Sunday, November 13, 2005

Who uses Windows Mobile phones?

A couple months ago, at Viceroy, I was playing with my brick, when all of a sudden a cute, young hipster chick leaned over and said "I have the same phone, but when I go out, I take my Razor". I smiled, and she proceeded to ask if I worked for Microsoft. "Is it that obvious?", I asked. We chatted for a few. She and her friends work in Marketing. Heh. ;-)

Last night I saw Liz Phair and Missy Higgins at Neumos. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an attractive girl playing with a Typhoon. So I figured I'd play geek, leaned over, and asked her if she worked for Microsoft. "Yeah", she replied, with a bashful giggle (probably thinking to herself "Is it that obvious?"). She works in PR.

So, other than the cult following who reads Pocket PC Thoughts and similar enthusiast sites, who exactly uses Windows Mobile phones for personal use other than us Microsofties?

Walking through an airport a couple months back, I saw a Verizon ad targeting business users - on it were 3 smartphones. 2 of the 3 were Windows Mobile. I realized then, and it only compounded further with the announcement of the Windows Mobile Treo and free push email with Exchange SP2, that Windows Mobile was about to make huge inroads into the business world.

But do consumers want Windows Mobile smartphones yet? The Tornado could be the first to break into the market of early adopter consumers, but I have my doubts. I've seen the Blackberry killer and the Treo killer. Where's the Razor killer?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Probably not that soon since it's not a Razor but a RAZR :)

adamjh said...

Oops :-)