Microsoft is absolutely going after Apple. Apple is making inroads into business -- and with that influence and control over enterprise choices -- and Microsoft rightly sees the threat. On the Venn diagram of needs that a device satisfies, WP7 and now 8 overlaps the iPhone far more than it overlaps Android.
Oh, and they will because they'll feel comfortable with Windows, especially if they are told "Oh btw, you can have Windows on your phone and tablet as well as Office now, why bother with whatever Android is or that Apple stuff."
That was what led to the Windows CE disaster. Of course this time around they're trying it in the opposite direction, trying to force a smartphone UI on desktops. We'll see how that works out.
Mind you I wholly disagree with the GP, and I think it too was drawn from the well of delusion: Microsoft saw that the separation of enterprise and consumer has blurred. Trying to out-RIM the Blackberry -- as it fails -- would be a hilariously dumb move at this point. People want to carry one device and it needs to competently cover both sides of the equation.
Trying to beat RIM is obviously a bad move, but there's still billions of dollars to be made on phones that businesses deploy to their employees.
Extensive remote control, feature-by-feature lock-down, active directory style roaming profiles, super-hardened security, VoIP-over-VPN phone calls... the list of possibilities goes on. Get this right, and every company on the planet with any sense of paranoia will be theirs for the taking.
No. What led to the Windows CE disaster was what Google is (was, until ICS?) doing with Android: let OEMs customize UX the hell out of it and go bananas on cutting h/w components costs to the bone.
Microsoft is absolutely going after Apple. Apple is making inroads into business -- and with that influence and control over enterprise choices -- and Microsoft rightly sees the threat. On the Venn diagram of needs that a device satisfies, WP7 and now 8 overlaps the iPhone far more than it overlaps Android.
Oh, and they will because they'll feel comfortable with Windows, especially if they are told "Oh btw, you can have Windows on your phone and tablet as well as Office now, why bother with whatever Android is or that Apple stuff."
That was what led to the Windows CE disaster. Of course this time around they're trying it in the opposite direction, trying to force a smartphone UI on desktops. We'll see how that works out.
Mind you I wholly disagree with the GP, and I think it too was drawn from the well of delusion: Microsoft saw that the separation of enterprise and consumer has blurred. Trying to out-RIM the Blackberry -- as it fails -- would be a hilariously dumb move at this point. People want to carry one device and it needs to competently cover both sides of the equation.