Dear Steve Ballmer, I believe it's time to give up development of a mobile operating system. With all due respect to the multi-billion dollar empire you're entrusted with running, the simple truth is that Microsoft is quite bad at developing user interfaces that are friendly and intuitive. Windows 7 is an improvement, but you're far from being out of the woods. What's more, it appears that your guidance, Mr. Ballmer, might be making the problem worse, especially if the things you said recently about your instructions to Windows Phone developers were true.
During a presentation at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Spain last week, you were quoted as saying: "In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience." You did what? Why in the world would you tell developers to give people something other than what they want? Obviously people are buying devices from Apple, Google and others, because they're giving people what they want. So to give people "a different kind of mobile experience" from competitors would logically mean that your mission is to give people what they DO NOT want.
Change for change's sake is not progress; it's just change. Seamlessly integrating with Windows and Office applications is nice, but it's not unique to Microsoft and there are alternatives to Word and Excel that are equally useful. Works like Zune? That's not sweetening the deal. Links with XBox? Do you have even a clue who your target users are?
Even if I did own a game console, I certainly wouldn't be using my phone as a remote terminal. To increase market share, you have to make a useful product with an intuitive interface that people like using. Apple has proven to be quite good at this. Google too. But Microsoft has not, a fact that seems obvious to everyone but you. For many of us, Windows and Office are things we're stuck with, and will dump as soon as something better comes along. For me, Mac OS X and GoogleDocs have already done that. And having once owned a Windows Mobile phone, I would never buy another.
