Well the numbers are pretty plain. Companies like Acer, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, are all leveraging Linux, Android and Ubuntu to reduce overhead and deliver on user expectations. This is hitting Microsoft right where they care the most. A 14% decline in OEM sales.

In 2004 I took a position as the US implementation and configuration manager for a European mobile project on the PocketPC platform. The PocketPC platform was difficult and just plain goofy in places. I had been a bit spoiled by Palm in the 2000-2003 era. So I expected more than Visual Basic and MSSQL Server. In any case, during that project PocketPC magically became WindowsMobile.

There were mostly small changes, and the OS was largely the same, but felt better to use. The reason I mention this now, is that back then, there was a sense of momentum around WindowsMobile. Not only had Microsoft begun to vastly renovate it's flagging WindowsCE/PocketPC platform, but HP had just merged with Compaq and the iPaq was getting the facelift of a lifetime. There were new devices and in each consecutive generation, new features to explore. It was also the same time that SD Cards began to emerge as the standard medium for mobile digital devices. Data began moving easily between Cameras, PDAs and MP3 Players for the first time. There was opportunity and a sense of real development.

Skip ahead 5 years and that feeling is still here, but the new devices, the new apps, the new features and "wow moments" are coming from what 5 years ago was an unfathomable place:

Apple, Google and HTC (Microsoft's OEM partner-gone-independant). So what's significant about the current state of mobile affairs? What's really different? The developers.

Right now the future of these platforms and devices lies not in the hands of executives or product designers, it lies in the hands of the modern run-of-the-mill software developer. See below the attendance at the 1st Sessions of the InsideMobile Conference last week. The developers are now more influential than they have ever been.

Above you can see PhoneGap, an amazing project trying to make the iPhone app development process accessible to web developers, has almost 1/3 the attendance of the PalmPre SDK session next door. It would seem competitive, but PhoneGap and Palm's WebOS are both efforts to utilize Javascript, CSS, XML and HTML to accomplish what is being done on the iphone currently only in Objective C. Judging simply from my time at conventions, projects and subcontractor interviews I would say there are probably about 8 active web developers for each 1 Objective C developer. Palm and Phonegap aren't after eachother or Apple. They are trying to forge mobile app developers out of web developers. This strategy seems to be working, expanding the means of production for mobile apps on alternative platforms while the means of production for iPhone apps stay steady.

You can see this in Motorola's Strategy and even Blackberry RIM is now providing a web app platform complete with their own BlackBerry Plugins for Eclipse.

So what's ahead for Microsoft? Ballmer has been on the move. The Yahoo Microsoft Search Pact adds a bit of tarnish to Bing, their latest search product launch fashioned from the $100mm+ acquisition of PowerSet last year. At the same time it does bring hope. After seeing Bing, I worried about my Nephew's grades. I know he's stuck on an Acer with Windows Vista and was coerced by a popup to update his default search engine to Bing. Perhaps my parents and family members who use Microsoft products will be able to study and find information after all.

Back to the subject of mobile computing–Ballmer seems to think that Ultra-thin PCs will be the answer to gaining back ground lost to Windows-free netbooks.

I sure hope that they come with a flashy SDK. With every developer in the world now used to getting their hammers and nails for free through Eclipse and Xcode et al, It would be tragic to see Microsoft pushing Visual Studio at next years Mobile Conferences.