Microsoft News Tracker

Todd Bishop at the Seattle PI has noticed some rephrasing going on in statements from Microsoft’ Windows Group: which reveals that Microsoft missed their very public 20 million unit target for Windows Mobile in fiscal year 2008 (which ended in June):

Microsoft sold more than 18 million Windows Mobile software licenses in its recently completed fiscal year — about 2 million short of its widely publicized 20 million-unit target — the senior vice president in charge of the business acknowledged this afternoon.
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[Andy] Lees, a veteran Microsoft executive who moved from the Server & Tools unit in February, attributed the lower-than-projected Windows Mobile sales to some devices coming to market slightly later than previously expected. He declined to say which ones.
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Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices Division, touted the 20 million-unit projection repeatedly during presentations at industry trade shows during the past year.

The first clue about the shortfall emerged in early June, when a letter from Lees to the company’s partners said the company would sell "nearly 20 million Windows Mobile smartphone licenses" for the year, as opposed to the company’s previous promise of "more than 20 million" licenses sold. Asked about the change at the time, a Microsoft product manager said any shortfall would be nothing more than "a rounding error."

Microsoft says the upside is that they were still able to increase the Windows Mobile share, the bad news is that Apple is coming on even more strongly and that Windows Mobile phones appear to be really only strong in the USA.

Microsoft today revealed the new branding for its embedded operating system efforts:

Today at Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley 2008 in San Jose, Microsoft Corp. laid out the next phase in its strategy for the Windows Embedded Business, providing a strategic road map outlining the renaming of its family of products and plans for new solutions in key device categories. The new key device category solutions will be offered under the Windows Embedded Ready name and will ship as preconfigured toolkits providing device-makers with in-demand market-specific features that allow them to build and ship next-generation smart, connected, service-oriented devices in an accelerated fashion.
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The first product release under the new naming strategy will be Windows Embedded Standard, the next generation of Windows XP Embedded, and will be launched simultaneously at Tech•Ed North America and through a global webcast event on June 3. All presently available Windows Embedded products will be marketed under their current names until their next scheduled product release and will remain available for purchase in line with the standard Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy. The Windows Embedded Ready product line for key device categories will include the next generation of Windows Embedded for Point of Service, Windows Embedded POSReady. The Windows Embedded Business plans to further detail its strategy for the Windows Embedded Ready products later this calendar year.

The Windows Embedded family of products includes the following:

• Windows Embedded Standard. The next generation of Windows XP Embedded. The next product release is currently forecast for 2008.

• Windows Embedded Compact. The next generation of Windows Embedded CE. The next product release is currently forecast for 2009.

• Windows Embedded Enterprise. A fully application-compatible embedded operating system that over time will gain a broader set of embedded enabling features. Today this product group is composed of Windows Vista and Windows XP for Embedded Systems and is licensed exclusively for embedded device development.

• Windows Embedded POSReady. The next generation of Windows Embedded for Point of Service. The next product release is currently forecast for 2009.

In case you are having trouble keeping up with the taxonomy, Windows Embedded CE is just the new name for Windows CE since version 6 was released. Windows Embedded CE in turn forms the basis for Windows Mobile. It is also interesting to see that embedded XP isn’t leaving any time soon, presumably because embedding Vista takes a lot of horsepower.

Microsoft today announced the acquisition of Danger Inc. a provider of consumer value-add software for cell phones:

Microsoft Corp. today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Danger Inc., the company responsible for the software and services powering many popular consumer handsets. The acquisition will align Danger’s nearly 10 years of expertise in the mobile consumer space with Microsoft’s vision to provide innovative and compelling mobile experiences to a growing base of customers.
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The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company provides services that allow people to keep in touch, stay organized and keep informed while on the go through real-time mobile messaging, social networking services and other applications ― all blended together on a single phone that is intuitive and customizable.
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Through focused efforts Danger has successfully delivered a software and services platform to the mobile mass market. Applications on Danger-powered handsets include HTML Web browsing, instant messaging, games, multimedia, social networking, Web e-mail and personal information management applications.

No terms were announced.

Update: Om Malik reports a rumor that Microsoft paid US $500 million and offers a rationale for this largesse.

Nancy Gohring reports that Apple’s iPhone has pulled ahead on Windows Mobile in US smartphone sales:

Even after being on the market for less than half a year, more iPhones sold in the fourth quarter than Windows Mobile phones in the United States, according to research from Canalys.

Canalys researchers estimate that the iPhone had 28 percent of the U.S. converged-device market in the fourth quarter of 2007. Research in Motion, with 41 percent, had the largest share of the market. Windows Mobile phones had a 21 percent share of devices sold in the quarter, falling into third place behind Apple.

(more…)

The sad saga of Microsoft’s PlaysForSure Digital Rights Management brand for multimedia content has apparently come to a bizarre end as Microsoft’s PlaysForSure Web page (captured above) unexpectedly revealed that PlaysForSure is being subsumed by the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo. If you feel a certain amount of cognitive dissonance with the idea of media players and content (much of them already in use with Windows XP) being labeled with a Vista operating system logo, you’re not alone:

Those of you with players from SanDisk, Nokia, and Creative among others, looking for compatible music from Napster, Real Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Wal-Mart and such must now look for the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo, not PlaysForSure. Of course, Microsoft’s Zune is also certified for Windows Vista, just not certified for Windows Vista so it won’t play back the same protected files. Man, could DRM get any more consumer unfriendly?

Microsoft’s portable media center partners knew the game was over long ago as did MSN Music users and what few subscribers there were for the Microsoft-MTV Urge music service so I guess we have to chalk this up as merely herding the remaining stragglers to the exit. It’s also a way to obscure the way that Microsoft left PlaysForSure partners and customers out in the cold when they went their own way with the Zune.