Author Archives: Elia Freedman

Windows Mobile: Dead or Alive?

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Apparently, someone is paying attention.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how it’s a RIM BlackBerry and Apple iPhone country. Within a day or so I received an email from a PR woman representing Enterprise Mobile, a company formed in partnership with Microsoft to handle enterprise sales of Windows Mobile. I proclaimed Windows Mobile an also ran here in the States. They thought otherwise.

So here’s the U.S. market share from Q4 of 2007 provided by Canalys:
– RIM BlackBerry: 41%
– iPhone: 28%
– Windows Mobile: 21%
– All Others: 10%

(As an aside, I chose fourth quarter instead of 2007 annual numbers since iPhone wasn’t released until Q3. This way the numbers would be comparable.)

So the question I asked Mort Rosenthal, CEO of Enterprise Mobile, is after 11 years of developing a mobile operating system and being outpaced in half a year by iPhone, why can Microsoft succeed now? I wanted to know: was there a change in emphasis at Microsoft? Was the Windows Mobile OS becoming more important? Were RIM and Apple making big mistakes that, in his eyes, was going to change the market?

His responses: First, he discounts Apple in the enterprise as it is a consumer device that doesn’t have the level of security and IT support (beyond Exchange with OS 2.0) required.

Second, his conversations with IT professionals is that RIM does one thing really well — it does email. Windows Mobile is more strategic, meaning it does a wealth of things really well for the actual workers in the field.

Okay, those are good answers. I believe the first, not so much the second.

So I asked why, if Microsoft considers Windows Mobile so strategic, would it in essence outsource its enterprise sales, even one with a respected leader like Enterprise Mobile? Mort’s response: the deals are too small to interest Microsoft’s enterprise sales teams. Microsoft doesn’t want those deals to get lost in the shuffle.

While Mort had some good points and led me to believe that (maybe) this fight for the enterprise isn’t as over as I think, I didn’t exactly see Microsoft catching up to RIM any time soon either. After all, if the deals are so small that Microsoft sales team can’t focus on them, then how strategic can the business actually be? Based on my estimates, Windows Mobile accounted for a whopping 1.5% of Microsoft’s entire revenue!

I’ve believed for a long time that Microsoft developed a mobile OS as a place holder. When the market took off, Microsoft thought they would use their overall market position to steal sales. But while Microsoft was turning out relatively minor changes from Pocket PC 2000 through Windows Mobile 6, RIM jumped ahead of them. Way ahead.

Add to this threats in almost every aspect of Microsoft’s business and I’m having a hard time buying that Windows Mobile is going to be the winner — enterprise or otherwise. I just don’t see how the company focuses on 1.5% of their revenue when at least 70% of their revenue and MS’ computer dominance is being attacked by the likes of Apple, Google, Adobe, Nintendo, and Yahoo!, all at the same time.

Besides, I’ve talked to BlackBerry enterprise users, too. And all I ever hear is, “You can have my BlackBerry when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

MobileMe Could Make Me a Convert

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I honestly haven’t been paying that much attention. As we develop FastFigures as a web-based service rather than a native application, it has taken a lot of the pressure off when it comes to the hardware. What’s new and what’s different about the hardware gets munched down to a “what changed in the browser?” question instead.

So I wasn’t paying great attention to the iPhone announcements yesterday. But something did catch my eye: the announcement of MobileMe.

Here’s the bottom line: sort, search, modify, create and move contacts, calendars and emails and they show up on all your computers — Mac, Windows, web and iPhone — at the same time with all the same information without synchronizing anything. If you are familiar, this is what Exchange does in the enterprise. Of course, most of us aren’t in the enterprise so Exchange does us no good.

I have been dying for this solution. I love the web-based calendaring and emailing coupled with auto-sync locally. For my money, I could even care less if it shows up locally – just give me the web tools.

Apple’s price is $100 per year for a single person or $150 per year for a family of 4, basically $8 to $12 per month. It also comes with a place to store data files and photos.

There are shortcomings at this point, from what I could tell. What happened to Task syncing and notepad syncing, for instance? For that matter, what happened to tasks altogether? I still don’t see a Tasks application with the iPhone and nothing in the screen shots indicated it was integrated with the calendar, which is where it should be anyway.

So would MobileMe get me to switch to AT&T and buy an iPhone? It gets me closer. Fix the task list issues and it would make me reconsider.

Introducing FastFigures, Web-based Calculation and Reporting

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This week Infinity Softworks officially rolled out FastFigures. FastFigures, a web service, is designed for professionals and students who perform calculations and share results with clients and colleagues. It combines our powerOne software calculator experience with customized, sharable reports and the Internet for access anywhere.

