Windows Mobile Momentum

As companies evaluate mobile platforms for long-term bets, they look for indicators of momentum which give them the confidence their investment will be supported and improved in the years to come. The worst scenario for an IT person is to go to the CIO and tell him their current platform is in a dead-end and that they need to work on a migration plan. Everyone wants to be on the winning horse.

I am asked constantly about the momentum on Windows Mobile so I want to share a few data points:

- Got an email this morning about a few recent wins in our Federal team, including a couple at the Department of Defense. Each of this wins is for a couple thousand devices at least. Some are tens of thousands. Obviously, most details are confidential, but you can take a look at this video case study for a great medical application being used by the military.

p.s. for those who have been reading all the FUD about Windows mobile security, think about it - would multiple branches of the government, Navy, Army and intelligence agencies would be deploying Windows Mobile if there were security issues? in fact Windows Mobile has now DISA STIG certification in addition to FIPS-140-2 and support for 256 bit AES and 3DES encryption.

- This morning I was on a call with the A-Team from one of the top mobile operators, who deals with the Fortune 50. What they told us is that in their meetings with these large customers, the consensus is that the only platform that can help them realize their mobility vision is Windows Mobile. This team expects most of these companies to adopt Windows Mobile as their corporate standard in the next few months. We see this happening ourselves already at many very large companies.

- HTC recently announced the company has already sold over two million Touch phones, and a total of 11.8 million phones sold last year - this is more than the total number of Blackberries RIM sold in the same year worldwide according to their SEC statements.

- In terms of momentum, this press release quotes IDC "Windows Mobile 6 comes fresh on the heels of a successful year that saw Microsoft’s worldwide converged mobile device shipments grow 135.3 percent (year over year) in 2006". Then it mentions "IDC’s expectation that Windows Mobile will experience the largest growth of any mobile operating system worldwide, at 75.6 percent, through the year 2010."

- Windows Mobile benefits from the increased success of Exchange Server. As an example, CNet just wrote "Microsoft says that in the last six months of 2007, more than 300 big companies, representing 2.8 million people, began switching from IBM software onto Exchange Server, Office and SharePoint Server. "

Of course there are many more, these are the ones that come to mind - an in the next few days you will see an announcement that will further demonstrate the momentum of the Windows Mobile platform. So stay tuned!