Motorola Q Phone Using Windows Mobile 5.0 Announced

Posted by Mike Snyder on July 27, 2005  |  Comments (4)

Motorola just announced their new "Q" phone, which is one of the hottest looking phones I've seen in a long time. The Moto Q will be "one of the first devices to run on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and it is optimized for Microsoft Exchange 2003". The Blackberry devices clearly have a strangehold on the corporate market, and unfortunately Blackberry does not use any Microsoft software at all. Therefore, I think the Moto Q could be a breakthrough for Microsoft (and Microsoft CRM mobile access) for several reasons:

- Even though Microsoft CRM integrates with the Pocket PC, none of our customers have deployed this software because NO ONE wants to use the Pocket PC device. The Pocket PC hardware is massive, clunky and most don't even include a cell phone.

- While at the Microsoft Partner Conference a few weeks ago, I could not help but notice that a very large percentage (50%? 75%?) of people using cell phones were using some sort of Blackberry device. Considering that the people are the Microsoft Partner Conference are (of course) the most hard core Microsoft supporters, the fact that very few of them use Windows Smartphone is a real damning statement. I personally use the Blackberry 7230 because the Windows Smartphones are too big, too slow and too expensive.

- There are a few ISV's that offer Blackberry  /Microsoft CRM integration, but I much prefer the Windows UI over the Blackberry UI.

- I expect that Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 will work with Microsoft Exchange at no additional charge (unlike the Blackberry Enterprise Server software).

Add it all up and the Moto Q combined with Windows Mobile 5.0 could be just the reasons all those Blackberry users (including myself) finally switch!

Now for the bad news...the Moto Q isn't expected to be available until Q1 of 2006.