Some features we are most excited about:

  • The template format we invented works really well for what-if analysis. So we didn’t change it. Calculation templates show all the data at the same time, offering the ability to calculate different variables easily. For instance, if I want to know my monthly payment on a house, I calculate that variable in the Mortgage template. If I want to know how much house I can afford with a different monthly payment, I can calculate that in the same template.
  • Easily add your own templates. Although we are constantly creating calculation templates that are designed for real estate, financial and investment services, construction, math, science and engineering, you are welcome to create your own. You can even choose to share them or keep them private. Creating a template is easy and can include all kinds of data types — real numbers, fractions, tables, lists, dates and more — and be built with hundreds of pre-created functions.
  • Access FastFigures from your desktop, laptop or smartphone. We designed both a “standard” version of the site and a mobile version. It works really well with Windows and Macintosh, iPhone and iPod Touch, Windows Mobile devices, Palm Treo, Centro and T|X, and BlackBerry smartphones.
  • Save your data. For years we have been asked to save the calculations so our customers can keep a record for instant recall and calculation comparison. Not only do we save the last calculation, but we also keep a history of calculations for you as well, all of which can be recalled from both computer and smartphone.
  • Share a report. This is my favorite. Saving the data also generates a professional report, which can be shared with clients and colleagues. No waiting! The report can be created right in the field or at your desk so your client’s have it instantly and you don’t have to add “create report” to your to-do list! And better yet, the report can be customized. Pick different layouts, add your own logo, contact information, and even change the image.

We’ve designed FastFigures to be fast, fun, simple and easy. And best of all, it’s free during beta. I hope you’ll give it a try.

Please visit FastFigures from your desktop or laptop computer:

http://www.fastfigures.com

Or visit FastFigures from your smartphone:

http://mobile.fastfigures.com

Financial Discovery

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Over the past couple of weeks, I have been asked to compile a couple of presentations here in Portland. I thought I would share those with you.

As those who know me know, I have extensive background in creating and preparing financials for both investor readiness and day-to-day corporate use. I learned a lot in college (I have an undergraduate degree in accounting and a master’s in management), have done it for Infinity Softworks since 1997 and helped numerous other companies do the same.

The first presentation, delivered to the Oregon Entrepreneur’s Network, focuses on the fundamentals of financial statements and how to prepare financial projections. Please feel free to review that presentation here:

The second was delivered to OTBC Technology Incubator, which Infinity Softworks resides at and I am an advisor. This presentation delved into an investor’s perspective of those financials, what an investor is looking for, and what it says about the preparer. Please feel free to review that presentation here:

Please feel free to contact me via About Me if you have questions or need help.

iPhone v. BlackBerry: Which to Choose?

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All I heard for a while was predictions for the death of the BlackBerry. And then everyone around me said you can’t get third-party apps for the iPhone. When you can, then the BlackBerry will be dead. Then the iPhone SDK was announced and the death watch of the BlackBerry started again.

Personally, I don’t see it for two main reasons. Here’s why:

1. IT Departments. At big companies across the country, IT departments love the BlackBerry. RIM’s secret sauce, as I learned last year at the BlackBerry Wireless Enterprise Symposium, is not so much the device but instead its ultra-cool server software that lets IT professionals control those pesky little devices. BlackBerry Enterprise Server doesn’t just control the interchange with Microsoft Exchange and other email systems. In addition, it gives the IT department complete control over those devices. There are hundreds of pre-canned permissions and the ability to generate more.

In the enterprise, RIM is the leader — Apple is playing catch-up — so RIM doesn’t have to develop ultra-cool, innovative devices. All market leaders have to do is generally keep up with the joneses and they will keep the market. And that’s what RIM continues to do, its latest being the BlackBerry Bold just announced last week. Improved layout, check. Improved browsing, check. Wifi, check. A handful of other things people have been dying for, check. Good enough to keep Apple off our rears in the enterprise, check.

2. Email. The second reason is a usability issue. I have not used an iPhone but I have used an iPod Touch. The browser and interface are top-notch, way above and beyond what anyone else has done. But where the device falls short is when it comes to typing anything. It’s horrible. So the market splits: are you an email and texting and calendar and tasks person? Or are you a browsing and music and YouTube person? If you fall into the former, like me, then BlackBerry does it since I am primarily email and secondarily browsing. If you prefer gaming and entertainment, the latter is for you.

So in my mind, BlackBerry isn’t dead in the consumer market, either. It all comes down to taste. But what is clear — and to me has been for the past year — is that it is a two-horse race. The likes of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, Palm’s operating system and Symbian — at least here in the States as it is dominant in Europe — are also rans.