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:

Motorola has always had a place in my imagination. As the voiceless heart of technology. In my family, generations ago, Motorola was known as the makers of a fine wood paneled console the size of a dresser that did one thing really well: play records. That was a long time ago. A different age. After car stereos and typewriters it found it's way into business machines and then-- the original Atari devices. In addition to my beloved Atari 800xl, Motorola was at the heart of the Apple Computer, Apple II, Macintosh, and when I was a young Art School student, inside my shiny G4, I could open the door and see the symbol on the processor. The same one that was inside the Atari 2600 I couldn't help but disassemble 15 years earlier

Then, inexplicably, the source of wins like the StarTac and the cordless phone lost it's way. It began making lackluster phones, it's processors couldn't keep up with Apple's ambitions, it's name became tarnished as simple things like buying a movie ticket would fall at over 30 clicks on even their best phones, at a time when my Visor Edge with the CellPhone cartridge could do it in 10. Then, the ultimate heartbreak moment as the beauty of the RAZR phone was matched with a terrible beast of an operating system. Fashion victims in tow, they took a seat at