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 This is a man who has joined the enemy, the nemesis of the European wireless community — Microsoft.
Quite a change from Christensen’s early career, when he worked first at Britain’s Psion, once a leading provider of handheld computing devices. Then he co-founded Symbian, a joint venture involving Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Matsushita and Psion, which still has a shot at being the dominant operating system for so-called smart phones.
But these days Christensen is working hard to secure a place for Microsoft software on those same smart phones — mobiles that can double as personal organizers, send and receive e-mail, and do basic Web surfing.
In fact, he oversees Microsoft’s mobile solution centers in Europe, North America, Japan and China. The stakes are huge: tech consultancy Ovum predicts that in five years 46% of the world’s 1.95 billion cell phone owners will be using wireless data services. Microsoft is not only competing with Symbian in mobile operating systems, but also positioning itself against Finnish phone maker Nokia in “middleware,” the software platforms that mobile phone operators will use (see No. 2, Jorma Ollila).
Microsoft is already running trials of its enhanced data services in Europe with Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefonica and Orange. On the hardware front it has announced agreements with “white-label” manufacturers — those that turn out products for branding by other companies — to use Stinger, its smart phone platform. Analysts see this as Microsoft’s attempt to offset Nokia’s powerful name recognition by allowing telecom operators to place their own brands on phones running Microsoft software.
Microsoft is already seeding the market with software such as its Pocket PC 2002 platform, launched this month on handheld computing devices made by Casio, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, NEC and Toshiba.
The vision thing: “The 6.5 million application developers for Microsoft’s operating system are going to unleash a whole new level of creativity. All of a sudden there will be hundreds of thousands of new mobile applications, and the wireless medium will change substantially.”
Forward spin: Microsoft may still be the underdog in the mobile sector but don’t underestimate its power. Its wireless strategy is similar to its early approach to the desktop — it doesn’t care who builds the hardware, it just wants its software to be inside.
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