More details of Sendo's case against Microsoft

InfoWorld/IDG has a much fuller account of the dispute. "The complaint, which was filed on Friday, lists 13 counts against Microsoft, including fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract and civil conspiracy," it says. Comment: I have no idea what is going on in this particular case. However, my opinion is that Microsoft's strategy in smartphones is ultimately the same as in every other area (except games consoles). Microsoft is a platform company, and its modus operandi is to try to create software platforms and make them available to a wide range of hardware manufacturers. The hardware manufacturers then try to kill one another on specification and price, which makes the platform much more attractive to consumers (since they get a wide range of de facto standard hardware choices at the lowest possible prices), and that makes Microsoft's platform software more valuable. This concept is not beyond the average journalist, so I'd have thought a commercial company would be well aware of it. Footnote: why are games consoles different? Microsoft did try to develop a platform based, like the Microsoft Smartphone and Pocket PC, on Windows CE (see Sega Dreamcast), but couldn't get a range of hardware manufacturers to adopt it. The games console industry is based on sales of proprietary software subsidising sales of proprietary hardware, so there is no room for competition between hardware manufacturers as there is in the PC business. Eventually Microsoft abandoned its principles and did its own subsidised hardware, the Xbox, thus playing the game exactly the same way that Nintendo/Sony/Sega play it.