Microsoft’s Craig Mundie On Apple iPhone

Posted by dennis on March 19th, 2007 at 05:05am Comments

In a recent interview given to CNN, Microsoft’s Craig Mundie (due to be one of Bill Gates’ successors after Gates retires next year) had this to say about Apple iPhone’s prospects:

CNN: So do you see Microsoft doing something like Apple’s iPhone in the future?
Craig Mundie: Well, Microsoft has been in the phone business for years. What do you think that thing is [pointing to a cell phone on the table]? That does more than an iPhone does today and it’s our 7th generation.

The difference is that we’ve been coming at the smart phone and the Pocket PC class of phones by starting from the enterprise level where historically, a lot of that market was.

I would say arguably, we’re probably better prepared to continue not only to serve that marketplace but also transfer it over to the high-function, high-fashion phone world.

One of the differences that’s always been true between the world of Apple and the world of Microsoft is that Apple is a vertically integrated company, so they can make anything from top to bottom, whatever their product is, and they can control it. That gives them the luxury of making an integrated presentation.

Microsoft has always driven an ecosystem of companies on a global basis and to create much more scale and ultimately much more diversity, but it takes a little longer to get the whole thing in gear.

We just announced Windows Mobile and I think in the next few months there will be something on the order of 45 to 50 phones introduced around the world.

I’m pretty sure that some of those phones will move a pretty good distance into this high-function, high-fashion category, just because the market is starting to move that way.

So by the time the iPhone becomes reality, and certainly at the price point it’s going to be offered at, I think there’s going to be quite a bevy of interesting fashion and function phones that will probably cost less.

Source: CNN, thanks iphon.fr.

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