Friday, June 2, 2006
Talking with John Starkweather of MED Division at Microsoft - Part 2
Posted by Mike Temporale in "ARTICLE" @ 11:15 AM
In part 2 of my talk with John we discuss the changes to Windows Mobile that Microsoft made at Motorola's request, the "Palm" experience, Windows Mobile advertising, and a little more Q talk. In case you missed part 1 of the interview, you can check that out over here.
Thanks to John for taking the time to talk with me, and to everyone behind the scenes here at Thoughts Media who helped take that conversation and make it into something that everyone can read and enjoy. ;)
Mike: Back to the Motorola Q here, do you think it worries Motorola at all, I mean, this device has been out in the public now for a while, sneaked pictures and whatnot, and now Samsung quickly announced an i320, which is almost a clone, there was a TechFaith Wireless device, I think at CTIA that looked very similar. Motorola might have had the jump eight or nine months ago, but if it�s taking this long to get out, they could lose that edge.
John: So, it�s always a tough question is when you unveil something, to get credit and to show that you�re an innovator, and a million other business reasons
Mike: I love the landscape support on the screen. It looks fabulous! I�m looking forward to all the other features, like TV and everything else, because it lends itself perfectly for that.
John: It really does. Motorola also with their scroll wheel has done a really nice job. It makes scrolling through things pretty easy. It�s a real scroll wheel � you push on it, and it selects things, there�s a back button next to it, so that�s a nice feature. Without moving, so you�re going through things, selecting them, you�ve got a back button right there in the same spot, so you�re not moving your hand around. I think people find the experience pretty good.
Mike: So it can still be a one-handed experience like the Smartphone is supposed to be.
John: Exactly.
Mike: Interesting. Well, I�m certainly looking forward to that if it ever gets out!
John: All the modifications we make, even if it�s for a particular OEM because we know their roadmap, and we�re gonna help them get a product to market, they�re available to everybody. So, obviously Samsung is doing their behind the scenes stuff, and they�re gonna leverage all that stuff too.
Mike: Now, with Palm, wasn�t it the other way around? You made specific enhancements for Palm that others don�t have access to?
John: No. So, we opened some things up in the software because of some specific requests from Palm, but they�re available to everybody. Palm then went and built the �Palm Experience� on Windows Mobile. It was essentially their custom Today Screen, if you will, where they�ve got the web browser and the search line in the Today Screen to be able to do smart lookup of contacts from the Today Screen. They added the band of pictures to your contacts, or the quicklinks to your contacts � that�s all custom Palm stuff. And, the other custom Palm things are frankly things that any OEM can have done, and that is to think through the experience that someone has with that product, and customize the hardware and the software so they work really well together. With Windows Mobile, we think we product a pretty powerful software platform. But, because every piece of hardware is different, there are tweaks you need to go and make, so that your keyboard works well. When you push the delete key, it actually deletes something � you don�t have to hit other buttons. Some of the quick things that Palm did, for example, if you hold down the OK, it goes right into where you can shut programs down if you need to. There are a lot of little modifications that they did, really just thoughtful ways of thinking about how a person�s actually going to use that device, and how can we put a quick link in there � how can we make this simpler? How can we reduce a few clicks?
Thanks to John for taking the time to talk with me, and to everyone behind the scenes here at Thoughts Media who helped take that conversation and make it into something that everyone can read and enjoy. ;)
Mike: Back to the Motorola Q here, do you think it worries Motorola at all, I mean, this device has been out in the public now for a while, sneaked pictures and whatnot, and now Samsung quickly announced an i320, which is almost a clone, there was a TechFaith Wireless device, I think at CTIA that looked very similar. Motorola might have had the jump eight or nine months ago, but if it�s taking this long to get out, they could lose that edge.
John: So, it�s always a tough question is when you unveil something, to get credit and to show that you�re an innovator, and a million other business reasons
Mike: I love the landscape support on the screen. It looks fabulous! I�m looking forward to all the other features, like TV and everything else, because it lends itself perfectly for that.
John: It really does. Motorola also with their scroll wheel has done a really nice job. It makes scrolling through things pretty easy. It�s a real scroll wheel � you push on it, and it selects things, there�s a back button next to it, so that�s a nice feature. Without moving, so you�re going through things, selecting them, you�ve got a back button right there in the same spot, so you�re not moving your hand around. I think people find the experience pretty good.
Mike: So it can still be a one-handed experience like the Smartphone is supposed to be.
John: Exactly.
Mike: Interesting. Well, I�m certainly looking forward to that if it ever gets out!
John: All the modifications we make, even if it�s for a particular OEM because we know their roadmap, and we�re gonna help them get a product to market, they�re available to everybody. So, obviously Samsung is doing their behind the scenes stuff, and they�re gonna leverage all that stuff too.
Mike: Now, with Palm, wasn�t it the other way around? You made specific enhancements for Palm that others don�t have access to?
John: No. So, we opened some things up in the software because of some specific requests from Palm, but they�re available to everybody. Palm then went and built the �Palm Experience� on Windows Mobile. It was essentially their custom Today Screen, if you will, where they�ve got the web browser and the search line in the Today Screen to be able to do smart lookup of contacts from the Today Screen. They added the band of pictures to your contacts, or the quicklinks to your contacts � that�s all custom Palm stuff. And, the other custom Palm things are frankly things that any OEM can have done, and that is to think through the experience that someone has with that product, and customize the hardware and the software so they work really well together. With Windows Mobile, we think we product a pretty powerful software platform. But, because every piece of hardware is different, there are tweaks you need to go and make, so that your keyboard works well. When you push the delete key, it actually deletes something � you don�t have to hit other buttons. Some of the quick things that Palm did, for example, if you hold down the OK, it goes right into where you can shut programs down if you need to. There are a lot of little modifications that they did, really just thoughtful ways of thinking about how a person�s actually going to use that device, and how can we put a quick link in there � how can we make this simpler? How can we reduce a few clicks?
- Discuss this story [2 replies]
- Permalink
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence