14 DAY TRIAL // If you are among those holding their breath while waiting for Microsoft to pull a "mobile phone rabbit" out of its hat and present it to the world as an iPhone killer, then you can exhale right about now. A scenario where the Redmond company will produce a mobile phone that would directly rival Apple's iPhone has been denied by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, in an interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft is ultimately a software company, while Apple deals with hardware, although it also ventures into software building.
For the Redmond company to come up with a device positioned as a competitor to the iPhone would mean to diverge from its traditional model. "No, we won't do that. In the so-called smart phone business we will concentrate solely on software with our Windows Mobile program. We have partnerships with a lot of device manufacturers from Samsung to Motorola and this variety brings us significantly more than if we would make our own mobile phone", Gates stated, as cited by bink.nu.
In translation, Microsoft will stick with what it knows best. And this is Windows Mobile. At this point in time, the company has already shipped Windows Mobile 6 and is cooking Windows Mobile 7, a mobile phone operating system whose features and functionality are designed to rival what Apple is offering with the iPhone. But at the same time, the oFone will remain nothing more than a joke, and never live to see the light of day.
The iPhone debuted at the end of June 2007, and as far as the U.S. market is concerned, the device was a hit. It appears that Apple has done the right trade-off when, in the spring of the past year, it postponed Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, in order to come on time on the market with the iPhone.