Vista's SideShow coming to Windows Mobile devices?
Word on the street (er, internet) is that Microsoft's oft-ignored Vista component, SideShow, could be making its official way to your favorite Windows Mobile-flavored device before long. If you'll recall, SideShow acts as a kind of mini-OS …
Context & Ripple Effects
SideShow shipped as one of Windows Vista's headline extras — a mini-OS running on small auxiliary screens — but a year into Vista's life the feature has drawn little attention, against a backdrop where many business and enterprise customers were still holding off on Vista adoption as of late November 2007. Extending SideShow to Windows Mobile handsets would repurpose an underused desktop component as a mobile play.
First-order effects
- If the rumor holds, Windows Mobile device makers gain a new selling point — phone-as-secondary-screen for Vista PCs — while Microsoft gets a way to put an otherwise ignored Vista feature in front of consumers.
- Windows Mobile users with Vista machines would get at-a-glance access to gadget data without waking the PC, changing how the two devices are used together day to day.
Second-order effects
- Handset OEMs would face pressure to add SideShow-compatible hardware or software to their Windows Mobile lineups, turning a Vista checkbox into a phone specification.
- Rival smartphone platforms without an equivalent tie-in to Vista would need their own PC-to-phone companion story, since Microsoft would be bundling the feature through its OS monopoly position.
Third-order effects
- For Microsoft, the move fits a broader pattern of using Windows Mobile to reinforce Vista's value proposition while enterprise customers delay upgrades — tying the phone platform's roadmap ever closer to the desktop OS cycle.
The trend: PC operating system features are migrating onto phones as vendors seek to make handset-and-desktop ecosystems mutually reinforcing rather than separate products.