SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will show off the ultimate mobile phones on Monday, but don"t design a proceed opposition to the iPhone.
The world"s largest program association is perplexing a new hook in the hotly contested locus with the long-awaited "Project Pink" devices.
Unlike Apple"s renouned device or Research in Motion"s BlackBerry, they are aiming at hyperactive teenagers who wish mixed present messaging accounts, e-mail, games, song and Facebook in a cool-looking package.
The phones won"t be powered by Microsoft"s arriving Windows Phone 7 software, and will be labelled most reduce than the iPhone or Google Inc"s Nexus One.
But investors will be examination closely as Microsoft, that has ceded belligerent in past years in handheld devices, attempts to reassert itself in a small but poignant way.
The Microsoft-branded phones -- done by Japan"s Sharp and sole by Verizon Wireless -- are the souped-up descendants of the Sidekick, creatively done by hip phone developers Danger, that Microsoft paid for dual years ago.
With sold slide-out keyboards and swiveling screens, Danger"s phones are renouned with a immature civic throng that has some-more in usual with Microsoft"s Xbox gaming assembly than the mainstream business-oriented software.
"This is a hearing for Microsoft," pronounced Toan Tran, an researcher at Morningstar. "If this goes well or improved than they expect, they might be some-more peaceful to drop their toe in the H2O and set up a bone-fide phone."
AGE OF EXPERIMENTATION
Apple"s minutely written iPhone showed the debility in Microsoft"s proceed of formulating mobile program and vouchsafing handset makers identical to HTC, Samsung and Motorola carry out the rest.
Among the form of Windows-powered phones, couple of proceed Apple"s well-spoken user experience, that has captivated tens of millions of business and redefined the smartphone category.
Microsoft certified as most when as it launched the new Windows phone program in February, observant it was operative some-more closely with phone makers to have certain the ensuing products strike the mark. The attainment of the initial of the new phones this autumn will establish their success.
In the meantime, Monday"s "Project Pink" phones -- that will have a new name at launch -- crop up to be an examination in construction the own-brand phone, if usually for a singular market, shortening the chances of upsetting Microsoft"s handset partners.
"It"s the great age of investigation in mobile devices," pronounced Kim Caughey, comparison researcher at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "These companies are you do experiments to figure out how big all these sub-demographics are."
Microsoft has a great possibility of succeeding, pronounced Caughey, citing sales of Xbox sales to a identical crowd.
LOOSE FOOTHOLD
But the scale of the examination is small. No some-more than thirty million amicable networking/messaging phones were sole in the United States last year, according to Wall Street analysts. In total, 1.1 billion mobile phones were sole worldwide in 2009.
Making an stroke in a small but vicious entrance turn marketplace would be a poignant win for Microsoft, that risks losing a era of immature users to Apple and Google.
"This is a vicious product for Microsoft, they have been you do unequivocally really bad in the smartphone market," pronounced Jack Gold, who heads record investigate and consulting organisation J. Gold Associates. "They fundamentally have to do something to get at the back of in to the marketplace space."
The ultimate total from comScore show that Microsoft lost 4 commission points of U.S. smartphone marketplace share in the last 3 months, withdrawal it with fifteen percent, at the back of Research in Motion and Apple. If stream trends continue, Microsoft will be pushed in to fourth place this summer by fast-growing Google.
"The last dual years, we have unequivocally seen zero out of Microsoft around handheld inclination that connect. That"s an perpetuity in this sold space," pronounced Professor N. Venkat Venkatraman, authority of the Information Systems Department at Boston University"s School of Management.
Microsoft longed for early opportunities to confederate the Xbox, Zune song player and amicable networking functions in to a handheld format, pronounced Venkatraman. Instead, the association is right away charity a "patchwork of ideas from an over-bureaucracy."
Monday"s phones are not an try to change mobile computing, identical to Apple"s iPad, but they will be a critical signpost display Microsoft"s proceed to innovation, and might give hints on the expected success of Windows 7 phones after this year.
"This is their last chance," pronounced Gold. "Microsoft"s got a lot of money, they can stay in a marketplace perpetually if they choose. But if they don"t get this right over the subsequent 6 to twelve months, they"re gone."
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