Looks like The Boy Genius Report got his hands on Windows Mobile 6.1.

Take a look at the gallery. Too bad Deepfish isn’t ready yet with all the hype heading to the iPhone. Go figure, people want “real” web browsing on their mobile phones.

Earlier today I went to the Apple store to try and make myself like the iPhone enough so I could ask my wife to get it for me for Xmas. I failed… the keyboard sucks, the phone sucks, the mail app sucks (15 minute mail check intervals were ok.. five years ago) the configuration sucks and it really boils down to a midgetized, albeit beautiful, tablet without actual applications. So I need a new Christmas present idea for the wife…

This post, however, is  about something else – customer disservice. I spent close to 30 minutes playing with the iPhone, really doing everything I could to see myself dropping the Samsung Blackjack for. In that time I was harrassed by no less than 10 separate “Geniuses” – I suppose they don’t often see people using their devices as the name of the game is “let’s make idiots gawk at pretty pictures and run to the register” – so I paid them no attention. Read the swag bitch, you may be an Apple Genius but you’re not qualified to delete SPAM from my Junk Items.

So as I was trying to will myself into thinking iPhone would be for me, I got to listen to the “Geniuses” blast their arrogance on their customer base. All of whom left without purchasing anything. All of whom, as a result of this experience, will likely never return to an apple store.

The key argument: Unlocking. Can you unlock the device? Can I use it in another country? Can it be unlocked. The answers were not “no” but were far more threatening and egoistical. It was as if you were committing an act against the humanity by trying to be on a carrier other than the one Apple chose to abuse its monopoly with.

“It’s possible but its difficult and I would not recommend it. You are likely going to destroy the phone and we will not take it back.”

“We cannot unlock the phone, it can’t be done.”

“If you try to unlock it you void the warranty and we will just lock it back the next time you connect it to your computer”

What cracked me up was the shere ignorance of these walking Apple infomercials – they are a smug little bunch, for being a bunch of retail retards making I venture to guess $12 an hour tops? I wonder if there is a huge gap in the Apple staff training that needs to go a long way to explaining to these geniuses that they are not actually “geniuses” in the IT space that can showcase ego but rather just retail sales people, you know, like the kind you find at Macy’s. Without this check, Apple seems to be antagonizing a fair amount of sales through their customer disservice.

As usual, time to grab the mirror and make sure we aren’t doing the same.

I have been feeling a little under the weather so I decided to take a plunge and upgrade to Windows Mobile 6 on my Blackjack. This is an underground, unofficial build (cooked rom) so please don’t email and ask, I will just delete the message.

All in all, Windows Mobile 6 upgrade for BlackJack is pretty cool, its the only Windows Mobile 6 Standard phone I have and the experience is quite less impressive than Windows Mobile 6 Professional happens to be. It is however much, much faster than WM5 and the setup was a breeze. Internet Explorer still crashes on some sites but overall its a worthwhile update.

It’s a great phone, very speedy and pretty good for firing off a quick email or checking a football score. Beyond that, or rather, in spite of it all I am quite unexcited about the platform in general. It seems to me that not only has Microsoft lost every bit of edge and innovation with the platform, not only have they killed every outlet for developers and enthusiasts to hack their devices but relatively little has been happening on this side of mobility since maybe April. Some of us, or perhaps most of us, enjoy playing with these gadgets and thats how we learn the key features to solve business problems… with that spark gone though, I think there will be an iPhone in the house as soon as ActiveSync is fully supported.

This has been on my mind for a little while now and sometimes the fanboy eyeglaze needs to wear off before you evaluate things for what they are.

I will never buy another Windows Mobile phone until Microsoft stands behind its platform and here is why you shouldn’t either: It’s not Microsoft.

Microsoft has made its significant wealth by producing business tools that grew, scaled and upgraded. I have never owned a computer that I couldn’t upgrade to the next version of Windows. Our servers have scaled from Windows Server standard, to SBS, to Enterprise with clustering. We (and I) could afford to keep up with the technology and with Microsoft and realize the business and productivity benefits because we did not face a significant hardware charge every time we wanted to implement something new. The idea of Software Assurance further delivers on this promise.

But take that same strategy to Windows Mobile platform. Can you do the same? For a very large population of devices the answer is yes – albeit, illegally.

