Feed Switched On: Windows Mobile success deserves a better successor (engadget.com)
Filed under: Cellphones, Features
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:Last year marked the tenth anniversary of Windows CE, now the underpinnings of what is called Windows Mobile. Few Microsoft market entry forays have tested the software giant's patience as its miniature embedded operating system. At its debut on PalmPCs, as they were known before threats of litigation ensued, Windows CE was slow and ungainly while the incumbent Palm OS was speedy and elegant. Palm seemed to leave Microsoft in the dust when it unveiled the Palm V, the slim PDA that carried the kind of design buzz in 1999 that the Motorola RAZR or iPod nano did at their debuts.
But among developer platforms, Palm OS licensees vanished one by one as the operating system languished during Palm's notorious hand-changing history. Symbian -- begun as a reaction to Microsoft's mobile designs -- has so far failed to achieve the smartphone success stateside that it has in Europe. And despite the promise of Linux as a cellphone operating system, it has become a handset market force only in countries hosting next year's summer Olympics. All this had left Microsoft strongly positioned in a nascent market, but its perseverance is only now starting to pay off.
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