On 1/27/07, Greg Conquest (home) <conquest@spamcop.net> wrote:
> I don't like Microsoft at all; I value user control and freedom. Yet, it
> appears that MS did do something right in bringing a more open platform
> to Japan.
It's a question of smart phones (with mini-laptop features) vs. dumb
phones (please buy our web services/packet plans/data rates since the
phone itself does nothing - a meme we've seen repeated on this mailing
list in the google phone and even in the Apple Phone [nee iPhone].)
Still, I love the irony of MS being more open than most of the
Japanese competitors.
Well, now that I've said that, I guess this happened before, in the
late 80s and early 90s, when Microsoft's DOS/V and Windows killed all
the crippled proprietary Japanese PCs. Consumers won very big there.
> Does Microsoft require full WM5 functionality as part of its
> licensing, while Symbian let's the vendor does as he or she pleases --
> potentially diminishing the value of the OS in the process?
Certainly Symbian allows crippling: I've heard a dozen Japanese cells
run Symbian, and yet I've hardly seen "Symbian" anywhere on phones,
screens, pamphlets, catalogs, and ads. My 2006 DoCoMo SH702iD runs
Symbian, but lacks dozens of features supported on my 2005 Symbian
DoCoMo M1000: the imap email client, web browser, MIDP, Flash 5 and
MIDI playback, ...
I struggle figuring our how Microsoft defines all the different
versions of its OSes. This is compounded by them changing the names
and versioning numbering schemes all the time (confusopoly). I
challenge anyone to figure out what WM5 is *supposed* to offer, let
alone check a given phone for compliance!
Received on Sun Jan 28 05:36:23 2007