By all accounts, Windows Phone 7 Series is an impressive improvement over Windows Mobile. The preview we saw looked great, performed well, and incorporated some interesting enhancements to smartphone GUI, such as grouping related icons rather intuitively. The development model is entirely based on Silverlight, Microsoft’s RIA technology built around .NET. This provides immediate access to a large number of developers who are no doubt hungry to build apps – but it also creates the problem of disenfranchising existing Windows Mobile customers who have no upgrade path for their applications. The latter has the potential to be a big problem as Windows Mobile is firmly embedded in operational technology used in logistics operations (like warehouses). Microsoft hopes that by offering a more flexible development toolset, developers will make up for the lack of backward compatibility by cranking out lots of cool Windows Phone 7 Series Silverlight apps.

Silverlight is an interesting beast. Microsoft has moved fast to get it to market and make it competitive with Flash. That the company has been able to do so is a testament to the breadth of its existing investments in .NET, PhotoSynth, WCF, WPF, Visual Studio, and a range of other reusable items sitting in the Microsoft software inventory. Most curious, though is the choice of name .. how did the Silverlight team manage to get a simple and compelling name where so many others, like Windows Phone 7 Series, have failed? Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series, as a name, strikes me as not too far off from the high school teenager wearing clothes with the tags hanging out. On the one hand, it is a clear signal; on the other hand, it might say more about the bearer than the brand.

So, you tell me. Should Microsoft let its tags hang out?

That’s the thought I walked away with after my experiences at MAX this past week. I used to think of Adobe as this cute, fuzzy bunny of a company with great designer and RIA tools (plus that PDF reader thing). Friendly, happy-go-lucky Adobe, loved by all and inspiring fear in no one.

Adobe’s roots, postscript fonts notwithstanding, are in delivering great tools to designers. The Macromedia acquisition of 2005 extended Adobe’s capabilities to delivering rich user experiences to end-users with Flash (and to a lesser degree with ColdFusion). Macromedia was also a company with a narrow focus. Together, the new Adobe could offer end-to-end rich internet solutions from designer to developer. A great story, but RIA was still in a nascent stage. Adobe remained a fuzzy bunny of a company albeit one that did a great job as a steward of its acquired property in Macromedia (primarily Flash and ColdFusion – I can’t imagine any Flash or CF developers being justifiably upset at how Adobe has advanced those platforms).

RIA is no longer in a nascent stage as evidenced by the entry of Microsoft. I’ve characterized the RIA landscape as a “battle royale” between Flash and Silverlight, and I believe this is becoming truer every day. Ignored by Microsoft for years, Adobe is now in a battle  against one of the largest “megavendors” on the planet for mind and market share. Of course Adobe has a huge lead, but Microsoft has plenty of resources to play catch up (or at least to try).

The emergence of a well-funded, competent rival in Adobe’s core business forces the company to become more strategic about its growth. We can see the beginnings of a strategic shift underway.

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog

Adobe’s success has been tied to PDF and Flash for years, but lately all of the company’s eggs have transitioned toward the Flash basket. They’ve got a Flash-based BPM product (LiveCycle), Flash-based developer tools (Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, the Flex Framework), even Flash inside of PDF (PDF Portfolios). With the acquisition of Omniture and the various LiveCycle/Flash services – for now collaboration and distribution – and the unification of the Flash runtime for mobile and desktop, plus the Flash iPhone development announcement, the company is erecting all kinds of barriers to imitation to keep Microsoft at bay.

Can Microsoft copy some of this stuff? Sure. Microsoft can buy an analytics company, they can create various Silverlight-oriented cloud services, and they can conceivably buy enough influence and expertise to get Silverlight on tons of mobile devices. It will cost a lot, but Redmond has scads of cash if they want to commit it to the fight. I’m not sure they’ll do so, but even if they do, it will take time to harvest their investment.

Rather than focus on core capabilities of Flash itself, Adobe is creating complements that improve the value drivers of the Flash runtime. Microsoft, to this point at least, has focused on making Silverlight functionally equivalent to the Flash runtime itself, a task which took the better part of two years. Now, I am not putting down Microsoft; delivering Silverlight 3 in two years is impressive considering how much time has been invested into Flash. Nor do I believe that Adobe is sitting still in terms of Flash player technology (the announcement of Flash 10.1 should put that to rest). I do believe that Adobe has created some very nice complements to the Flash runtime that Microsoft will be hard-pressed to repeat in less than 12-18 months (unless they’re already working on them, of which I have no knowledge).

I commented to several of my peers that I believe Adobe’s shift signals an intent to become what Gartner calls a “megavendor.” What’s a megavendor? To tell you the truth, I think its one of those things you understand when you see one. Today we recognize SAP, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle as megavendors. These firms offer huge breadth of product lines. Adobe’s not there yet, but I think it would like to be. The fuzzy bunny has teeth.

disclosure: I am a paid shill for neither Adobe nor Microsoft. =)

I just want you to know, that I do feel guilt for my lack of recent blog posts. I try to commit enough time to my published writing, client conversations, and informal activities (such as this blog), and sometimes I fall down on the job. There’s no excuse.

You Start Me Up

I’m wrapping up a weekend in Seattle. I’ve had a great week meeting with a variety of Gartner clients; in addition I’ve spent time digesting the spectrum of technology news releases and opinions published over the last several weeks. It’s a big spectrum and I’m wont to indigestion.

So, I’m a Gen-X’er. I’ve spent some fair amount of my adult life spewing bile on all things Microsoft. It’s kind of a badge of honor for my generation; after all, we saw the movie Anti-Trust, and appreciate Slashdot’s Borg Gates and all that. </sarcasm>

Anyway, right or wrong, there’s a lot of years and perspective between Win95 and Windows 7. I’m not here specifically to talk about Windows 7 (nor am I qualified to do so), by the way. But, I want to recognize a reality that I believe is encroaching on all of us today..

We’ve (the royal “We”) spent a long time in apology or attack of Microsoft technologies. These technologies succeed in spite of our complaints.

In the mid-nineties, I was part of a generation that witnessed incredible excitement and interest in Microsoft technologies. At the time, MS was a “relatively small to medium sized” enterprise with around 17,000 employees.

Where Do You Want To Go Today?

Today, Microsoft is a Goliath. Big, transnational, transcendending technological boundaries in a range of disciplines, from Azure to Windows 7. (Sorry I couldn’t come up with a credible Z)

Many would see this Goliath as a ripe target for disruption. I can sympathize with this view; the big kid on the block never sees the brick aimed at the base of his neck.

On the other hand, Microsoft has been taking crap from people for just about my entire adult life. What makes people think that dealing with crap isn’t a skill? Why do you believe that Microsoft can’t get smart?

In the mid-nineties, none of us Gen-X’ers was trained to hate Bill Gates and the Microsoft; but we learned. A new generation of technologically apolitical youngsters is about to graduate college looking for work and inspiration. Why do you believe Microsoft won’t capture their dreams?

What are the odds we’re about to see a reinvigoration of interest in Microsoft? Is the renaissance at hand? Discuss amongst yourselves.