Today, while listening to Cranky Geeks, a couple of the trends and upcoming announcements from Microsoft are starting to make sense, and I'm wondering if it might be a master stroke on their part.

Over the last couple of years, the Ultra Mobile platform has struggled to make any headway due to lackluster hardware and software that never really lived up to its promise.  The Windows Mobile PDA/Phone were probably the better of the bunch, but the OS never really got to a level of speed and reliability that would grab the everyday consumers interest.

Then came the iPhone.  I'm not sure if it was Apple's intent to create a new platform, or just offer their take on mobile computing.  The one thing they did was show that a mobile device could have decent storage, a full featured web browser and a cool factor that the everyday consumer ate up, all 10 million of them.

Having the iPhone as a closed platform was also a good move as it tends to invoke better reliability and user experience.  This, in turn, is moving more consumers to use and look at the Ultra Mobile devices.  What a great time for Microsoft to release an OS and Online product suited to the Ultra Mobile platform.

Microsoft already have the brand and are familiar in the mobile space.  If they dropped a lite OS with a full featured browser and bunch of Google Gears like desktop apps for web based "Cloud" style programs, they may just get the market share that will stifle the Google 'phone and relegate the iPhone back to the fan boys.

This move would give Microsoft back its business dominance and give them a measure of hipness if they could just get a couple of funky 'phone manufacturers on-board.  And hey, if you could have the complete experience, from desktop - netbook - phone/PDA - internet,  wouldn't you give it a go? (even if it was from the devil you know?)

Jason Remnant
..if it's broken, why fix it?

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