What sank Sendo's Stinker?
by Volker Weber
Stinker is a nickname for Microsoft's Stinger mobile phone platform. Sendo should know why ... The Register is running this analysis:
After you shake hands with Microsoft, goes the saying, count your fingers. Sendo's decision to abandon Microsoft's cellphone platform for the emerging Nokia standard, Series 60, gives the British company a new lease of life. But it's a crushing blow to Microsoft, which needed every OEM it could find for its Smartphone 2002 platform, and must now go it alone with an unproven and risky manufacturing model.You never want to say never with Microsoft - the company has $40 billion in the bank and determination to succeed - but it has a mountain to climb if it's to restore its credibility. For four years the company has been talking about its cellphone plans, promising that its value proposition (commoditized hardware, enterprise connectivity) would prove irresistible, but it's largely friendless and getting lonelier by the day.
The most obvious option - the acquisition of a proven smartphone operating system and hardware design team - doesn't exist. There's only one candidate, SymbianOS, and that's not for sale.
