20 Million Windows Mobile Devices Shipped in 2008
May 24th, 2009 by scottjanousek
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...Mark had a post about the 20 million Windows Mobile Devices Shipped in 2008.
“Yesterday I heard an interesting fact that I thought I’d share. So in 2008 Samsung, LG and a few others shipped 20 million Windows Mobile devices around the world. 80% of these had touch screens instead of standard keypads, and so for development ongoing it’s looking less important to handle devices with keypads.
>How very true.
Saying that, the majority of the installed base of Windows Mobile users from 2006/2007 are still happily using their QWERTY devices like the Samsung BlackJack.
>I’m not sure how “happy” they really are. Tolerant is probably a better word. But I imagine it’s just because these users haven’t made the transition to touch.
So the net of the story is, the future is touch enabled, but if you want to enable reach over relevance then you’ll need two Flash applications.
>Really depends on your goals. Having 2 separate apps might be one road,
>but also having one app with 2 modes might be another.The same story will apply to other platforms in the future.”
Not sure what percentage of people are consuming mobile content on Windows Mobile these days, but I imagine there are some #’s … plus with Microsoft schedule to launch their Windows Marketplace sometime late this year into next, combined with more refined -experience focused- devices with Windows Mobile 7 … perhaps there is a good market there for Microsoft (just maybe).
Of course, with the Adobe Distributable Player Solution, it is possible to target a growing # of these Windows Mobile devices with Flash Lite 3.1. Perhaps even with Windows Mobile 7, we might see Silverlight and Flash 10 onboard higher end SmartPhones that will try to compete for market share with iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Palm, and others.
May 25th, 2009 at 3:59 am
Having been a fan of WM devices in the past, and an owner of a Motorola Q, I can say that I am not impressed by what I have seen of the next gen MS phones. I won’t be buying one.
I think the reason many of us don’t own touch screens is the cost. To me, spending $200-600 every year or two is just ridiculous. I don’t upgrade my PC that often and it makes me money. So I’ll likely have my Q for a while, at least until the Palm Pre is available on other providers and the cost comes down.
That being said, overall the Q hasn’t been a bad phone, and will likely continue to be useful for at least a couple more years. The web browsing experience leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s served me well for the things I need it for most: real time email, contacts and tasks via Exchange push mail and tethering it to my laptop via Bluetooth for 3G on the road.
I do know that recent Apple and MS devices are a huge turnoff for me, for various reasons. I’d love to see some new Android devices, but Android doesn’t really seem to be picking up steam in the phone markets. So far, the Pre is the only thing that’s gotten me excited and primarily this is because of the opportunity to build apps for it that don’t require me to learn .NET or Objective C.