Can Microsoft Keep Windows Mobile Up-to-Date?

Ars Technica spotted the job posting dated April 10 on the Microsoft Careers Website. What Microsoft wants, or so it seems to me, is to reduce Windows Mobile fragmentation, which would benefit developers as much, if not more, than end users.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

From the job listing:

Have you wished to see your Windows Mobile phone with new features 'magically' show up without you buying a new one? Do you want to see greater and better quality and cool software delivered to your love ones' Windows phones from just a click? If this is your dream, this is a place for you. Come join us to make this dream into reality! With the mobile industry's strong growth and several competitors playing in the field, we are going to have a challenging but fun time to show customers what Windows phone can become in the next few years.

The "magically" suggests that Microsoft is looking to deliver updates directly to Windows Mobile devices and, I would hope, before Version 7 releases. Put bluntly: Microsoft needed to fill the position six months ago. I would advise the company to hurry the hell up.

Apple's App Store has a huge competitive advantage over Microsoft, Nokia and Research In Motion: unified platform. Google's platform is unified simply because one carrier ships a single device; that will change.

Apple did something quite extraordinary with the original iPhone launched in June 2007: Break carriers' control over mobile operating system updates. Rather than there being multiple mobile OS versions, further fragmented by carrier distribution, Apple controls and distributes the updates. No other handset manufacturer has this kind of control.

I simply cannot emphasize enough the importance of there being just one major iPhone OS version. Developers creating applications are less encumbered. They can write one application and be assured that it will run on all iPhones—and iPod Touches, too. The more typical model is grotesque: Manufacturer X ships operating system Y on handset Z. Handsets A, B and C may ship with different operating systems, which carriers may greatly customize with their own services. The result: huge fragmentation, even on single operating platforms.

Apple has a more unified platform across two generations of iPhones. From this base, App Store extends the platform's appeal to developers and end users. If Microsoft's applications store is going to succeed, updates must bypass carriers.

Operating system upgrades, too. There are plenty of Windows 6.1 handsets that are capable of running Version 6.5. Based on carrier past behavior, v6.1 users are unlikely to get v6.5 quickly, if ever. That's a problem Microsoft must fix.

Microsoft needs to take control of the platform, as it does today Windows. PC OEMs provide updates, but they are also directly available from Microsoft—and for service packs and security patches, way faster.

Microsoft should look to Nokia and not Apple to solve fragmentation problems. Nokia's problems are way bigger than Microsoft's. For example, the 5800 XpressMusic and forthcoming N97 run Symbian Series 60 5th Edition. My Nokia N85 and the new E75 come with S60 3rd Edition with Feature Pack 2. Many cheaper Nokia phones run some version of S40. Nokia has huge fragmentation problems because of the large number of phones and carriers and the many different Symbian versions. One way Nokia is trying to reduce fragmentation: Ship more phones that can update over the air—direct to the phone, no PC required.

But what about Nokia's Ovi Store? The company's approach isn't ideal, or so I say, but it's workable. The store will detect the Symbian version and only show applications that can run on the device. For developers, that's still a pretty fragmented platform. Something else: If the 5800 XpressMusic foreshadows anything, most developers will create apps for the coolest touch-screen handsets. If so, newer Ovi Store apps would favor just two phones, the 5800 and N97.

Microsoft has to do better. I'm reading lots into a single Microsoft job posting. Whether or not Microsoft is looking directly to offer updates, that's what the company should be doing. Are you listening, Microsoft?

[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]