Stocks: (MSFT)(VOD)(VZ)Microsoft has been working to get its software onto phones for a long time. Now, they seem to have hit a breakthrough.Vodafone, the huge European mobile operator, which also owns a piece of Verizon Wireless, is going to put Microsoft’s mobile operating software on a number of its phones.The reasons behind the move are acutally quite compelling. Vodafone can save a great deal of money by having standardized software on its phones. Building furture applications that do not have to run on a large number of operating systems is also a big plus.In a bid for simplicity in technology, Vodafone is cutting its software systems from 20 to 3. Symbian, supported by mobile giant Nokia, will be one. Linux, the open source software that is used by a programming community around the world is another. And, Microsoft is the last.Symbian dominates the market for software on phones because of Nokia. But, Nokia’s rivals may not be so keen on the software.Microsoft has a huge opportunity to partially dominate the phone software market as an alternative for the Nokia product. With about one billion phones sold worldwide, MSFT may have finally found a market to dominate that rivals PCs.It’s a big win for Mr. Softy.Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in comanies that he writes about.
Annual Microsoft Day: MSFT Conquers Mobile
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
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