Smartphone Thoughts: Talking with John Starkweather of MED Division at Microsoft - Part 1

Mike: Right. They’ve really made a turnaround.

John: They really have, and they’ve got some smart people, really focusing on design, and that, you know, design sells. We think the Q, and it IS coming, and it will be a special product, it’s not gonna be, it’s not on the path of the MPX, or the MPX 100, or the 200 or 220 that did come to market. This is an icon product for Motorola, just like the Razr and the Sliver and the Pebble. This is one of their key products. And with them, we are gonna drive a lot of volume. I’ve heard Motorola say many times that, I can’t give you the exact number, but if they don’t sell, if the Q doesn’t sell in the first year, multiple millions, and I’ll say multiple millions, that it’s a failure for them. And, they’re not saying that to say that it could be a failure, they’re saying it to say that that’s the kind of commitment they’re putting behind it. The operator, the first operator for that product, is putting tons of resources and by resources, I mean marketing dollars, advertising dollars. I mean it’s gonna be a huge launch of that product. And, that’s the kind of commitment that Motorola and other people are putting into it. We’re putting a bunch of resources into it. Same thing with some of the Samsung products. Samsung actually, behind the scenes, you know, they’ve got, true to Samsung, they’ve got a huge roadmap. They put out all kinds of products, and then they go and they shop ‘em around, and they take them to operators and see which ones people will pick up. On the roadmap, you actually see a market. It’s much smaller, but we’re working a lot with them. We built a lab in Korea to, really to work with Samsung, and some other partners, but it’s really about working hand in hand with Samsung. They’re in our labs, we’re in their offices working together to get product out to market, because we know that from a volume perspective, Motorola and Samsung will be huge for us.

Mike: Right, sure. The number two and number three.

John: Exactly. Now, there are others. I mean, you can expect over the next couple of years, you’ll see some of the other big named OEMs build Windows Mobile products. We’d love to be working with Nokia, we’ve done a lot of things with them. We’d love to be working more with Sony Ericcson. Siemens is still around, and there are many other names too.

...Stay tuned for part 2. :)