Microsoft to tighten grip on Windows smartphone designs. By Martin Veitch
Microsoft plans include limiting handset makers to core specifications and designs as the firm seeks to stage a comeback in smartphones. The firm is expected to announce more plans at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.
"We'll come back pretty hard on the phone side," said John Mangelaars, EMEA vice president of consumer and online in an interview with CIO UK last week.
"We'll say [to hardware partners] 'if you want to build Windows phones these are the terms' so you [the consumer] have a very clean experience," he added, stating that three core styles of device will be prescribed: a touchscreen model, a slide-out keyboard product and a device with integrated keyboard.
The move will add credibility to the argument that Apple has had a big advantage over rivals by being able to tightly knit hardware, software and functionality on devices such as the iPod and iPhone whereas Microsoft has been prone to the various directions of hardware partners.
Mangelaars, a Microsoft veteran who is now based in the UK after spells in the US and Holland, conceded that the company has made errors:
"We know what the industry told us and we know what the users are saying. We didn't realise the phones were moving into the emotional space rather than the business space. We didn't realise people care so little about privacy on the internet. We could do better. [We've been] too slow. We haven't seen the transition coming. We were still building business phones when businesses were using consumer phones."
Without specifying what the move will be, Mangelaars suggested that Microsoft recognises the need for a game-changing manoeuvre in order to distinguish itself from competitors and samey designs. He also believes that competitive pricing and integration with the Windows/Office stack won't be enough on their own to win over businesses.
"We need to change the paradigm," he said, noting the identikit nature of many designs but refuting the suggestion that any change will be purely cosmetic.
"
It's a functionality and design thing. Products today are bought more on emotion than technology. I've seen people buying netbooks based on the colour. They become very emotional and vote with their feet.
It's like cars. Twenty years ago Japanese cars had the features but were rusty so you bought the German car, but now there's no rust anymore. The bar has been raised."
However, what is not on the cards, according to Mangellars, is the notion that Microsoft could shift away from a partnering model and release its own self-branded device a la Apple or Google.
He also rejected the idea that Apple has built a lead with application developers that will make
it difficult to catch ("The real strength is the AppStore but when you break down the real apps there are, one, front-ends to websites, two, games and, three, mobile apps that are pretty easy to port.") and says that Microsoft must capitalise on its breadth of offerings:
"That's our birthright. When you compare us to Google and Apple where we have strength is that we can work across the browser, PC, phone, TV, XBox... Nobody has the consumers or minutes we have."
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Microsoft's Mangelaars on Win 8, Apple & Google's Chrome ads blitz By Martin Veitch
In part one of CIO's interview with Microsoft EMEA boss of consumer and online, John Mangelaars, we focused on what Microsoft is doing in smartphones to fight back against Apple, RIM and Google. In part two, we roam across a bunch of subjects. Here are my (necessarily edited) highlights.
On Apple, Mangelaars said that the Cupertino company had done well to grab market share in high-end desktops and laptops but contended that with the Vista episode now history and cleaned up by the Windows 7 release, Microsoft developers will be unleashed to come up with more innovation:
"[Apple is] doing well on the PC side but Windows 7 is a blockbuster. We got
it really right. For me, Windows 8 will be mind-blowing."
In terms of online services, Mangelaars said there will be springtime revs for Hotmail and Messenger while Bing will eventually evolve to become a more graphical front end to the web:
"Bing visual search [will be] pictures not blue links so when you search for a car
it's a completely integrated experience. [With Bing Maps] you'll upload your own pictures so the cost [to develop] is zero and our software will stitch together images."
Mangelaars believes also that CIOs are getting closer to marketing as web analytics becomes a more powerful driver of decision making:
"The CIO's department is becoming the backbone of marketing. There's somebody on MSN, Bing, Messenger, Facebook, Google and the only place you can track them is on web analytics. We call
it 'I want my cookie back!'
IT has come really close to marketing. [Web analytics] is where the CIO meets the CMO and we're at the early stages of leveraging the real-time connection."
On Microsoft branding and advertising, Mangelaars, perhaps predictably, disagreed with my contention that the Seinfeld (VIDEO LINK) and 'I'm a PC' (VIDEO LINK) campaigns were each a nonsense but said the firm needed to show its ubiquity and be plain-spoken:
"Microsoft is the brand that empowers you and connects you everywhere. We need to make sure they know we've got this stuff and
it's good stuff. We have to be benefit-specific so Mozilla is fast, Chrome equals apps but for private and secure
it's gonna be our browser. The Windows brand is one of the most powerful in the world. There's an emotional connection so we have to explain why there's personal benefits."
As for Google spending squillions on its Chrome advertising campaign, Mangelaars took an interesting, conspiratorial angle:
"If you're Google, you need to grow your business but make sure money doesn't get thrown against search, so you attack in our backyard. [Between Microsoft and Google
it will be a] Battle of the Titans for who becomes the platform of the world."
And just to show that the stakes are very high indeed, Mangelaars closed by going on the offensive against Google:
"They'll suck all of the data out of your machine. They say 'Don't Be Evil' but
it's the world's biggest data collection tool."
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, e si trincera dietro al solito "blockbuster"...
Originariamente Scritto da Autodelta85 
? C'è il topic ufficiale Mac vs Intel se si vuole parlare di questi argomenti
per cui quel MAcIntel (come sempre) fa quello che fanno tutti gli altri computer 
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