Want a legal way to upgrade your phone? $499 please. Wait, $499 is $400 more than you advertise a brand new phone for, how can an upgrade cost four times more? Oh! You’re not really upgrading my phone, which is perfectly capable of running the said software, you’re just replacing it with the brand new phone. Oh, and you want at least a two year contract on it too?

This is where the Microsoft – OEM – Telco menage a  trois infuriates the customer and makes them abandon Windows Mobile and crumbles the Exchange, Unified Communications, Windows Platform and the “connected” dream evaporates: They look elsewhere.

I cannot and will not recommend a Windows Mobile phone anymore until Microsoft starts offering upgrades for them, directly from Microsoft’s site. Please do not buy into the lie that only the OEM can write the drivers and only the carrier can publish it because thats a total copout. For literally everyone in my audience that has seen a Windows Mobile demo or a new release preview, just what do you think that demo ran on? Boiling pot of water? Of course not. Microsoft develops and tests this software on the Windows Mobile devices you own and use. Every developer that compiles of a piece of Windows Mobile code already has the architecture cabs as a part of their Visual Studio SDK for mobility so if we can roll out the new OS, if we can compile software for it – what are we waiting for the OEM and the carrier to do? Compile their garbage IM software and design a new theme?

OEMs and carriers have the least incentive to implement any software upgrades because it means more support and more documentation work for them. They usually never relase them and you’re stuck buying a new phone. And in business, being forced to buy something new and abandon something functional is equivalent to theft.

Blackjack is my last Windows Mobile phone, even if I get a free one I will give it away.

If you are a business, avoid Windows Mobile until Microsoft chooses to stand behind its platform a little more than just releasing Haloween backgrounds and ringtones.

For those of you that don’t understand what I mean without using crude street language (all complaints should be sent to my PR firms: Tim Barrett & Co in USA and Susanne Dansey, LTD worldwide):

If I wanted to be fucked by a telco carrier and mislead into a product purchase of a toy that will be obsolete the moment I opened the box I would have bought an iPhone.

If you know where the quote is from and it’s relevance to the subject at hand, you my friend are very cool.

There is a strong stench of silicone vapor in the air over at Palm HQ as they kill off the potential category differentiator that Palm Foleo was expected to be. As you recall, I was fairly excited about the concept of a companion to the mobile device that Palm offered but it appears that 1.0 is no more. The convergence is certainly an interesting thing, in the world of Web 2.0, SaaS and more.

Nearly everything being developed is going mobile. Even my small shop has all it’s backends mobile – Off my Samsung Blackjack I can respond, create and update support tickets for ownwebnow.com via Shockey Monkey. I can monitor the uptime, performance, queue size and processing power of ExchangeDefender nodes. I can power cycle or shut down any server on the network,  provision new service, with the obvious idea being that all OWN information can be mobile, secure and available on demand.

What I am about to say may shock you. Then again, would you expect any less from me?

I am a fan of Apple for the twisted way they have virtually pwn3d the mobile industry. I know you’re probably thinking that the mobile industry consists of players like Microsoft, HTC, Blackberry and so on but the only true players are O2, AT&T, T-Mobile, Orange and other carriers. They dictate which features do and most importantly, which features do not make it to the devices running on their network. Ever wondered why its so difficult to stick an MP3 as a ringtone on your Windows Mobile device?

I feel that Windows Mobile really did not deliver on its promise. What justification do I have for that? Over the past month Own Web Now Corp sold more Microsoft Exchange 2003 with Blackberry CALs than Exchange 2007 CALs. People are demanding the Crackberry, which for all intents and purposes is an inferior product. But they want it because its more reliable. I too have dumped the Windows Mobile 6 Professional, which had far more features, for a Windows Mobile 5 (equivalent of WM6 Standard) device in Samsung Blackjack because I got sick and tired of really crappy performance. I just wanted a reliable device <check> which wasn’t made by HTC <check> that required me to wait to get to the essentials like contacts, email, web pages etc if I had more than one thing open <check>.

I, as a techie, settled for less that was fully functional, over the more that didn’t quite live up to the promise. Now, Melinda Mount, VP of Microsoft’s digital entertainment division says Mobility has the brightest future of all their devices. I think she is right. You can’t call yourself a Windows Mobile fan until you’ve seen the magic show that Jason Langridge puts on with WM6 devices (still waiting on that shipment from HK btw Jason)  but let me share something that I believe is the new development in the world of Windows Mobile fans, straight from one of my guys:

Rich Walkup: I finally got rid of my slave device and got a real phone.

