Microsoft’s repeated failures in mobile devices, from Handheld PC to
Pocket PC to Windows Mobile Smartphone to PlaysForSure and Zune have
demonstrated that without the direct leverage of a monopoly position
it enjoys in the PC world, the company has no special capacity to sell
products, particularly if there is any existing competition in
play....

Ironically, the most successful applications of x86 mobile chips so
far (the XO and EEE PC) have been designed to run Linux. That paints
out an ugly future for Windows in mobile sales just as Microsoft’s
current monopoly on the desktop is crumbles as the growth in PCs
shifts toward mobiles both here and in developing countries....

And so the tables have turned. Microsoft’s fortuitous rise on the back
of one of the least suitable processor architectures isn’t going to be
duplicated, at least not by Microsoft. Mobile devices are exploding on
top of the ARM architecture, and Apple’s software is on two iconic
brands, the iPod and the iPhone, which are both accounting for a
significant chunk of mobile devices and currently leading the market
in WiFi web savvy....

While the merits of the various FOSS mobile platforms and Apple’s OS X
can be debated, there will simply be no room in the mobile business
for a proprietary monopolist to dominate the market with an inferior
product launched by a large outside player the way IBM pushed the DOS
PC. That’s good for everyone, apart from, of course, Microsoft.


http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/0...wth/#more-1788