Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Has Gone Missing

It had to happen. Virtualisation has come to mobiles, with both VMware and Parallels announcing moves into the pockets and purses of business IT.

In both cases, there's a degree of hype mixed in with the hoopla: why anyone would want to run multiple operating systems on a mobile phone is something only their psychoanalysts could answer.

Even the undoubted benefits may not be as new as advertised: VMware has said its Mobile Virtualization Platform will bring added security and cross-platform deployment benefits, claims that were made for Java at its launch. Nonetheless, more security, manageability and flexibility are always welcome and, if VMware makes good on these promises, it'll be a worthwhile endeavour.

This is particularly true as the boundaries between phones and computers continue to erode, and enterprise strategies grow to embrace the possibilities created by new, fast, global wireless networks and increasingly capable, portable hardware.

Against this background, Microsoft's continued tardiness in developing its own mobile strategy gets more worrying. At the company's Professional Developers Conference recently, Windows Mobile was notable by its absence — and not for the first time. No clear guidance has been given for the next major revision of the software, and the trends are not good. It is now commonplace for flagship Windows Mobile handsets to come with a non-Microsoft web browser — a sign that something is badly broken.

It is hard to avoid the sense that Microsoft may be giving up this fight, especially given the difficulties involved in extending Windows Mobile into netbooks and other, larger devices — a battleground where Microsoft's lack of direction is particularly noticeable.

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