kgsbca:

so let's say Apple's iphone has a 20% share, and android phones get 15%, and nokia gets 15%, and blackberry gets 15%, and palm gets 15%. that's 80% of the market for smartphones that do not run winmo. How is that fantastic for MS?

With 80% non-WinMo, that's 20% WinMo - or as good as Apple. However, those numbers are based on Palm getting 15%. Palm's market share is more likely to drop from its current 2% to 0% than it is to go from 2% to 15%. I also doubt that android will get 15% of the market - at least one tied to T-Mobile's lack of a good 3G network in the US.

kgsbca:

I don't understand your last comment, every smart phone has an OS (actually, every phone has an OS, only a few of them leave it open to third parties).

This comment was directed at the idea that once we move to cloud-computing, software apps would be OS independent and MS couldn't sell their own software apps. Since MS sells the OS only, rather than the apps themselves, they can make money even if everything goes towards cloud computing. The same thing holds for OSX, Symbian, etc. In the context of phone manufacturers, MS is the third party. So this model is already out there and with several manufacturers on board (HTC, Motorola, etc.).

kgsbca:

There really is a move to internet-based apps on phones. There's the App Store from Apple, plus itunes, both which sell directly to the phone. Amazon sells songs directly to android phones. There are internet-based apps that run on the blackberry, which is more secure and reliable than winmo (actually, I think every smart phone is more secure and reliable than winmo). Nokia has already addressed the concept of internet applications on phones. Google and a bunch of their apps run on mobile devices.

A single binary for an app doesn't have to be compatible across different hardware platforms to make it successful; given the above distribution of the smart-phone market, developers would offer their apps for all platforms.

Downloading an app to your phone is not what I meant with internet-based apps. I should have called it cloud computing where you only run a web-based interface to the app that runs on a server. In that context, the App Store is not an internet-based application the way that I used the term. The App Store is not revolutionary in any respect other than Apple actually allowing 3rd-party apps to be developed. This capability to download and install 3rd party apps via the web or via a dedicated program has been around for years with winmo.

On what basis do you think that every smart phone is more secure and reliable than winmo? I've had reliability problems with 3rd party software on winmo, but no problems with winmo itself - particularly winmo 6.1.

Sure, an app can be successful even if it's locked to one OS. But why limit your market or have to invest in producing an app for each segment of the market? Some developers already offer their binaries only for certain OSs - like Adobe Flash (Symbian, WinMo, but no OSX). With winmo, you write an app, then if a manufacturer comes out with a new product that runs winmo, your app is instantly ported to that new device. If you write it for the iPhone, then a new phone with a killer hardware feature (e.g. wimax capability) and its not an iPhone, you have to port the application to the new phone's OS.