Ballmer: Windows Mobile 7 should have been out, like, yesterday
By Donald Melanson 
posted Sep 24th 2009 7:41PM
posted Sep 24th 2009 7:41PM
It wasn't all that long ago that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer proudly declared that Windows Mobile 7 would be out "sometime next year," but it looks things got a bit more real at the company's just-concluded Venture Capital Summit, where Ballmer reportedly said that he wished Windows Mobile 7 had already launched by now. That initial word comes from venture capitalist Paul Jozefak (or @pjozefak), who also tweeted that "Ballmer says they screwed up with Windows Mobile," while another attendee, @beninato, directly quotes Ballmer as saying that Microsoft has "pumped in some new talent," and that "this will not happen again." Steve Ballmer's fists could not be reached for comment.
[Via MobileTechWorld]
I agree
I concur.
PREACH IT, balmer, savior of saints and fools.
I completely agree.
But wait, Nokia and RIM (Blackberry maker) are also struggling. Only Palm has been able to meet the Apple (iPhone) challenge. With Palm it was succeed or die. With Microsoft, it was... well, we will still make $5 Billion profit every three months from our Windows and Office dominance. Also, Microsoft was distracted by Vista, and as a result had to get Windows 7 out of the woods ASAP. Now that Windows 7 is done, their focus may once again turn to Windows 8...
I get down-voted (go ahead, click the red button) for criticizing WinMo, but it really isn't up to the standard it should be. I don't have a problem with Windows, but the mobile version is just cranky. It really does feel like they tried to re-skin a desktop OS for mobile use, and that isn't really the right approach right now. I'd love for WinMo 7 to blow Android and WebOS out of the water, but I'm not optimistic after the problems I've seen with WinMo 6.0, 6.1, and 6.5.
1. Claim you understand you're the minority and that you'll get down voted, but will still say anyway it because you're an honest person that really cares about voicing their opinion even if it makes you the unpopular critic.
2. Say something broad and vague the majority agrees on
3. ???
4. Get high ranked
Thinker: You seem to be oblivious to what's happening in the world market. Nokia has probably sold more 5800s alone than iPhones, Blackberrys whatever combined. (Palm is sadly, a non-factor worldwide. Sad because I really like the pre and it's not yet available worldwide). I don't have too high an opinion on the 5800 (The cheaper 5530 is way nicer), but Nokia sells them like hot cakes.
The only areas where there actually is an Apple "Challenge" is in the UI and the hype. The UI challenge is currently being answered by the likes of HTC (And soon by Sony Ericsson and MS themselves). The hype, well... no comments on that. ;)
In other news water is wet.
Good to see them acknowledging it though.
We agree to him more, now that we discover that he has a very good sense of humor inside :D
Hilarious link: http://pinoytutorial.com/bestandworst/steve-ballmer-wears-a-halloween-costume
"just for laughs"
Best of luck to you, Microsoft. You have a whole lot of catching up to do.
Looks like the catching up part is done, its innovation time now!
Looks like the catching up part is done, its time to copy Apple now!
Looks like the catching up to catching up is done. Pokemon!
Because, you know, everyone copies Apple when they run out of ideas. Like the touchscreen- that wasn't on the DS or anything was it?
Yes, because portable touch screen devices weren't around before the DS. There were never, you know, PDAs or anything before that. No one said Apple invented touch screens.
I *think* the Newton predates the Nintendo DS. And the Palm.
Not 100% sure, though..
Actually David, plenty of people on this site have said that apple invented touch screens.
Apple did not invent touchscreens, they REinvented it. Get your facts right.
Apple didn't invent the touchscreen on mobile devices, but they have definitely started a trend in the industry.
Before 2007, capacitive touch screens were extremely rare, and multitouch gesture were relegated to university research departments.
Apple released the first mass market and extremely popular capacitive touch device with multitouch gestures, and they set the standard to beat.
In the same way that Apple didn't invent the mouse or the GUI (both of those honors go to Douglas Englebart, imho), they deserve credit for productizing it and setting the standard for the next 25 years of user interface design.
i lol'd
jackass.
Come on Microsoft... You guys blew it.... still about a good 2 years behind. I have had 3 MS Mobile phones and they may be the most complicated and glitchy operating systems ever designed. People think I'm crazy for still using it.
Glitchy? Complicated? Get a good ROM for free over at XDA. They have several that are so simple and so stable that you barely have to do anything. 6.5 is as smooth as silk.
I'm not going into roms coming from the XDA forums, but let's assume the roms really did make a huge difference, I'm just going to ask in general, how many regular consumers do you think want to go through the trouble of waiting for spare-time hackers to post (often complicated) directions on how to finally get their phone working the way they wanted when they bought it?
You mean like Jailbreaking an iPhone?
OR installing the Cyanogen ROM on a Google Android phone?
