launch a free online version of its productivity suite when Office 10 launches, which is supported by not only IE, but also Firefox and Safari (including mobile Safari).

Mobile Office isn't really the same Office you have on your PC anyway. Once you strip off enough features to make Office feasible on a mobile internet device (MID), all you're really left with is just another mobile productivity suite with Microsoft Office branding.

The killer apps are the browser, connectivity, the user interface, and mobile media. All we have to do is look at the top selling iPhone and BlackBerry devices to see what features are important to users. If mobile office were a killer app, we'd see Windows Mobile as the dominant mobile platform, but it's not. This is ample evidence that users aren't concerned with replicating their desktop computers on their mobile phones. So while it's certainly nice that users who want official Microsoft Office software on their Nokia handsets will now have that option, don't anticipate a stampede of users rushing to get their hands on it.

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Microsoft is using its newly formed alliance with Nokia not to bolster its mobile efforts but to help fuel expansion of its cloud, collaboration, real-time communications and management strategies.

The alliance is a setup for tools Microsoft will be releasing next year and beyond in its Office family and System Center portfolio of products.

company's ongoing strategy has been to create a single management platform for Windows, non-Windows platforms and devices on the back of its System Center tools. Microsoft has been working in the past few years to widen its management capabilities to include mobile devices, Linux and virtual machines.

And Microsoft is positioning Office 2010 as the version of its productivity tools and back-end servers best suited to work across PCs, devices and the browsers, according to Stephan Elop, president of Microsoft's business division.

Those Office back-end services will include both on-premises and hosted cloud offerings. The alliance with Nokia announced Wednesday fosters those cloud, collaboration and management efforts.

For example, Nokia's Eseries smartphones will be the first non-Windows mobile device that System Center can manage. The focus will be on security management, device management and security-enhanced access.

In addition, Nokia next year will begin shipping the Office Communicator Mobile client on its smartphones. The release is likely to align with the release of Office 2010, set to ship in the first half of the year, although the pair would only say Communicator Mobile would come in 2010.

But the real work on Office will come in adapting mobile-optimized versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote to the Nokia platform and its Symbian operating system. Those applications will help support collaborative applications built on the Office back-end servers. And those servers can be run internally or hosted by a cloud-based service.

The next version of Office Mobile for the Windows Mobile platform is expected next year. Nokia and Microsoft would only say that the Office applications and related software and services for the Nokia platform would come "in the future."

"This is just a first step," Elop said during a joint press conference with Nokia. "This will also extend to … interaction and collaboration around SharePoint."

Microsoft plans to support mobile access to intranet and extranet portals running on SharePoint, which is becoming a corporate hub for data integration and business intelligence tools integrated using Excel Services and other tools.

In addition, the strategy will extend to Office Communications Server (OCS), the back end for Communicator Mobile. Both those back-end Office servers can be run in-house or acquired via a service through Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Services.

Where Nokia fits in on the System Center side also is loosely defined but initially focused on System Center Mobile Device Manager.

"The plan is to design System Center so customers will be able to provision applications to the Nokia mobile device, and update the applications, so customers have secure and productive mobile computing experience," according to a Microsoft spokesperson. The company did not provide details on when a version of Mobile Device Manager would be released to support Nokia.

The current Mobile Device Manager only works with Windows Mobile 6.1 devices so the software will have to be ported or developed from the ground up to work on Nokia's Symbian.

The rest of the integration with System Center is unclear but development efforts hint at tucking Nokia into Microsoft's broad management infrastructure.

Microsoft currently has a churn of System Center development going on. A new version of Configuration Manager is on track to ship in 2010. System Center Operations Manager should be updated within that same time frame.

The big picture is to integrate those two and other System Center tools into a logical whole that can analyze and aggregate data from the "infrastructure fabric" that houses hardware/devices, operating systems and applications as separate entities.

The ability to create that logical whole is missing because Microsoft has yet to ship Service Manager, unveiled in 2006. The software is designed to pull all management data together and act on the results based on policies and workflow rules.

Service Manager is slated to ship next year.

Microsoft also plans to extend its management platform to include cloud and service providers, so companies can centrally manage both internal systems and cloud-based services, such as those that could be offered to support the Office applications being added to the Nokia platform.

[javajolt]

Perhaps you've heard that Microsoft and Nokia announced a strategic partnership to develop Microsoft application tools and support for the Nokia Symbian-based mobile devices. Some analysts see this as some sort of admission by Microsoft that Windows Mobile is a failure. I don't agree that Windows Mobile is on its death bed just yet. Regardless of how successful Windows Mobile is or isn't, it will never achieve 100 percent market share, but by forging relationships like this Nokia alliance Microsoft can ensure that companies will rely on Microsoft servers and applications no matter which mobile device platform they choose.

That explains why this is such a coup for Microsoft. For Nokia the partnership establishes a strategic advantage over competing platforms, including Windows Mobile. But, what's in it for you? Why should you care? Here are 5 reasons that the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia will benefit you:

1. Strong alternative to RIM Blackberry. While Nokia is the leading manufacturer of smart phones, currently holding 45% market share, it has never been very successful at capturing the enterprise market. RIM Blackberry is the de facto mobile communications platform for many companies.

Blackberry does what it does very well, but lacks the seamless integration with Microsoft backend servers and applications that has been available on mobile device using Windows Mobile. Providing that same level of integration on the leading smart phone platform presents a strong business case and gives you a good reason to look at the Microsoft /Nokia solution as an alternative to RIM Blackberry.

2. Smart phone choices. Users who rely on Windows Mobile devices to deliver the connectivity and integration they want with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Unified Communications have been limited to a handful of mobile device options.

Now you'll be able to choose from a wide range of quality mobile devices and still have the same seamless integration with the Exchange, Office Communications Server, Microsoft Office applications and other Microsoft backend servers and applications.

3. Unified communications. Microsoft is a leading provider of unified communications and many organizations are implementing unified communications based on Office Communications Server 2007 (and OCS 2007 R2). Before this partnership, the ability to stay connected with a mobile device while on the go was restricted to Windows Mobile-based devices.

With Office Communicator Mobile for Nokia devices, you will have much greater freedom to incorporate the unified communications experience with a broader range of mobile devices. That means that you will be able to view the Presence (or availability) status of your contacts, initiate and respond to instant messaging, place calls through the corporate VoIP network rather than using cell minutes, and more.

4. Microsoft Office Mobile. I don't like to jump on the ‘Microsoft monopoly' bandwagon, but face it- the business world revolves around the Microsoft Office suite. Even the small, heroic efforts at providing alternative word processor, spreadsheet, or other office productivity applications only succeed if, or because, the products are compatible with Microsoft Office document standards.

The dominance of the Microsoft Office suite has led to the development of a variety of 3rd-party viewers and utilities for other mobile device platforms. But, there ain't nothing like the real thing baby. Now you'll be able to experience authentic Microsoft Office Mobile and work with Word and Excel files natively from the Nokia eSeries mobile devices.

5. SharePoint integration. Compared with Microsoft Office Mobile and Office Communicator Mobile, SharePoint may not seem like a big deal. But, during the press conference announcing the partnership Nokia's Kai Öistämö stressed that this relationship is about more than just bringing Microsoft Office Mobile to the Nokia mobile devices.

Microsoft SharePoint is implemented in some way in virtually every organization small and large. It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and provides users a way to share files and collaborate on projects. Providing the ability to interact with SharePoint from Nokia mobile devices will help users stay connected and allow them to work more efficiently no matter where they go.