The Causes And Impact Of Microsoft And The Smartphone

Microsoft has their dominance of the industry at stake. They could potentially come out on top if left to continue their current tactics. They are masterfully “marketing their products” and it is paying off for them (Love, 1997).

Android phones were a hit! It was the first open sourced platform where it allowed third party developers to create application that could be used on different devices or carriers with no licensing fee. This approach drew many consumers due to their ability to offer apps at a lower, if not free price when compared with Apple. Seeing this opportunity, HTC hooked up with Google to be able to offer a more attractive smart phone to the market.

* Revenue generated from selling Microsoft mobile devices may be affected by the downward trend of the popularity of the Microsoft mobile operating system.

Software: Microsoft dominated only 12% of the market with its Windows Mobile OS and BlackBerry OS held a meager 11%. It stepped up to refurbish its marketing attempts and provide end-to-end solution for its Windows Mobile enables phones with new user friendly features.

2000-2006: HTC made first time profits when it engineered and developed PDA for Compaq computer. HTC made an alliance with top hardware companies and became best hardware maker which led to release of the XDA, the first Windows based smartphone by collaborating with Microsoft. HTC operated in ODM business and Mobile operator business. HTC designed customized phones for Mobile operators based on their specifications which led them to gain attractive contracts from different Mobile operators. HTC contracts with mobile operators was reason for HTC’s early success. HTC relationship with Handspring to develop Treo smartphone facilitated the opportunity to learn about software and User-Interface design. By 2006, HTC was shipping more than 70% of the world Windows Mobile smartphones.

had to buy, Microsoft also would sing contracts with the vendors for long periods of time

Microsoft had to split their operating system company from the rest of their organization. Another action Microsoft took was its relations with Java. They licensed a version of Java that worked mainly with windows where they tried to drive out the competitors and in later years they didn’t even allow Java to work with Windows XP (Rivkin 4). Microsoft tried to basically kill Java and with this the producers of Java sued Microsoft. Last, Microsoft took actions toward their competition in open-source software: Lunix. Microsoft responded by opening up into own server OS code like Lunix did. They actually sold stripped-down versions of the code to emerging economies and they also set up a lab that’s sole purpose was to find competitive weaknesses in the Lunix OS (Rivkin 5).

Microsoft is a growing company that began with Bill Gates’ ambition in the garage of his home. Microsoft “purchased MS-DOS, the PC’s first operating system, from another firm” (mondediplo 11/1997) as a company it learned the ways of the market and was able to buy out most of its competition. “Microsoft has succeeded in part because its management was willing to spend enormous resources to improve its products, which were often poor performers in the early releases, and also because it excels in marketing its products” (mondediplo 11/1997). Microsoft has become the epitome of a company that has nurtured and grown its own success and now is being penalized for doing so.

They have expand their business from only on computer software and hardware to online search engine, home gaming devices and smartphone, those business are the popular business in the world, Microsoft is trying to adapt the new market.

More and more applications that were used in the PC and laptop began to be used with the mobile. It was with the availability of internet with the mobile that made companies like Nokia look for platforms to deliver the service- including surfing and connecting to social media that prompted developers to begin developing programs for this segment. It was also this development that made Microsoft consider going into the mobile sector since the company had already established itself in the tablet segment.

Currently, the worldwide market size for Smartphones is only about 110 millions and this becomes about 6 percent of total mobile phones globally. Market analysts expect that the share of Smartphones might grow about 18 to 20 percent by the 2012. Hence, going forward the demand for Smartphone 's OS is expected to rise significantly. (The coming Smartphone Operating System wars, 2007)

The global market of smart phone is increasing according to the need of the consumer

Smartphone market is an emerging important market and is experiencing a wave of transformation with the emergence of new players (Basole and Karla, 2011). The competition among the smartphone markets is no longer simply through physical devices but though ecosystems, or platforms. This essay is going to look at the evolution of the market so far including how it will evolve in the future, whether a few firms will eventually dominate the market as well as the core business strategy is applied to the firms.

One company that appears to have a gap between its mission and its capabilities is Microsoft. The software giant has long had a problem with respect to innovation, and continues to rely on aging franchises for the bulk of its revenue. It was left out of the mobile operating systems boom and has failed to be a leader in either software or consumer electronics as a result (Clarke, 2010).

Keen on addressing these issues, the company’s management had to react fast, and this is how the birth of windows 8 surfaced. One main impact this change had management, is coping with competition from the established mobile app developers: android from Google and apple. Commanding a considerable market share was a daunting task for management. Statistics from the industry show that, android, the leading mobile app provider, releases between 10,000 and 140,000 new apps every month. Windows 8 released only 200, 000 apps in the first year of its operation which is far below the trendsetters, android. Windows 8 was also built to support only Microsoft specific apps, which made rolling out the change a more complex undertaking to management. To deal with these change demands, the company’s management, embarked in restructuring the organisation in order to incorporate they change demands (Rash, 2013). This began with reorganising the employees into new structures, which meant new duties and responsibilities.