Microsoft and the iPhone Bandwagon
[From Neil S. Patrick (Florida, USA)] Hey Sammy, now I know you’re not much of a Windows Mobile user or any kind of Windows user for that matter, but since you do have an iPhone I thought you might have a few thoughts on all the speculation going around about the fact that Microsoft could end up supporting the iPhone way beyond the already announced Activesync and Exchange.
A tech site I go to relatively regularly, recently posted an article in which the author thought out loud as to whether we would see Microsoft make a version of Office for the iPhone. The author of the article also pointed to a story in Fortune Magazine, which said Microsoft was going over the iPhone SDK and was also evaluating the finical opportunities the iPhone presented. Now I know a lot of Mac users consider Microsoft the “enemy” which I have always thought was a bit odd considering Microsoft more or less saved Apple from going under a few years back and the fact that they’ve been working together in one fashion or another for years now (but that’s another story for another post), but the simple truth of the Matter is Microsoft does have some great applications and services that would be a welcome addition to the iPhone, in my opinion.
The most obvious applications Microsoft could bring to the iPhone are MSN messenger (now called Windows Live Messenger) as the iPhone doesn’t really have a robust messenger client right now (nothing against ApolloIM or Mobilechat) and Microsoft Office since Apple will now be targeting not just consumers but also corporations. But there are also a few other applications that would seem quite cool to have on the iPhone such as, Remote Desktop client, Windows Live Search and all their game franchises, such as Halo, Age of Empires to name just a few….though clearly the iPhone versions of the games would not offer the same gameplay or controls at their console and PC counterparts.
I know there are a lot of people who would shudder at the thought of Microsoft having their applications on the iPhone. But for me, I’m all for it, after all anything that adds more functionality to a device can’t be all that bad….right?
