Economist’s great article on Microsoft’s push into powering mobile phones. Why?
- mobile phones have far greater mass appeal than PCs in most places in the world – except the United States.
- In Europe, more people use text messages than use the Internet.
- Mobile phone users will surpass 1 billion in 2002, making it greater than the number using fixed-line phones.
- PDAs sell only around 10 million per year
Thus, Microsoft’s strategy is to get into the market. Since the major handsets manufacturers all rejected MS’ offer to make the OS, MS bypassed the OEMs and went straight to the carrier, working with HTC.
Another interesting fact: O2 has sold only 12,000 XDAs (the PPC/Phone Edition device) since summer 2002.
And, a great point: MS has $40B in cash. If other strategies fail, they can always buy an operator and a handset vendor.