Sunday, August 2, 2009

Excerpt: Microsoft's plan to come from behind in mobile phones

Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division, discussed the future of the company's mobile-phone initiatives during one part of his presentation Thursday at Microsoft's annual meeting with financial analysts in Redmond. As noted by Mary Jo Foley, he didn't go into detail on long-term plans for Windows Mobile 7 or the long-rumored "Pink" project.

But he did provide a broad outline of the company's strategy as it tries to regain traction in the mobile phone business. Will it actually work? Read on for an extended excerpt from Bach's remarks, from the official transcript.

"Now, the slide that you see here, the marbles that you see on the slide depict volume for the latest quarter's results, based on the four or five largest guys in the marketplace. And the arrow across the bottom indicates sort of market position, let's say, by who is the target audience, or the people who are generally buying those devices.

"And the basic trends you've seen are the following. Nokia has been leader in the space for a long time. But, as the market has shifted to smartphones, their share has declined in the smartphone space. They have some particular challenges in the U.S. So, they have interesting things to work on and manage. RIM would have started on the left in the business space. They've actually grown their volumes pretty successfully in the last year by expanding across more into the customer space. Apple, obviously a relatively new entrant over the last 18 months, but has been successfully building from the consumer side. And Google is small here because they only have one or two devices in the market, plenty of rumors and announcements about things that are coming this fall. We'll see how the marble grows in size over time.

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