Microsoft's latest phone experiment
(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will show off its latest mobile phones on Monday, but don't expect a direct rival to the iPhone. — The world's largest software company is trying a new tack in the hotly contested arena with its long-awaited “Project Pink” devices.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's Project Pink has traveled a rocky road to Monday's reveal: 9 to 5 Mac reported in September 2009 that Microsoft would show two iPhone competitors in 2010, only for MobileCrunch to argue weeks later that the project was dead in the water — until Gizmodo published the first hardware shots in March 2010. Reuters now confirms the devices go on display Monday, deliberately framed as a new tack rather than a head-on iPhone rival.
The timing matters on two fronts. CNET's same-day coverage asks whether Apple's upcoming iPhone 4.0 will derail Microsoft's phone plans, while a comScore report from April 5 shows both Palm's and Microsoft's smartphone shares still slipping. Meanwhile Microsoft's retail push continues, with new stores confirmed for Denver and San Diego — shelves that would presumably carry whatever 'Pink' turns out to be.
First-order effects
- Microsoft gets a consumer phone reveal without the direct iPhone comparison Reuters says it is avoiding — lowering the bar for Monday's event against an Apple refresh already looming in coverage.
- Palm, whose share is dipping alongside Microsoft's per comScore, faces another deep-pocketed competitor chasing the same non-Apple consumer slot at carriers.
Second-order effects
- If Pink ships as a media-and-social device rather than an iPhone clone, carriers gain a mid-tier differentiated handset to merchandise between Apple's premium tier and commodity feature phones.
- Apple's iPhone 4.0 launch becomes the reference point every Pink review is written against, regardless of Microsoft's positioning — press framing CNET already anticipates.
Third-order effects
- A pattern of incumbents conceding the flagship category while targeting niches would entrench a two-tier phone market — Apple defining the top, everyone else segmenting below it — and Microsoft's retail store expansion gives it a rare owned channel to sustain such a niche play.
- Repeated share erosion by both Palm and Microsoft signals consolidation pressure among also-ran smartphone platforms unless one of them lands a genuinely differentiated product.
The trend: Microsoft's phone strategy is drifting from cloning the iPhone toward a differentiated consumer device, a data point in the broader shakeout squeezing second-tier smartphone platforms like Palm.