Are we techies trending more towards the development platform where all our apps are mobile, or at least mobile accessible, or is the customer trending towards being more mobility “IT Basic” in their approach. I feel both are true, which is why Palm’s CEO gets the props on sinking $10 million into vapor and moving on to the next generation that is not going to patronize IT Basic folks but actually empower the folks that have a strategic approach to the mobility in the enterprise.

I just got the news from Microsoft’s Jeff Smith that Response Point VoIP system for SMB will be making a visit to Vladville. This is why you go to places like WWPC, I mentioned when they released it and where I signed up while watching the presentation.

This appears to be a “gift” and as this is going to Own Web Now Corp, I’m not allowed to accept expensive gifts, so you will see it go through a rough test and then given raffled away in some way on this blog. It’s gonna be a toughie because OWN uses Asterisk, Exchange 2007 with Unified Messaging as well as Office Communications Server. 

So, if you didn’t win it from Microsoft…. You’ll win it from me

In the meantime, keep an eye on Response Point blog.

One of the most common questions people have when they see my collection of Windows Mobile phones is how we get them, are we made of money? Apparently so, since Katie is now even giving away handsets, box and all.

The second question usually follows me saying “it’s locked to…” – Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean by “locked” and in the mobile world that word takes on a few meanings. In a general sense, “locked” means that you don’t have access to a particular part of the phone. Some locks are enforced by the manufacturer, some by the carrier, some by the user and some even by users stupidity. The most common are:

• Sim locked - can’t put your own SIM from another carrier and expect the phone to work. Most common case with USA carriers, because T-Mobile doesn’t want you taking the Dash to an AT&T account and AT&T would rather die than see a Blackjack on T-mobile.
• Bootloader locked – Stops you from loading your own “cooked rom” onto the device.
• Application locked – For security purposes, stops the applications that haven’t been digitally signed from modifying the registry.
• PIN locked – Your usual password protection that you should have on your device. 

So, what does any of this have to do with AT&T or Cingular you ask? Well, my main number is on T-Mobile. Meaning that pretty much every device that comes into Casa de Vlad needs to be able to run using my SIM card from T-Mobile, even if its an AT&T device. More importantly, if you aren’t stupid (enough to sign a two or more year contract on a phone that will fall apart with heavy use well within the first year) you are always better off buying the phone off eBay. eBay market for used / preowned GSM phones is like heaven because they are ridiculously poor in quality – meaning lots and lots of refurbs because they tried to shave 2 cents off the battery cost and now brand new phones end up on eBay, stickers and all. But, if you’re awake at the right hour of the day you can get that $500 phone for less than $200 sometimes even less than $100.

But, when that new cell phone comes in, it will be locked. You will put your SIM card in and as Windows Mobile boots they will let you know that the SIM card you are trying to use is not supported that the device is locked and that you need to type in an unlock code or move your account to AT&T.

Not so fast.. Start the phone up, dismiss the warning, type in *#06# and hit send. It will echo back your IMEI number, which is usually also printed on the sticker inside your battery compartment. Call Cingular / AT&T and say the following:

I just purchased a _Phone Model Here_ from eBay and want to use it with my own SIM card on another network. I was told I could call you and obtain an unlock code for a used, eBay phone.

They will take the usual blood sample and the like and call you with the unlock code in up to 7 days. Don’t feel like waiting – plenty of places on the net will “unlock” your phone for just a few dollars meaning no more long contracts for emerging technology (which is often just plain broken and will not last the length of the contract no matter how much you baby it)

In terms of legality, in USA, SIM card unlocking is legal.

Majority of the Internet has spent the last few weeks, and to a remarkable degree, the last few days overhyping the release of the iPhone. The usual Apple marketing at its finest, gullible fanboys in lines, lack of shaving and hygene on display, what’s not to hate? Well, It’s not every day that I admit that I am wrong – I love the iPhone.

No, Apple didn’t sue me, Cingular didn’t send me a free device, I didn’t go drinking in West Hollywood to wake up with a whole new lifestle.. We were at the mall today and I need to get a cheap Mac for Shockey Monkey development so I figured we’d stop by the Apple store and fight the teenagers to find out the difference between the cheapest Mac and one thats not so cheap. So I figured, what the hell, let me play with it.

