Microsoft and Windows Mobile, Part I

I've talked to a lot of people about this but clearly not the right people because it hasn't happened yet....

I've been dealing with 'smart phone' mobile devices for a while now, and before phones, it was PDAs.

Let me address the semantics first--by 'Smart Phone' I'm referring to any of the cell phones with the ability to process e-mail, calendar, and contact items integrated with either a desktop computer or enterprise server(s). Some examples include the Windows Mobile based phones, Blackberry devices, Apple's iPhone, and Palm Treo phones.

I've used examples from all of the above and as much as the Windows-based products seem like they should work the best in a native Microsoft Exchange mail server environment, they often have the poorest overall performance. That isn't to say that the communication with the server is poor, it's really a combination of problems--operating system reliability, synchronization errors and conflicts, and general performance (operating system speed).

For anyone who has used a Windows mobile device with some regularity will be well-aware that the devices need a reboot pretty much at least once a week. After using a Windows-based device and then going to a Blackberry or iPhone, you'll be amazed at how much more responsive the others are by comparison. Why is this? Windows Mobile is based on a scaled-down version of the full Windows operating system you have on your desktop. While this is neat in the sense that you can open and edit (if you're brave) Word and Excel documents, there might be some overkill in what it delivers considering that it could well be at the expense of the core functions of the devices. What else could Microsoft do for mobile devices, there has to be an alternative....