For whatever reason people keep "almost" getting the phones they want and have to do the rest of the legwork themselves.
Here is hoping someone actually figuires it out and makes something truely perfect without needing to be modded to get there.
@JohnTitor
How much of the "way you want it" has anything to do with original version of Windows Mobile? How much of it has to do with the crap that the carrier and/or vendor added to the ROM? What pissed me off beyond belief is on my AT&T Tilt I have demos of crap that I can not get rid of and other bloat applications that the Vendor/Carrier get a kickback to install. Some game you play decide its complete crap or not worth buying and you can never get rid of it without going through some list of steps, etc.
Then there is stuff like the Touch Flo that HTC uses, some of it is OK but some of it changes the default way that stuff use to work. Like selected a list of messages, you use to just be able to drag your finger or stylus down the list and highlight them to mark as read. Now with the great Touch Flo installed you have to go to Menu, Select, Select Items or some crap like that to be able to select multiple messages at once. That was just one of the annoyances about a Fuze that made me return it after a few days.
Not one of these problems is something that Microsoft did, its what companies did with Microsofts OS. Same way that a computer that's been reloaded directly from a Microsoft OS cd runs a lot better that the same machine with Vendor factory load. I'm not saying a lot of WinMo and Windows problems aren't caused by Microsoft, but the Vendors/Carriers certainly don't help the situation.
I like Microsoft, I love my Zune HD, my Xbox 360, and I've always loved Windows. Lets hope that they can get their act together and push out a great OS.
Agreed. Windows is great, the Xbox is brilliant and so is the Zune. It wasn't even that long ago that WinMo was considered the best in its class. Sure it's been shaken up a bit and is playing catch up on the touch front, but I don't doubt that MS know exactly what they need to come out with. They know their market, they know they're lacking. Ballmer knows this.
I can't wait for WinMo 7. It could be a while though, so I might end up getting a WinMo 6.5 handset mid way through next year, then *hopefully* upgrade to WinMo 7. If upgrades aren't possible, I'll wait. MS will come out with guns blazing, I'm sure.
Geez, Imagine being _that_ guy who screwed up when Balmer comes into your office and starts rolling up his sleeves. Then he tells you "no lube".
oh, my. Just don't let him near a chair...
You know who is to blame for this?
Developers.
Developers, Developers, Developers.
Epically brilliant.
I disagree. The ones who hired the developers and/or those who off on the developers' work are to blame. The end product is always a reflection on the company, so if the company released a product, they approved the developers' work.
Correction - *signed off* on the developers work.
I thought the article said, "Ballmer, Windows Mobile 7 should have been out, like, yesterday" (with the comma)
And I though, wow, now that's a clever double entendre Engadget!
Sadly, life is not nearly that good.
Brilliant! Didn't catch that one :)
For those at home: "Ballmer and WinMo 7: Out like yesterday."
Whether you like Ballmer or not, there's no denying that Microsoft have been rejuvenated since he took over from Gates. He must be doing something right.
@jakem
"Whether you like Ballmer or not, there's no denying that Microsoft have been rejuvenated since he took over from Gates. He must be doing something right."
I'm a MSFT shareholder. I do not like Steve Ballmer. One look at the share price since he took over shows he is a huge f*ck-up as CEO. Anything he does does right is by sheer accident.
One of Ballmer's main functions is to anticipate the future and shift resources to projects that will take advantage of developing trends. His admission of failure with WinMo7 is just another in a long line - the board of directors needs to boot his sorry ass to the moon.
They need to ketchup, rubber buns and liquor.
What you did there...I definitely see it
I don't know you but at least the guy seems honest.
No problem, as long as Windows Mobile 7 is heck worth it, I'll gladly wait a bit more.
But it BETTER be worth it...
Want Windows 7!!!! and Zune HD...
bam
I just shot you in the foot.
well if he wants to surprise me and finish it early/mid 2010, that'd be cool.
go away twat fart
He's said the exact same thing, or something similar, for almost every product they've ever released. Remember when he was so excited about Vista?? I'm not judging Windows 7 yet but so far I'm not impressed, 20 hours to install & tons of driver issues (same thing with Vista) makes it hard to not give it a thumbs down though. I won't even go into my complaints about every Windows Mobile release I've tested.
I installed windows 7 on 3 different pc's in under 2 hours and not a driver problem on any. In fact only driver I remember downloading manually was a new nvidia driver, but it wasn't required. You must be doing something wrong.
Hes obviously lying if your going to troll do it right 0_o
My desktop still won't boot 7 without blue screening, seems to be a driver issue... My laptop blue screened after an upgrade install. I had to wipe it and than it would boot.
So far, for me, Windows 7 has been the worst Windows upgrade experience by far, including Vista.
So you guys are bitching about driver issues for an os that technically isn't out yet?
A month is quite a while. Companies still have to finalize drivers. Relax.