All the video’s and online demonstrations do not do it justice. The Internet access on this device fllies, the Safari browser is where Deepfish hopes it can be one day, the device overall speed smokes the performance of every PocketPC I have ever touched including the ones costing 2–3x as much like T-Mobile Ameo and HTC Universal and the display is just beautiful. Typing on this device is very easy, the autocorrection seems to work about as reliably as the Microsoft one, the web browser seems to be very advanced, every bit as promising as the online demos seem to make it and with AT&T stepping up the speed of their Edge network it just makes a huge difference.

Now, in all fairness, I don’t see myself spending $499 or $599 for an Apple device due to its ridiculous reliance on iTunes, and the culture of Apple fanatics. I’ve paid far more for Windows Mobile devices and about the worst thing about the iPhone is its size. Far, far too big. I am not sure where one would put that brick. Lastly, as cool as this device is, it doesn’t fit my business or really anything but the fancy smartphone market with no business application. Email app seems weak, scheduling too. But would I replace my personal RAZR cell with this? You bet, if it were only half the size. So…. iPhone Nano?

As I’ve blogged before, I love TechEd because its such a big buffet of Microsoft technologies, bringing the best, brightest and most successful presentations to what is frankly “the mix” of both developer and system administrator worlds. Truth is, those roles are crossing now, successful system administrators need to have some development and code troubleshooting skills, developers need to be cognizant of security and how components interact. And if you’re learning, might as well take it from the best.

The last two days at TechEd have been my miniature MEDC, which is the king of mobile developer conferences (as a matter of fact, it stands for Microsoft Mobile and Embedded DevCon); I’ve been working in the green section with the UC team answering questions about Exchange, antispam, SMTP and frankly mostly migration and infrastructure optimization types of questions – how many servers, in what topology, what sort of failover, etc. It’s a very hopping place during lunch, after sessions end and so on. But between that I’m pretty much just standing around with the Microsoft developers and product managers, talking about development and.. well.. what else.. pimping software

Meeting The People That Make Me Rich

It’s always a pleasure to meet people that have made a material impact to your bottom line. What makes it extra special is when those are the people you really look up to because they are amazingly creative and solve some of the biggest problems you have.

I’ve blogged about Alex Nikolayev who owns the SMTP part of Microsoft Exchange. Yeah, you read that right – that small chunk of code in Exchange that moves mail to/from the Internet, implements IMF and the big security plugs. I got to catch up with Alex yesterday and talk about “the future” and the present.

While I can’t talk about the future, I can talk about the present. I told him what a difference the Hub Transport Rules have been making for us as of late and he asked if I wanted to be introduced to the person that designed all that. Would I? So, a minute later I started chatting to Naveen Chand who asked all sorts of questions about our implementation, if I had any ideas/suggestions for the next release?

Jackpot.

Then it went mobile..

At some point after the UC overload yesterday I trolled over to the Mobility “ring” – they have about 20 devices in a large circle booth, all running Windows Mobile 6. Over half of these devices are the ones you only read about at MoDaCo and Engadget, so you can imagine the “kid in the candy store” experience.

Mobility… is huge. Nearly every theatre event is packed, something that was not quite the case last year. This year even the development sessions were packed. I sat on the floor through two presentations and it just goes to show you that TechEd is a $2K event worth a heck of a lot more.

Now, I don’t get star struck a lot but I definitely had this event with Jason Langridge circled on my schedule for a while. Not just because so many Microsofties have told me that its the best presentation on mobility, ever, but because Jason is one of the most prominent Microsoft bloggers.

And man were they right. Today I went to the second part of the Mobile Demo Extravaganza and not only was the theatre packed but the standing room outside was packed. Rightfully so, if I had this presentation recorded 100% of my customers would be on Windows Mobile devices, not that orange/green puke Microsoft produces, but I digress.

The demo presentation showcased the OS, the gadgets, third party software, applications, uses.. it simply would not stop. Dan Arildson and Jason Langridge knocked this one out of the park that I’m dedicating a separate blog post to all that was demonstrated there.

As a bit of swag for attending everyone got some egrips. This is one product that nobody on the mobile team could stop talking about. It’s a little applicator you glue to your phone to stop it from sliding around. They also sell larger strips, so you can coat your entire phone for extra texture and stop it from slipping out of your hand.

Kind of appropirate to note the post mentioning that british people drop 850,000 phones in the toilet a year. If you have slippery hands this might be it for you.

