In the intro of a story on how Windows Mobile will die, Robert X. Cringely of PBS claims to understand the emerging mobile market perfectly fine. He has simply been paying attention to the mobile market lately. Sure, who hasn't? Going from there to explain how Windows Mobile will die is quite a leap though. We've been covering the mobile market since before Windows Mobile was released, and one of its primary missions has been to spread the usage of the company's Exchange service.
The funny thing about that, is that RIM and its BlackBerry smartphones did that better than anyone, and the sad part? Well, according to Cringely it'll come in 2011, when Windows Mobile will die. However, he doesn't mention whether mobile services like Microsoft Exchange, Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft Office, Zune (coming to the mobile world soon), XBox (who knows what happens by 2011) will die too. And what about the Windows CE kernel that is the source of Microsoft's Windows Mobile trouble in the first place?
You can hate Microsoft as much as you want, but there's one thing for sure, most of us will be using Microsoft technology one way or another for the rest of our lives. And many of you will be accessing it with an operating system like Android at the bottom. That's the whole idea of Android, to offer an operating system that can offer whatever you want whenever you want it. And into the distant future, many of your favorite Web sites, applications and services will have Microsoft technology hidden in there somewhere.
So, will Windows Mobile really die by 2011? If you're waiting for real phones based on the Nvidia APX 2500 prototype for instance, Windows Mobile will have to be your platform of choice, and they should hit store shelves somewhere between 2009 and 2011. We guess that gives a few clues as to what's going to happen with Windows Mobile in the next few years. Qualcomm, on the other hand, hopes that their combination of Snapdragon and Windows Mobile 7 will take on the exploding netbook market. So if we should make a prediction, you'll see Windows Mobile in even more scenarios in the future, not fewer.
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