What Happened With Sendo and Microsoft?
Yesterday's big news was Microsoft getting dumped by Sendo just days before they were to ship their Smartphone 2002 based Z100 smartphone. The official line is that Sendo needed access to the source code which MS doesn't allow. While that might be part of it, there must be a deeper reason to prompt such a sudden change. The Registor believes that the fallout is indicative of MS's general shortcomings in the wireless space. The Reg see's three key problems with MS in the wireless space. Their software release cycle is too long, their software is usually very buggy, and they are not used to giving integrators deep access. In essence MS's hasn't yet fully adapted to the way the wireless industry works. Well we all know how that works. MS will stay in the game long enough to adapt to some degree all the time beating the industry into submission. Unstrung was equally perplexed by this divorce and spoke with IDC analyst Tim Mui. He speculated that Sendo might have been upset with Microsoft's weak support for MMS and Java. If true, it would explain why Sendo was so busy developing additional software for the Z100. It's no surprise that MS would make MMS and Java secondary. Regardless of what they may say publicly, wireless is more an opportunity for Microsoft to extend it's core software business, than to enter a new market. They are more concerned with providing wireless access to enterprise services like Exchange than consumer applications like MMS.
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