The big questions

What do mobility guys use as their cell phone? It seems to be a split. US guys seem to be all about Dash and Blackjack, from what I can tell. Others are using that HTC 710 smartphone candybar with the slideout keyboard. While I must admit its a very slick device and works very well, the keyboard is just too small for my taste. To be fair, it’s not the keys that are small, but the space bar that is small, so thumbing around would prove difficult.

Feedback

I made a point to go and introduce myself to all of the guys in this area because Exchange and mobility stuff are tied in together. And with all the development work going on at OWN centered at mobility I really wanted to offer some suggestions and get an idea of what they are up to so I can adjust our roadmaps.

First and foremost, I wanted to thank them for not going after xda-developers.com aggressively. Truth of the matter is, xda-developers is the best resource on the net for professional developers and Windows Mobile enthusiasts. You can get a clue about whats going on with these devices long before they become Engadget eye-candy. This site got into some hot water for hosting roms (images of Microsoft OS and utilities that basically make up the Windows Mobile device) and have been asked to pull them. But it doesn’t appear to have gotten far past that. The reasoning for thanking them for keeping that site alive? Well, it keeps us informed. It also gives us transparency and the look at the technologies that Microsoft is working on. When we write software, we base it on the platform that the company will be buying for the app. So, at the moment we are writing for WM5 and above, above which we wouldn’t have seen until a month or so ago when the emulators showed up. Second, most of us are such enthusiasts that we’re the first ones out there buying the stuff when it gets released! The only people this is really bad for are the carriers which don’t want the lifecycle of the device extended.

Second, I voiced the concerns so many of us in the developer community have with the management of digital signatures. Before your application can be installed on the device it has to be signed. If its not, it thows a nasty error at the user. Siging apps through Mobile Marketplace used to be a fee per DLL signed, now its per cab file. So imagine the cost of correcting a typo or a mistake, etc.

Third, I asked where they were going with the AJAX on PocketIE. This is huge, believe it or not. AJAX, or “partial screen rendering” allows you to take a piece of the IE web page and load information in it without reloading the entire page. This is important if you have a slower GPRS/EDGE connection and the response time just starts killing the user experience. The problem in that case is that users panic when they are about to make a change and their connection just dies. They stop it, attempt to reload (repost) and things just fall apart from there. Well, AJAX is partially supported in PocketIE on WM6 so the future looks good.

More

Spent the last hour or so in a presentation on programming Exchange Web Services. Then I went to hang out with Jim Harrison who clued me in on COM integration available via PowerShell. Finally decided to call it a day and skip out on the big party at Universal Studis. I’ve spent the past two days in labs, classes and theatre presentations. My OneNote is really getting overweight at this point but so far TechEd has been phenomenal.

Last day… First checking out Alex’s presentations, then trying to see if I can finally meet Eileen Brown. BTW, I am purpousely holding off on blogging technical details about whats going down in these sessions, will be putting together a more extensive report after TechEd is over and I’ve had a chance to collect my thoughts and impressions. What a week.

Key updates in Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 include:

• Windows Mobile 6 feature support o Information Rights Management activation
• Automatically configure the Windows Mobile 6 device to open IRM-protected documents and files o HTML mail
• Set up your Windows Mobile 6 device to sync HTML-formatted mail
• Certificate Enrollment - Acquire certificates through the PC the Windows Mobile 6 device is currently connected to
• Allow data connections on the Windows Mobile 6 device when connected to the PC
• File synchronization for smartphones – Synchronize files with your Windows Mobile 6 devices, including both touch screen and non-touch screen devices
• Automatic device authentication - Connect the Windows Mobile device to the PC without the need to enter the device-lock PIN every time upon connect
• Product Registration - Register your Windows Mobile device and get connected to information and offers available for your device

I’ve bold faced the features that are absolutely huge! Using a WM6 device (MDA, Wing) with WMDC is a frustrating ordeal because authentication is requested at every step if you’re simply trying to use it as an Internet gateway. God help you if a call comes in, now you get to authenticate two more times, and say goodbye to the Edge connection if you’re connecting to the PC. Well, that has been fixed.

I picked up some AWESOME tips from the guys in the Mobile booth at TechEd. They (and embedded) are our neighbors in the messaging TLC so I’ve been spending the idle cycles over on their side playing with the phones and talking about development and such. Made sure to voice many of the concerns with development, signing and publishing (Mobile Marketplace stuff) and checking out all the awesome theatre presentations. Today is the second Mobile Demo Extravaganza and Ask the WM Experts session with Jason Langridge, the #1 Microsoft Mobile blogger.