Endeavour Partners

With the dawn of the superphone, where is Microsoft? – FierceWireless

In a post on FierceWireless about smartphones (which he tags superphones), Stephen Drake poses the question that many of us are wondering about – what is Microsoft going to do?

It seems to me, however, that although it’s the right question, he’s missing the point, focusing on aesthetics and hardware, rather than on ease of use and software.

He characterizes these smartphones (or ’superphones’) as a:

“…high-end device class characterized by its ‘wow factor,’ a real or perceived buying frenzy, or an otherwise stylish, functional and pretty-to-look-at device…”.

While aesthetics matter, as hardware features, functions and form factor continue to be difficult but do not any longer differentiate, he completely misses the single most important factor: the user experience.

Talking about the Pre, he focuses on its: “…multi-touch capabilities and beautiful interface…”, hardware and aesthetics, when what matters about the Pre is WebOS. And the apps. Or lack of them.

When he comes to Microsoft, he asks where is “… the iconic, shiny device that users have coveted….” There are iconic, shiny devices: Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 for example, but WinMo just isn’t there.

Yes, aesthetics matter, but much less so than first ease of use, then the ecosystem (apps and content), both of which outweigh elegance.

Unless and until Microsoft can deliver the usability that customers are coming to expect from Apple, Android and Palm, it will remain uncompetitive.

Tragically, although this should have been apparent since before the launch of the iPhone, as Andy Lees put it at the announcement in Barcelona in February of the forthcoming 6.5 release:

“…[the user interface] seemed less important…”